Through our Nurturing Relationships theme, we want to contribute to solutions which break the cycle between persistent poverty and intergenerational trauma, addressing the impacts of trauma within families, and for individuals facing severe and multiple disadvantage, where a significant aggravating factor is the experience of poverty.
Where the experience of poverty is persistent and chronic, people's abilities to navigate life’s challenges can be worn down, they can be overwhelmed and not feel in control of circumstances. In these circumstances, persistent poverty can become a traumatic experience in itself. Additionally, because poverty is associated with increased insecurity, it can both increase the risks of experiencing trauma and decrease factors that can help protect people from traumatic impacts, increasing strain on individuals and on relationships, or being able to access supportive services.
We want to see more connections being made between Nurturing Relationships and our other themes, particularly our Financial Security theme. Tackling poverty on its own is not enough to break cycles of intergenerational trauma for everyone. We know that nurturing relationships are crucial to reducing risks of experiencing trauma and supporting recovery from traumatic experiences. We believe that to break cycles of poverty and associated trauma, we need to address the material and relational impacts of poverty and trauma together. Our themes and connections between them recognise that alongside financial security, education and work pathways, we need nurturing relationships. We recognise that part of strengthening relationships is reducing and removing material stressors. Equally, support with material aspects of poverty may have more impact where people and families are given holistic support to address trauma and enable them to thrive.
Across all of our objectives – fund, support and influence – we are looking at how we can work with others to ensure people, families and communities in Scotland can thrive and not be trapped in cycles of poverty and associated trauma.
In order to stay up-to-date with our work in this area, all updates will be shared on this page. You can also join our mailing list or follow our social channels.
Available Funds:
Our Funds
Through our Nurturing Relationships theme, we want to fund work which focuses on the following priorities:
1. Preventative support for families in poverty (including children and their caregivers), to help build and maintain strong family relationships, and reduce the risk of intergenerational trauma.
2. Whole family support for families (including children and their caregivers) in care, or on the edges of care, to address the impacts of persistent poverty and intergenerational trauma. We will also fund services for young people who have experience of care who are not in a family setting.
3. Crisis support at the point of family breakdown, including support for women and children experiencing domestic abuse. We particularly want to support:
- Services supporting families on low incomes, particularly in areas of deprivation, or remote and rural communities.
- Services which also provide support to build financial security.
- Services which provide whole family support.
4.Recovery and restorative approaches to address the impacts of childhood trauma, homelessness, substance misuse and/or contact with the criminal justice system. We are particularly interested in work which takes a holistic approach, also addressing individuals’ financial and wider needs. This could be directly delivered by the applicant organisation or through relationships with specialist partners.
Under this theme, we are looking to fund work which is focused on the following groups of people who experience higher rates of poverty and associated trauma, or who are at higher risk, than the population as a whole:
- Lone parent families.
- Child poverty priority family groups (including larger families, families with young children, and young parent families).
- People experiencing severe or multiple disadvantage (e.g. due to homelessness, substance misuse and offending).
- People with experience of the care system, on the edges of care or in kinship care.
Please click here to read about why we developed the Nurturing Relationships theme, as well as some examples of work we’ve recently funded.
Eligible organisations can apply to any of our open Funds under this theme on a rolling basis.
If your work is focused on children and young people’s mental health or broader gender- based violence (rather than domestic abuse specifically), which were priorities under our previous Emotional Wellbeing & Relationships theme, please click here to read more about our shift in focus.
Project: Each and Every Child
We are proud to host Each and Every Child at The Robertson Trust. This is a partnership project between CELCIS, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Life Changes Trust, The Robertson Trust, Scottish Government and Social Work Scotland.
Each and Every Child aims to tell a compelling story about children and young people in the care system, transforming the current public narrative and mobilising people at all levels in the community to take action to improve the life chances of all children, young people and families across Scotland
How we talk about care experience matters. This story looks to build and improve public support for the progressive vision outlined in The Promise. To help with this challenge, Each and Every Child is sharing framing recommendations from FrameWorksUK’s research into public attitudes towards care experience and the care system in Scotland.
Now in the second year of the initiative, Each and Every Child has been delivering sessions on how to frame care experience to organisations such as the Care Inspectorate, The Scottish Government, Barnardo's and different local authorities across Scotland. These sessions explore how changing the language we use can radically shift public attitudes towards people with experience of care and the care system, challenging stigma and building support for progressive policies. The team has now delivered 75 Introduction to Framing and Framing Care Experience sessions to over 1600 people, as well as delivering more intensive additional sessions and intensive support to early adopter organisations.
You can read more about Each and Every Child’s work and keep up to date with their progress here: https://eachandeverychild.co.uk/
Programme Awards
We currently do not have any open calls for our Programme Awards.
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