Thoughts on govt HAF funding?

[CambozolaCrackers]

Sincere question here - no, I'm not a journalist - but am keen to hear the thoughts of any parents whose children are on a govt funded HAF (Holiday Activities and Food) programme.

What are your thoughts about the programme? Is your child at a HAF programme that is being run for free school meal children only - or is it a 'blended' programme with both paid for and fsm children?

Our community group recently won a small amount of govt HAF funding to give free places to free school meal children at a paid for activities event we had organised.
The event received extremely high turnout and excellent reviews from parents and children who had paid to attend the event - but relatively little take up from parents of free school meal children, despite the offer of free tickets and food.

It's really disappointing. We had hoped to make the event enjoyable for all, but there's been so little interest from fsm parents.
Sincerely surprised that after 18 months of covid and knock on effect on children's inability to access high quality activities - when offered for free, the take up is so low.

Keen to hear the thoughts of anyone organising these programmes too. Was our mistake to have made the event a blended one (HAF and non HAF?).

Thank you

I know a little about some of our local HAF programmes. They are exclusively aimed at children who are eligible for the funding, and they have been massively oversubscribed.

What actually happened was that more children turned up than were booked in, so more staff had to be brought in and more food had to be arranged in order to accommodate them!

That is the key point of difference - ours was targeted at all children, not just HAF, but offered free tickets to HAF children within it

Its hugely over subscribed at my sons school, they wanted to offer places to all, but uptake was high so no paid places were able to be given in the end. We turned down our free place as we’re busy with plans over summer and the week on offer meant it was difficult for me to reorganise things.

We distributed all our free HAF tickets via the local primary schools and the school also sent a specific parent mail to all FSM parents to let them know about the event. But this still did not positively impact take up

There are a lot of programmes running in some areas, OP. Is it likely that a lot of children are already signed up at another venue, eg a local school?

No - it was a full weekend event, both days.

Sincerely, we are really disappointed as we put so much effort into making the event really high quality and open to all.
Distributing tickets via primary schools was our only mechanism to get in front of fsm parents, as well as promoting on local social media.

The event was very successful and highly rated otherwise - but we are really struggling to understand why the low turnout from fsm. It's such a disappointment.

I wonder if the problem was that it was a weekend event, when people may be looking for stuff that's happening in the week?

No idea really, though. Can you run some kind of focus group with local people to find out?

I've worked at 3. Two very full with transition kids y6s-7s. The other next week might be cancelled as low take up. This is aimed at 5-7s and 7-10s.

How local was it? Would travel have been an issue for anyone? Did you need any specific equipment?

I think there's there's lot of stigma for parents who's dc get fsm and they are reluctant to sign up. I'm a swimming teacher and we run the courses for kids who fsm and the comments off people on social media were disgusting. Another leisure centre was offering free swimming lessons for dc on fsm and the uproar about it was vile comments like why is it always the kids on fsm it should be for all dc. Ironically every child has the opportunity to learn to swim within the curriculum albeit some missed out due to covid but some a bitter if someone who is disadvantage might get something for free or discounted. They seem to think everyone on benefits or low incomes are living the life of Riley.

It can often be more difficult to attract FSM children to events as they may face additional barriers to participation such as lack of transport, caring responsibilities, worried there may be additional costs when they get there. I am running my school's funded summer camp - free for everyone but invited FSM students two weeks before everyone else, by paper letter as well as email and the take up was still much lower.

Our local HAF activity place is 30 mins drive away, open 9:30-3pm. I work 8-4 so completely impractical for me to get DC there. Luckily I am able to work from home so we have done the HAF at home option instead - boxes of food and a bag of colouring stuff, bat and ball, craft packs.

@SleeplessWB. That's interesting, thank you.
We emphasised the all activities included/no further costs involved. It also took place five mins walk from the primary school, so ideally placed.

Despite the paper later and also email from school, as well as posting on local social media / the take up rate is really poor.
I'm at a loss how to improve going forward.

FSM parents are likely to be at work, particularly at the weekend. Was it clear you could attend for a few hours? Or could the children be dropped off and left? (was that timed around likely 12-4 shifts on a Sunday for example?)

Has covid been a factor, i have not heard of this intiative, but my disabled child goes to a special needs holiday scheme thing with transport, only he hasent been able to go for the last two weeks due to his brother testing positive for covid in the first week of the school holidays

Of the 2 walkable distance HAF schemes i could have got my children into one was fully booked when i rang in july the other they have been offered 2 days as it was so massively over subscribed

Households qualify for FSM when their after tax income is less than £7400 per year, which is a terribly small amount to live on. Quite a number of families live on this with quite complex circumstances too, such as someone in the family who is disabled or with life limiting illness. It’s a shame when you have tried to make your activities accessible, but a temporary uplift in benefits or food vouchers for the holidays would be much more useful to the majority of families on FSM.

Households qualify for FSM when their after tax income is less than £7400 per year, which is a terribly small amount to live on

True, and there are many parents who don’t quite qualify for FSM but still struggle to meet ends meet, eg both working low paid jobs but just miss the threshold. There’s a lot of anger and resentment to some families on FSM, especially when families who earn slightly over the threshold see them getting free activities, free swimming etc. Maybe this stigma explains the lack of turnout?

Yes that sounds quite possible @StrangeToSee

It’s a shame when you have tried to make your activities accessible, but a temporary uplift in benefits or food vouchers for the holidays would be much more useful to the majority of families on FSM.

I’d agree with this. I run a (year round) food distribution project. It’s really difficult getting eligible people through the door. Language barriers, stigma, disability, chaotic households who can’t take the steps needed to engage and similar are key problems. Last holiday the holiday food providers were basically handing out bagged lunches to passersby at the end of the day, the takeup was that low. In one of the poorest boroughs in London.

One thing I've noticed here is that nearly all the HAF programs are sports focused and not all children want to do sports holidays camps (mine certainly don't). My children would be really interested in anything theatrical, arty, forest school etc but there has been nothing like that on offer that I've seen....

The scheme offered at our school is too far for my dp to get them there for it to be feasible, the hours offered aren’t long enough so I’m already at work by the time it starts. It was also extremely short notice and most people had already organised other paid holiday clubs or childcare.

We were entitled to this. We don't get free school meals as we get working tax credits and you can't get both although our household income is low enough. My dc's school had a few discretionary places for non fsm children and we were emailed saying our dc could go. We could choose 2 days out per child and I think it was 8 playscheme days. The days out were all fully booked already, I think the families on fsm were (rightly) given their booking codes before we did. The playschemes didn't appeal to my dc and we didn't need the child care so we decided not to take up the offer. We already had plenty of other things planned by then anyway.