Decision details

In 2019 Ipswich Borough Council delivered a pilot mental health support programme called Move Your Mind, created in partnership with Suffolk Mind that uses physical activity as a way of supporting people’s mental health and improving their emotional needs.

The project was developed using Suffolk Mind’s Emotional Needs Met programme due to the simple, effective and evidenced based content and the close link between the content and physical activity. The development and delivery were done as a co-produced activity with Suffolk Mind and Ipswich Borough Council.

The success of the pilot has led to funding being received from Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group to roll out the initiative further and requires a workforce to be trained to deliver it. As the programme has been written around the Emotional Needs Met content which Suffolk Mind has created and owned, deliverers need to be trained on CARES to deliver this.

To waive contract standing orders and authorise the Sport and Leisure Operations Manager to enter into a contract to purchase 12 places on the CARES training package (to be undertaken between 27th September 2021 and November 2022) through Suffolk Mind at a cost of £6,750.

Reason:
An e-tender was considered but because Suffolk Mind are the only organisation to deliver a course with the content to enable delivery around Emotional Needs Met and as such deliver on this specific programme, the specification would have been too narrow to enable any other tenable bids.