The Children’s Play Programme Evaluation was commissioned by the Big Lottery Fund in September 2008. The final report of the three year evaluation is now available.

The Children’s Play Programme was funded by the Big Lottery Fund and was part of a wider £155 million Children’s Play Initiative, with the aim of raising the profile of children’s play. The evaluation found that the Children’s Play Programme played a significant role in raising awareness of children’s play at a local level. The programme also led to an expansion of open access play, and engaged children and families in decision making about play spaces.

While engaging local communities was seen as a sucess factor in promoting play opportunities, nearly a fifth of portfolio leads survyed for the evaluation cited negative attitudes to play amongst residents.

You can read the full report here

The Big Lottery in partnership with Channel 4 is asking the public how it should spend £10 million of Lottery funding.   The findings from the debate will help to influence which projects and charities will benefit from Big Lottery Funding.

The cash will come from the Millenium Now programme which aims to fund initiatives which reflect the five millenium themes of, encouraging environmental sustainability, investing in education, places, connecting communities and promoting science technology and health.

You can find out how to be part of the Big Decision here

An £110 million funding package has been announced by the Big Lottery Fund targeted at initiatives which support older people. Up to 30 organisations will be able to access the first wave of funding worth £10 million. The progress of these organisations will determine the direction of funding for the remaining £100 million.

The Silver Dreams Fund is seeking applications from organisations which pioneer ways to help vulnerable older people deal more effectively with life changing events.

Applications for funding can be made up to 28 October 2011.

Details of how to access the fund can be found here

Pathways through Participation is a Big Lottery Fund qualitative research project lead by NCVO in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research and Involve. The study ran for two and a half years and the final report has now been published.

The study looked at the ways in which individuals become involved and stay involved in participation over the course of their lives. Focusing on three case study areas (Leeds, Enfield and Suffolk), the research involved in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders as well as focus groups to discuss earlier research findings. 

The report looked at participation from a broad definition categorising it into social, public and individual participation. The study identified widespread participation with all respondents engaging in some form of participation at some stage in their lives.

The reports three main conclusions were that participation is personal and must be viewed from the perspective of the individual taking part, participation must be encouraged, supported, and made more attractive, and that significant barriers to participation are entrenched.

The final report and a summary of the final report can be read here

The Cabinet Office has launched a consultation on the future direction and policy of the Big Lottery Fund (BIG), and is seeking the views of representatives from within the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector as well as other government departments.

The consultation aims to inform policy to address, “long and unwieldy restrictions,” which currently govern how BIG hands out money. The consultation period will last twelve weeks and responses must be received by midnight on 18 November 2011. Further details on the consultation, including information on how to respond can be found here

Ecorys have produced a showcase brochure featuring ten of the projects from England and Northern Ireland receiving Reaching Communities funding. Each case study shows the impact that the project is having, and shows the diversity of projects that have been funded through the programme.

You can read the brochure here

Ecorys has produced a good practise guide for involving beneficiaries in your project. The guide is designed for projects looking to work more closely with their beneficiaries and uses good practise from Reaching Communities programmes in England and Northern Ireland.

You can access the Putting Users at the Helm Guide here

‘Using Communication to empower project users,’ is a new guide produced by Ecorys to help projects that want to use communication and empowerment methods to engage their beneficiaries. The guide uses good practise examples from Reaching Communities programmes in England and Northern Ireland and includes case study example of how other projects have used communication and empowerment.

You can access the Electric Communication Guide here

Ecorys has produced a top tips guide bringing together learning from four Reaching Communities networking events that ran in summer and autumn 2010. The events focused on three key areas of:

• Identifying, defining and reaching those most in need;
• Effective evaluation strategies;
• Planning for sustainability.

The document is designed for anyone involved in a Reaching Communities project.

You can access the Top Tips Tool here

The Big Lottery Fund has just published a guide about how to involve young people in developing, running and reviewing services and activities at projects. The guide is based on the experiences of projects from BIG’s Young People’s Fund programme, and may be useful to any Reaching Communities projects that work with young people.

Read the report here: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/er_eval_how_to_involve_young_people_in_your_project.pdf