A consortium of seven charities, including Charity Awards winner Place2Be, is the preferred bidder to run a £3m programme around the delivery of early-intervention mental health support to children and young people.

The Bond Consortium, which stands for Better Outcomes, New Delivery includes Young Minds who is leading the group, Youth Access and Charity Awards 2011 winner Place2Be.

The Department for Education will be providing up to £3m for a two-year charity sector-led programme which will build the capacity of voluntary and community sector organisations to deliver early-intervention mental health support to children and young people, including building resilience and emotional well-being.

Sarah Brennan, chief executive of YoungMinds, said: “Intervening early has been shown to have critical importance in children and young people’s mental health which the government has rightly recognised in the Mental Health Strategy 'No health without mental health'. There is a huge challenge for all those involved in supporting children’s mental health in maintaining and building capacity to enable early intervention.

“The government has recognised in creating this opportunity, the voluntary and community sector needs help to develop its capacity without excessive burden or cost and to increase the confidence of all commissioners to invest sustainable funding in the sector.”