Family Forward Ayrshire receives Scottish Government investment to tackle child poverty
CEIS Ayrshire has been selected to receive funding through the Scottish Government’s £20 million Whole Family Support Third Sector Delivery Fund to lead Family Forward Ayrshire, a new partnership providing joined-up support for families across Ayrshire.
CEIS Ayrshire is one of 10 organisations and partnerships across Scotland selected through a competitive process to receive funding in 2026-27. Together, the funded organisations estimate they could support up to 35,000 families.
The investment is part of the Scottish Government’s Bringing Hope, Building Futures Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan and is intended to help families access practical, financial and emotional support when and where they need it.
For CEIS Ayrshire, the funding will support the newly launched Family Forward Ayrshire, bringing together five organisations to help families across North, East and South Ayrshire access support through one coordinated service.
One point of contact for families
Led by CEIS Ayrshire, Family Forward Ayrshire brings together The Ayrshire Community Trust (TACT), CHAP, East Ayrshire Citizens Advice Bureau and Megan’s Space.
Families are matched with a named Family Navigator who takes time to understand their circumstances, agrees a plan with them and connects them with specialist support as and when they need it.
Across the partnership, families can access support with employability and training, money and benefits, community support, and mental health and wellbeing. The service is free and families do not need a referral to get in touch.
The approach reflects the thinking behind the Whole Family Support Third Sector Delivery Fund. Families told the Scottish Government that they wanted practical help, financial advice and emotional support provided in a joined-up way, rather than having to navigate different organisations separately.
For Stephen Hamill, Chief Operations Officer at CEIS Ayrshire, bringing different forms of support together is central to the thinking behind Family Forward Ayrshire:
“Through our work with parents across Ayrshire, we see how often the challenges people face are connected. Money worries, employment, skills, health and family circumstances can all affect one another.
“Family Forward Ayrshire brings organisations with different expertise together, with one Family Navigator providing a consistent point of contact for each family. We want to make it easier for families to find the right support and make progress towards the things that matter to them.”
Building on experience supporting parents
CEIS Ayrshire brings extensive experience of employability, skills and training to the partnership, including work with parents who face barriers to finding employment or progressing at work.
During 2025/26, CEIS Ayrshire recorded 3,646 employability support interventions, 461 job outcomes and 2,310 accredited and non-accredited learning achievements. It also supported 41 parents during the year.
Its experience shows how employment and household circumstances can be closely connected. CEIS Ayrshire’s Parental In-Work Support, facilitated on behalf of North Ayrshire Council, helps eligible working parents access training that could otherwise be financially out of reach.
A recent participant, Daniel, shared how valuable the impact of this support is. Working as a labourer, he wanted to progress into a telehandler role but could not afford the qualification he needed. With help from CEIS Ayrshire, he was able to access the training, gain the qualification and move into a new higher-paid role.
“The training I received was brilliant. This funding has made a big difference to my family life.”
Family Forward Ayrshire takes a broader approach to the circumstances families face. Money worries, employment, health and wellbeing, skills and difficulty accessing services can overlap, so the partnership brings different areas of expertise together around each family’s needs.
For Simon Smith, Group Executive Director at CEIS Group, the programme also reflects a wider need to understand how the systems and services around families can work better together:
“Tackling poverty means looking at the conditions that shape people’s opportunities as well as responding to individual needs. Employment and skills have an important part to play, but people’s ability to find work, progress and improve their income can be affected by everything else happening in their lives.
“Family Forward Ayrshire gives us an opportunity to learn from a different approach, with organisations working together around the family rather than expecting families to navigate services themselves. We want to understand what works, where barriers remain and what that can tell us about how services could work better in the future.”
With Family Forward Ayrshire now under way, the focus is on making the new service work for families across Ayrshire: listening to their experiences, responding to what they need and making it easier to access support when circumstances change.
What the partnership learns along the way will also help shape how the service develops, with families’ experiences providing an important measure of what works in practice.
Family Forward Ayrshire is available to families with children at home living in North, East or South Ayrshire. Support is free and confidential, and families can contact the service directly without a referral.
Find out more about Family Forward Ayrshire
