The GM Early Years Fund is a strategic investment fund distributed by Action Together and GMCA aimed at building VCFSE capacity to develop the family and peer support offer for families and young children (0-5) across Greater Manchester – with a particular focus on addressing health inequalities and inequities that impact health, wellbeing and development
The Fund included 3 types of grants for VCFSE organisations across GM, these are:
- Safe Start Baby Bank Delivery Grant - aimed at strengthening the capacity of Baby Banks and increase the sustainability of their delivery to ensure every baby born has their essential needs met and can start life well in GM. This included a small grant and a medium grant for organisations delivering across multiple GM locations.
- Nurture Network Microgrant - for GM VCFSE organisations working to support the wellbeing and development of children from conception 0-5 and their families.
- Nurture Network Participation Grant - to enable leaders from VCFSE organisations who support families in the early years to actively participate in the GM VCFSE Early Years Network.
| Safe Start Baby Bank Delivery Grant | |
|---|---|
| Little Green Sock Project | Little Green Sock Project is a baby bank serving the Trafford, Salford and Manchester communities. With the commencement of the Safe Start offer they would move the baby bank offer in house, and continue to share any excess stock with Early Essentials. |
| Baby Basics Bolton and Bury | Baby Basics provide ‘Moses basket starter packs’ to vulnerable women and families within the local community. The aim of this funding is to develop the Bridge Life Centre property to support more babies and new mothers as referrals increase over the coming months and years. |
| Wood Street Mission | Wood Street Mission is a local charity supporting children in Manchester and Salford. They will be delivering the Safe Start offer via the Family Basics project. Family Basics provides children from struggling families with everyday essentials (clothing, toiletries, baby equipment, bedding, towels, books, toys etc) so that they can experience a better quality of life. They also provide families that access the project holistic support by signposting them to services and organisations that will be able to meet their wider needs. |
| Salford Baby Bank | Salford Baby Bank will use the funds for their baby bank offer which includes a small bank of volunteers and one member of staff who co-ordinates referrals. The organisation has a secure online referral form which referrals and data around family needs is populated. |
| The Crib (Sharedhealth Foundation) | The Crib @ John St responds to referrals for families in the homeless journey in Oldham. They also provide equipment into any borough across GM due to the nature of the system and numerous out of borough placements. |
| Home Start HOST | Home-Start HOST’s Baby Bank provides support across the whole of GM, with Tameside being it’s highest served area due to location. The Baby Bank resides in a warehouse space, which has storage capacity which will be used to store bulk items for the GM Baby Bank wider network and the organisation will able to explore how they can support and provide provisions to underserved areas. |
| The Little Lighthouse | The Little Lighthouse is a community based baby bank in Wythenshawe that has both a referral process and can be accessed via drop-in sessions. Through this funding they will be able to pack and store Moses Basket Bundles at their venue and provide them to families via the existing referral process. |
| Visit From the Stork | Stork Support, the core offer of VFTS, provides infant essentials to families in need. Alongside the essentials, they provide breastfeeding support through the Be Open on Breastfeeding Support (B.O.O.B.S) project. VFTS operates their own community hub in the heart of Salford, with social and drop-in sessions for clients to access advice and information as well as practical items which are delivered to families who aren't able to physically visit the hub. |
| The Baby Room | The Baby Room has been providing Moses Basket Bundles across Wigan since they began in July 2022. It is a small volunteer-led baby bank which accepts referrals from professionals and will continue to do so through this funding. |
| Early Essentials | Early Essentials (EE) is an emergency service in Manchester providing Moses Basket starter packs for the most vulnerable pregnant women unable to provide for their babies directly after birth. Their beneficiaries are often homeless, fleeing domestic violence, refugees/asylum seekers and/or those in financial crisis or similar disadvantage. The moses basket with a brand new mattress ensures that baby has a safe place to sleep and through the funding will support areas in GM that have a reduced or no Baby Bank provision. |
| Nurture Network Microgrant | |
|---|---|
