The VCSE Health and Wellbeing Fund aims to support VCSE organisations who can provide a holistic support offer to assist women experiencing reproductive health issues. The HW Fund is managed by Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England and NHS Improvement.
Full details:
The system partners value the significant contribution that the VCSE sector makes towards improving health and care. We see the VCSE sector as a key partner in delivering our strategic priorities and improving health and wellbeing across England.
To support this, the system partners are jointly releasing the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Fund 2022 to 2025 to support projects and programmes led by VCSE organisations.
The theme of the 2022 to 2025 fund is women’s reproductive wellbeing in the workplace. Linking in with the development of the new Women’s Health Strategy (see Annex 1), this fund aims to support VCSE organisations who can provide a holistic support offer to assist women experiencing reproductive health issues (for example, menopause, fertility problems, miscarriage and pregnancy loss, menstrual health and gynaecological conditions) to remain in and return to the workplace. The fund aims to align with the Women’s Health Strategy aims for health in the workplace:
- women feel supported in the workplace
- taboos are broken down through open conversation
- employers feel well equipped to support women in managing their health within the workplace
Workplace awareness, training and support via employee assistance programmes will be key to fulfil these aims. We welcome applications for programmes to the Health and Wellbeing Fund that aim to provide training and awareness for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) where assistance schemes are unlikely to be available.
We are also interested in hearing from organisations who wish to provide expert work and health support to women experiencing reproductive health issues that are impacting their experience in the workplace. In particular, those women at risk of leaving employment or who have recently fallen out of work and are less likely to have access to expert work and health support, such as occupational health support, via their employer. For example, these may be women working for small employers or the self-employed. Further detail on what is meant by ‘expert work and health support’ is covered in Section 1, ‘Aims of the Health and Wellbeing Fund 2022 to 2025’.
Funding is available for grants between £200,000 to £600,000 per applicant, to expand or develop projects or programmes in these areas. Applications with a commitment secured for additional funding will be prioritised but all applications will be considered.
