Project Evaluation

The Short Breaks Fund helping to make breaks better and brighter for unpaid carers and cared-for people in Scotland. Launched in 2010 for one year, the fund has now been running for five years and has proved to be a lifeline for many carers.

During the past five years the Scottish Government, through Shared Cared Scotland has distributed 12,547,409 to 697 projects to deliver innovative, tailor made breaks to groups and individuals.

The Better Breaks funding programme is focused on improving the range and availability of short break opportunities for disabled children and young people, particularly those with multiple support needs, including short break opportunities that families can enjoy together, or which allow parents and siblings to have time away from their caring responsibilities.

This is the summary report.

The Easy Consultation Toolkit is designed to help short break providers and others with short break consultation.

Rather than duplicate existing work on the principles of consultation, this toolkit provides a set of adaptable, practical tools.

The Time to Live strand is part of the Creative Breaks programme and awards grants directly to individual carers so that they can arrange and pay for the short break that suits them best. In 2011 the Time to Live strand was piloted with 12 organisations who offer support to carers based upon geographical boundaries. In 2012 the application was extended to include organisations with a national, condition specific focus. This evaluation examines the projects running from October 2012 through to September 2013.

No one would argue that unpaid family carers should not be equal partners in care, as their care constitutes over 50% of all care provided in every local authority and NHS region of Scotland. Consistent and meaningful carer engagement must therefore be at the heart of all good health and social care policy. But a great gulf remains between good intentions and good practice. The Coalition of Carers in Scotland is pleased to o!er the carer engagement standards in this document as a bridge to help planning o"cers and commissioners of services move from good intentions to better practice.

The Better Breaks programme awarded its first grants in March 2012. 51 grants, totalling £1,121,602 were distributed to projects across Scotland so that these projects could deliver quality short breaks for children and young people with disabilities which would be tailored to their needs whilst giving their families a break from caring.
The evaluation was based on information provided by the funded projects through their applications, their End of Grant reports, any supporting materials provided, selected telephone calls and review of the Shared Stories films.

The Easy Evaluation Toolkit is designed to help people evaluate their short break or respite care service. Created in 2013 by Shared Care Scotland, Evaluation Support Scotland and a panel of third sector managers, the toolkit offers a framework, case studies and useable tools to help you and your service develop your evaluation process.

The Short Breaks Fund represents a substantial investment by the Scottish Government in the development of short breaks’ provision. Scottish Government, Shared Care Scotland and the National Carer Organisations group are keen to make sure that there is a legacy from this investment, not simply in the form of additional or new short break services, but through better knowledge about what works well in short break services, and about what carers and those they care for need and value.
This report evaluates the impact of funding on 58 projects and...

The main purpose of this report is to inform the work of Scotland‟s Commissioner for Children and Young People over the next four years, specifically in relation to disabled children and young people whom he has already identified as a priority group.
The aims are:
1. To identify and review the major social research studies about disabled children and young people in Scotland published since devolution (1999), looking at issues which can be a barrier to their inclusion in society.

This is Evaluation Support Scotland's presentation on how to evaluate your short breaks project. It was aimed at managers of projects funded by the Short Breaks Fund but useful to any third sector project that wants to develop their evaluations skills and share their learning.