Nursery World - Charities join together to support healthy school holiday programme

A new coalition has been formed to ensure that England’s poorest children have access to healthy, active and enriching school holidays through the Government’s Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme.

Following three years of successful pilots and a high-profile campaign led by Marcus Rashford, the Department for Education (DfE) announced in June 2020 that a new £220m fund would be used to roll out the expansion of the HAF programme.

England’s 151 top-tier local authorities have been allocated the money to spend on six weeks of free holiday club provision in 2021, with food and activities for children and young people aged five- to 16, who are eligible for Free School Meals.

A coalition of 16 charities and not-for-profit organisations, known as the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Alliance, has been launched to share its knowledge and expertise of running the HAF pilot programme with local authorities in the run-up to fully delivering the programme this Summer.

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