| Autisk | Little Voices, Strong Bonds This project is a 12-week programme of weekly parent-and-child sessions that encourage speech, language, and bonding through play, storytelling, sensory activities, and music. The project will target families in Stockport who are experiencing adversity—those facing social isolation, financial insecurity, or developmental delays in their children. |
| Flowhesion Foundation | Stay and Play – Winton Library Family hub - Eccles Through this funding Flowhesion will continue to deliver the Stay and Play family hub at Winton Library, Salford for an additional 12 weeks. The project will include a qualified bilingual Early Years practitioner to deliver stay and play and infant feeding and parenting advice sessions to families in Salford. |
| Stand Up Sisters CIC | Songs, Stories, and Art Stand Up Sisters will run 10 community workshops working in partnership with the Early Development Team in Bolton. These workshops will include a series of art-making workshops, as well as a series of combined creative workshops that will also include songs and stories. Communication, speech and language will be supported through songs, talking about artwork, listening and hearing stories. |
| Recreate U CIC | Recreate-U's Best Start This funding will be used to expand ‘Recreate-U’s Best Start,’ the organisation's EYFS school readiness programme consisting of bespoke parent/child sessions helping disadvantaged families to prepare their children for school. The programme will be rolled out to another centre in GM and will consist of an online pre-learning session where adults can learn without distractions, followed by 6 x 1-hour bespoke adult and child sessions for up to 10 families with children aged 3-4. |
| Home Start HOST | Play, Learn, Grow Play, Learn, Grow is an 8 week holistic programme aimed at children aged 2-5 years old, which aims to increase parental awareness, understanding and confidence of how they can support their child’s learning and development at home through fun, simple activities. This funding would go towards providing families with access to more books including interactive books, dual language books, story sacks with puppets and picture books so the organisation can promote a love of books, introduce children to new vocabulary and build parents confidence in sharing books with children. |
| The Met | The Nest This project is an Early Years Sensory Playscape developed by Earlybird Project in collaboration with The Met Arts Centre in Bury, designed for children under 3 and their parents or carers. The Met will deliver five monthly sessions in a welcoming, flexible, and nurturing environment. The playscape will explore light, sound, touch, and movement—encouraging open-ended, sensory-rich play and each session will be co-created and facilitated by an experienced early childhood creative play specialist from Earlybird Project, supporting responsive, child-led exploration, and connection. |
| Transforming Places | Wigan Faith-based Children and Families Project This project will build on the mapping carried out by Transforming Places in collaboration with Wigan Family Hubs. This will fund a Faith-based Network Family Enabler to assist faith groups in developing new services supporting families, in particular through over 25 Parent and Toddler Groups already mapped with a School Readiness Project improving school readiness of early years children. |
| Bee Inclusive CIC | Inclusive Early Years Play and Parent Support at Bury SEND Hub Bee Inclusive, a grassroots, not-for-profit organisation led by parent-carers of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), proposes to run weekly to bi-weekly play and information sessions specifically for families of children aged 0–5 with SEND. These sessions will be hosted at the fully accessible, welcoming community centre, The Bury SEND Hub. They will run 2 hour sessions with the first hour being dedicated to Stay & Play (having fun and modelling play) and the second hour being dedicated to advice and support. |
| Burnside Centre | Early Years Family Provision: Burnside Minis With this grant, the Rochdale based organisation will enhance their sessions for children aged 0-3 by introducing a dedicated mobile storytelling area that can be used both indoors and outdoors, to support early literacy and emotional bonding. They will create structured areas for early problem-solving through exploratory play and add new sensory toys to develop curiosity and learning. |
| Life Church Manchester | Trafford Church-based Children and Families Project This project builds on the mapping done by Transforming Places and Trafford Family Hubs to fund a Church-based Network Family Enabler to address gaps in provision to families, assisting faith groups in Trafford in delivering new services, particularly school readiness programmes alongside the Family hubs. |
