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National voluntary organisations are being invited to bid for a share of a new £6.8 million fund, designed to help improve children's lives.

The Early Years Early Action Fund, launched today by the Children's Minister Adam Ingram will be open to national voluntary organisations to enable them to:

• Improve early years services covering parenting, play, childcare, child and maternal health and family support, with the aim of helping parents and communities build better lives for themselves and their children
• Provide earlier support for families to prevent problems escalating into costly and difficult crisis situations, as well as supporting health improvement and helping looked after children

Launching the fund during a visit to North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Children's Minister Adam Ingram said:

"The early years lay the foundations for a child's future live and life chances. Improving support to them and their families during those crucial formative years can therefore make a real difference to their future health, well being, education, attainment and career prospects. This was highlighted last week by Professor Deacon when she published the findings of her work on improving children's early years.

"Research also shows that effective, early support for vulnerable children and families in Scotland, to help tackle problems before they turn into crisis situations is both beneficial for children and young people, as well as society. A Scottish Government study published in November showed the potential short, medium and long term savings of effective early intervention in Scotland and estimated that the medium term savings could be up to £131 million a year.

"This Early Years Early Action Fund is focused on both these efforts and will enable national voluntary sector organisations to work with Inspiring Scotland and local projects to help local people and local communities create better lives for themselves and their children. This type of collaborative working which Inspiring Scotland specialises in - bringing the public, private and voluntary organisations together to support local projects and local communities, is also very much in line with one of the key recommendations from Professor Deacon's report."

Andrew Muirhead, Chief Executive of Inspiring Scotland - who will administer the fund, said:

"The first few years of a child's life has a very significant impact on their ability to grow into a happy and healthy adult. Sadly, for many children in Scotland their early years do not give them the positive start we would all wish for. The voluntary sector is ideally placed to reach into communities to support families who are in most need to make the most of their children's potential.

"We are confident that through our venture philanthropy model of providing substantial development support from the private sector in addition to financial investment, we will strengthen the voluntary sector's response in supporting families and children with the best start in life.

"We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Scottish Government through Early Years Early Action and look forward to opening the fund in May."

The new fund will open for bids in May and be administered by Inspiring Scotland. It has a proven track record of helping local projects and organisations to bring in additional resources, in cash or in kind, from a range of sources, including the private and public sector. This has been demonstrated this in administration of the 14 to 19 Fund and the Scottish Government's £4 million Go Play Programme.

The new fund will be open to national voluntary sector bodies overseeing the delivery of local services in more than one local authority area and must be used to deliver front-line services aimed at improving outcomes for children (not research or dissemination activity). The proposals should relate to the following areas: play/activities, parenting support, the provision of childcare, activity to improve child and family health, supporting families to help themselves and building family and community capacity to improve outcomes for children.

Applicants will be expected to demonstrate how the funding will help them with capacity-building, in line with the Scottish Government/Inspiring Scotland's previous collaborative funds. They will also be required to provide clear evidence of the evidence base in support of their bids or, where innovative proposals are put forward, indicate how/to what extent the innovation is informed by existing evidence.

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