About the fund
The Short Breaks Fund provides grants to third sector organisations that support unpaid carers to take a break from their caring role. The fund aims to increase the range and availability of short breaks across Scotland, allowing more carers to take the right break at the right time.
Shared Care Scotland operates the Short Breaks Fund on behalf of the National Carers Organisations and the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government currently funds the Short Breaks Fund on a rolling annual basis.
COVID-19 update
As for the majority of organisations across Scotland, Shared Care Scotland is monitoring the COVID-19 outbreak and following the advice set out by the NHS and Scottish Government.
We are doing all that we can to minimise the impact on our staff and our work, but we recognise that there are inevitably changes that we have to make to our working practices. We understand that this is a difficult and unsettling time and we want to reassure those we fund as far as possible. All staff are now working from home and trying to keep to a full service, as best we can, between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. We are responding to all emails as quickly as we can but please be patient! We currently fund hundreds of projects and understandably everyone wants a quick response however, we are a team of just two so these things take time!
We remain optimistic about our ability to deliver services to current grant holders and those organisations that may be applying for our next round of funding.
We hope that these measures reassure you on the steps that we are taking to ensure continuity for the Short Breaks Fund and to support your vital work. We will provide updates if our plans change.
Alison, Fund Manager, & Amanda, Grants Officer
Our funding programmes
Shared Care Scotland operates three Short Breaks Fund programmes:
Better Breaks
The Better Breaks programme provides 12-month grants to third sector organisations to develop and deliver short breaks projects and services for children and young people with disabilities (aged 20 and under), and their carers (adult carers and/or young carers). This programme opens for applications in October each year.
Creative Breaks
Creative Breaks programme provides 12-month grants to third sector organisations to develop and deliver short breaks projects and services for carers of adults (aged 21 years and over), young carers (caring for children or adults), and those that they care for. This programme opens for applications in April each year.
Time to Live
The Time to Live programme provides grant funding to carers organisations (usually carers centres) to develop and deliver micro grants schemes for carers of adults (aged 21 years and over), and young carers. TTL enables carers to access funds and support to help them take short breaks that meet their needs. This programme is not open to unsolicited applications.
A fourth Short Breaks Fund programme, Take a Break Scotland, is administered by Family Fund, on behalf of the Scottish Government. Take a Break Scotland provides direct grants to families of children and young people with disabilities (aged 20 and under) to support personalised leisure activities or holiday breaks.
Support for funded organisations
We aim to work in partnership with our grantholders; providing a range of support and guidance to help ensure that funded projects achieve the greatest possible impact for carers and those that they care for.
Short Breaks Stories
Our Short Break Stories website is a collection of good practice and ideas created by projects that are funded through the Short Breaks Fund. All of the stories on the website are reports written by the projects themselves with their experiences (good and bad) there for people to see and learn from.