| 422 Community Hub | Stay and Play / Growbaby at 422 Stay and Play is 422 Community Hub’s parent/carer and children’s group (ages 0-4), which has been running since January 2023. GrowBaby runs regularly alongside Stay and Play, providing free, good quality, preloved clothes and essentials for children aged 0-4. Through this funding, both offers will be expanded and upscaled to reach more families and children in Manchester. |
| Incredible Education CIC | Bear Cubs This funding will go towards a 10 week stay and play child development programme based around Incredible Education's early years Forest School programme in Salford. They will be using the Forest School Pedagogy which is child led and play based, and will be delivered by a qualified level 3 Forest School Practitioner. |
| Caribbean and African Health Network | Strong Starts, Bright Futures This project will be a pilot of an adaptation of CAHN's accredited Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities programme specifically for Black families with children aged 0-5 (see here). This targeted intervention addresses critical gaps in culturally responsive early years support, recognising that the foundations of child development are established in these formative years. It will include four sessions, light-touch early-years pilot for up to 12 Black Caribbean and African families (estimate of 35 individuals including siblings). |
| Nurture Network Participation Grant | |
|---|---|
| Progress Education | Social Enterprise based in Oldham providing education advice, bespoke inset consultancy and CPD courses for teachers and leaders in secondary and primary schools, academies, and early years. |
| Proud 2 b Parents | Registered charity based in Trafford who run meet-ups, youth sessions, family support, seasonal parties, and Pride family spaces, alongside online groups for LGBT+ families. |
| Home Start Manchester | Manchester based family support charities working in local communities across the city, supporting parents and their children as they navigate through many of life’s difficulties. The organisation support families in their own homes and through a range of bespoke projects. |
| All Ears MHA CIC | Registered CIC in Wigan working with children aged 5 and over to help them understand their thoughts and feelings, manage their emotions, and build resilience. This includes art therapy, workshops, 1-1 person centred therapy, as well as training and educational services. |
| Home Start HOST | A local charity of trained volunteers and dedicated, experienced staff helpingfamilies with young children flourish during the years of early childhood, supporting parents across Tameside, Oldham, Stockport, Bolton & Glossop. |
| 422 Community Hub | The 422 Community Hub is a project of Manchester Vineyard, a local church. The 422 Hub hosts a community cafe, a variety of free programmes and spaces to hire for like-minded organisations that offer opportunities, boost well-being and tackle poverty. |
| Bolton Together | Bolton Together is the children and young people’s voluntary and community sector consortium for Bolton. As a collective, their staff and volunteer base are able to reach the 73,000 children and young people, and their families in Bolton. |
| Burnside Centre | Registered charity in Rochdale providing all-around support for residents in Rochdale including a pre-school, Burnside Minis parent/carer and child sensory project, and emergency food bank. |
| Spark Oldham CIC | Registered CIC supporting people of all ages across Oldham, from early years through to later life. All projects focus on building confidence, connection and resilience, while offering practical help where it’s most needed. |
| Transforming Places | Registered charity operating across the UK commissioned by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to deliver a 2025 mapping of faith-based social action supporting children and families. |
| Recreate U CIC | Registered CIC operating in Manchester, Salford, Bolton providing a range of services from tutoring to community projects to help children, families and the community to learn and grow. |
| Visit From The Stork | Registered charity based in Salford and operating across GM offering a wide range of services, all of which aim to create a support network for parents, connecting families together and helping them through both hard times and celebrating the good. |
| Barlow Moor Community Association | Registered charity managed by local residents and representatives of local organisations in Manchester. BMCA's services, many delivered in partnership with local groups, contribute to local improvements and better outcomes for local people by delivering city wide and national strategy at a meaningful local level within our community and clubs. |
| Caribbean and African Health Network | Registered CIC operating in Manchester set up in 2017 to address long-standing health inequalities disadvantaging people of Black Caribbean and African her |
| The Met | Theatre and Arts Centre in Bury giving the opportunity to participate and enjoy performance through delivery of professional programmes and workshops. |