2024 Funding Opportunity
Supporting Children and Young People with Disordered Eating
The Prudence Trust and Stone Family Foundation are delighted to offer a new funding opportunity in 2024 to support organisations that deliver evidence-based, specialist eating disorder services to children and young people aged 11-25, and their families.
Eating disorders can severely affect quality of life for children and their families, and have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition. Those with an eating disorder often also suffer from depression or anxiety, and these conditions need to be managed simultaneously for the highest chance of recovery. We know that early intervention increases the chances of a full recovery, that parents and families need support to help their loved ones, and that continued support after a clinical intervention is important to recovery. Given the rise in disordered eating and eating disorders in recent years, we would like to fund these kinds of specialist services for young people and their families.
Stage one of this funding opportunity closed at 2pm on Monday 2nd September. We will not be accepting any more applications.
KEY INFORMATION
Application deadline
First stage: Monday 2 September 2pm
Second stage: Invitations will be made in mid September.
Purpose of funding
To support specialist eating disorder services for young people and their families
Eligible organisations
UK registered charities or CICs.
An annual income above £250,000.
A track record of running evidence-based, specialist eating disorder services for young people or their families for at least three years.
Example eligible costs
Salaries, training, room hire
Value and term of grants
Total grants budget: £750,000
Grant size: £30,000 – 100,000 per year
Grant term: Three years
Who can apply
This opportunity is for organisations who support young people (aged 11-25) in the UK with disordered eating, families of a child with an eating disorder, or step down services.
We will only consider applications from organisations who meet these three criteria:
- UK registered charities or CICs with an annual income of £250,000 or over.
- The charity or CIC must offer an eating disorder service in the UK for children or young people (aged 11-25), or their families, which is delivered by specially trained staff.
- The organisation must be able to demonstrate a track record of delivering high quality eating disorder services for at least 3 years (although your proposal can be for a new service).
We will not consider applications from unregistered charities or for services intended to treat general mental health conditions.
What you can apply for
You can apply for support of existing services, or new services if your organisation already has a track record in eating disorder support. You must be able to demonstrate the positive impact of your support on individuals.
The service you are applying for should expect to reach at least 50 children, young people or families each year.
We are particularly interested in services that complement – rather than duplicate – either end of statutory provision, such as early intervention services or step-down support after a young person has been discharged from an NHS service, as well as training or support for parents and families of these children and young people.
What we will offer funding for
Some examples of what our funding could cover include:
- Salaries for staff who deliver therapy sessions to children, young people and their families
- Cost of delivering support groups
- Specialist training for staff, including refresher courses, training to develop new skills or enable them to work with children and young people
- Room hire for therapy sessions or support groups
- Creation or printing of resources to complement the services you are delivering
This opportunity won’t award funds for:
- Delivery of general mental health services
- Retrospective funding (we can only fund costs incurred after November 2024)
This is currently planned as a one-off funding opportunity and applicants should not assume that funding will be renewed at the end of the grant period.
Budget and grant amounts
Our total grants budget for this opportunity is £750,000. We expect to award up to 6 grants, of various sizes, from this total. You should not request a grant that is more than 20% of your annual income.
We are also interested in what can be done to strengthen the eating disorder sector as a whole and will consider funding projects that aim to have a systemic change. If you have a project along these lines, please email [email protected] by 15 August to discuss your idea. Please do not apply via the online form.
Key dates
| Stage one (open to all meeting criteria) | |
| Mon 29 July | Stage one applications open |
| Mon 2 September 2pm | Stage one application deadline |
| Stage two (by invitation) | |
| Mid September | A long list will be invited to apply for the stage two |
| Mon 14 October 2pm | Stage two application deadline |
| Early – mid November | Online meetings to discuss your application |
| December 2024 | Grants awarded |
How to apply
Stage one of this funding opportunity closed at 2pm on Monday 2 September. We asked applicants to tell us how our funding would help you reach more young people and their families or help them deliver services more efficiently and effectively. We do not want to be too prescriptive and asked you to tell us what is needed.
A Word template of this form is available here , for your reference. We will only accept submissions through the online form which has now closed.
You will know if you are invited to submit a full second stage application by the end of September 2024.
We will let second stage applicants know whether their application has been successful in December 2024.
How grant decisions are made
Our Measures of Success for this programme are that at the end of the grant period:
- Children and young people with disordered eating or an eating disorder recover or are better able to manage their condition.
- More children and young people are able to access the eating disorder support services that they need.
- The families of these children and young people are better able to support their loved ones due to increased knowledge and understanding of disordered eating.
- More families have the confidence to support their loved ones.
- Organisations are able to expand their high quality provision to reach more people, particularly through working in new locations or reaching communities that are not well-served.
- Organisations are able to retain, better equip and support their staff who deliver high-quality, specialist eating disorder services.
We will only consider applications that meet the criteria under Who Can Apply and at least one of the Measures of Success. After that, we will prioritise applications that best demonstrate these strengths:
- Evidence that the organisation delivers services that make a positive difference to its beneficiaries. There must be a clear plan for how the difference made to beneficiaries will be measured, particularly if it is a new service.
- If the proposal is to reach more children, young people and their families, there is a credible plan for how this will happen.
- If the proposal is to deliver more effective services, there is a clear explanation of how the funding will achieve this.
To help our decision making, the Prudence Trust and Stone Family Foundation will seek the advice of expert advisors and young people with experience of the issues. Final decisions will be made by the trustees of both foundations.
what to expect if you are successful
If your application is successful, we will let you know in December 2024.
You will need to agree to our grant terms and conditions and we will expect you to keep us updated via written reports every six months and ad hoc calls.
Disordered eating is on the rise and NHS figures show that the number of children and young people starting treatment for an eating disorder in England more than doubled between 2016-17 and 2022-23.
