Children, Young People and Families Plan 2011 - 2014
Contents Section
Page
1
Purpose and Background
1
2
Vision and Values
2
3
National and Local Context
3
4
Sandwell’s Families, Children and Young People
4
5
Improving Outcomes
6
6
•
Outcomes Framework
•
Successful Families and Parents
•
Children have a Good Start to Life
•
Successful Young People
•
Cross Cutting Themes
Delivering Priority Actions •
Partnership and Engagement
•
Service Commissioning and Review
•
Workforce Development and Integrated Working
•
How we will know we are successful
•
Challenges, Risks and Issues
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Section 1
Purpose and Background
Sandwell’s Families, Children and Young People’s Plan sets out the strategic priorities of the Children and Young People’s Trust Board and how it intends to achieve them. In so doing, it will contribute to the shared priorities of Sandwell Council and its partners. This is the third full version of the plan and it has been developed at a time of substantial change in national policy following the formation of the Coalition Government in the wake of the 2010 General Election. There is no longer a statutory requirement to produce such a plan nor for it to be owned and delivered through children’s trust arrangements. Nevertheless, the Children and Young People’s Trust Board agreed that a plan is still required for Sandwell and trust type arrangements will continue for the foreseeable future although there may need to be some redefining and refreshing of these arrangements. An important recent local development which has impacted on the framework for this plan was the agreement between the Children and Young People’s Trust Board and Sandwell Safeguarding Children’s Board (SSCB) in relation to the division of responsibility for safeguarding. It was decided that the SSCB would concentrate its attention on child protection issues to enable a clear focus on the Improvement Plan (see page 5), while the Trust Board would have the wider remit for safeguarding and the preventative aspect of child protection. This is reflected in the structure of this plan.
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Section 2
Vision and Values
"Our vision is for every one of Sandwell's children and young people, whatever their background or needs, to achieve their potential, reach high levels of educational success, live healthy and safe lives and have the opportunity of a fulfilling life in a caring environment. Children and young people will actively take part in the funding, planning, development, monitoring and delivery of all services available to them." The values that underpin our vision are:•
Being outcomes focused – first and foremost our intentions are to improve outcomes for all of Sandwell’s children, young people and families;
•
Being inclusive – we should seek to engage with all relevant stakeholders a fair and transparent way. We should build the capacity of stakeholders to actively participate, particularly that of children, young people and parents;
•
Being equitable – we should ensure equal access to services and promote take up by the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.
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Section 3
National and Local Context
The Coalition Government’s policy towards families, children and young people has seen a different emphasis from that of the previous Labour Government. There is still a focus on the importance of families but their approach has so far been less prescriptive, as evidenced by the abolition of national targets and removing the ringfencing of certain grant funds. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State for Education and other key ministers have indicated strongly that local authorities and their partners should focus their activity around the key themes of early intervention, supporting those families most in need and improving education– themes that have consistently run through Sandwell’s Children and Young People’s Plans. However, our ability to deliver services to meet these ambitions will be more challenging as a consequence of other key aspects of Government policy: the significant reductions in Central Government funding for public sector bodies; the acceleration of the previous Government’s desire to allow schools to become more independent of local authorities; the intention that third sector organisations should play a greater role in delivering public services and the restructuring of the NHS. Locally, Sandwell MBC is going through its own reorganisation while the restructuring of children’s social care is still on-going in response to the Ofsted Improvement Plan. Partly as a result of Government’s reduction in funding, Children and Families Services have merged with services for adults under a Corporate Director for People. Whilst in the long term, this offers the prospect of better joint working, particularly around support to families, in the short term there is a need to ensure that the embedding of the new structure does not undermine progress that has been made in improving outcomes for children and young people especially in respect to safeguarding.
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Section 4
Sandwell’s Families, Children and Young People Sandwell’s population has increased by 5,400 residents (1.89%) over the last 7 years and current estimates put the total number of residents at 291,000. Sandwell is a borough with a relatively young population, with 21% of residents being under 16. This is a higher proportion than the regional (19.4%) and national (18.7) rates. Of all the children under 16, the largest group is the under-5s (21,700), which make up 35% of the 0-15 age band. Within the 0-19 age band there are different patterns of growth, the youngest populations (0-4 and 5-9 years of age) are expected to increase rapidly in the next 10 years or so, stabilising its numbers by 2020 at around 22,200 for under 5s and 21,600 for 7-9s by 2033. The projections predict that the number of under-10s would have increased by a third in the intervening 25 years, from 38,300 in 2008 to 43,900 in 2033. On the other hand, the numbers of young people (10-19) are expected to decline over the next 10 years, with the biggest decrease being amongst the 15-19 year olds (a decrease of 3,000 between 2008 and 2018). However, as the younger children grow up the numbers of teenagers will gradually increase from 2010 till 2033, with a net growth of 3,200 for the 10-14 year olds (17.8%) and 800 for the 15-19 year olds (4.1%). The ONS population projections are conservative estimates and it is already evident through the latest birth data that the resident population is growing at a higher rate than initially envisaged (12% growth between 2005 and 2010). Based on a linear trend projection, the number of children born in Sandwell could well be around 500 more in 4 years; this would bring the number of under-5s in Sandwell to more than 25,000 by 2014 (an increase of over 3,000). Sandwell is a multi-cultural and diverse borough, where just over a quarter of the population (25.39%) is of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) origin. However, the proportion is much higher for the age group 0-15, which is almost a third of BME origin (31.32%). The most recent School Census data seems to indicate that this rate is rising to almost 40% of the latest cohorts.
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Section 4
Sandwell’s Families, Children and Young People Vulnerable Groups There are 171 children aged 0-5 on the Early Years Special Educational Needs (SEN) database. With regard to school-age children there are 1022 children and young people with a statement of SEN recorded on the ONE database as well as an additional 2.300 children and young people recorded at School Action Plus. Other data from the Office for National Statistics shows that there are 2010 children under 18 in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA). These are not all additional children as there will be a degree of overlap between the DLA and the SEN data. According to the latest figures (February 2011), there were 556 children being looked after (LAC). The age analysis of those entering care shows a clear trend for this to be younger children (reflective of Sandwell’s under-5 population that make up 35% of the 0-15 age band). There were 216 (5.18%) live births in Sandwell during the academic year 2009/10 born to teenage mothers. The number and rates of teenage pregnancies in Sandwell have decreased from a peak of 65.4 per thousand in 2003 to 56.4 in 2008, the lowest rate recorded in the past 8 years. According to HMRC figures, in August of 2008 Sandwell had 30.8% of their children population living in what is considered “relative” poverty. This equates to approximately 22,500 children. The 2008 figure represents a modest decrease of 0.8% from the 2007 figure (31.6%), however, this comes after a significant rise between 2006 and 2007 of 1.2%. As a result, the proportion of children in poverty in Sandwell has increased by 0.4% between 2006 and 2008.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
5.1
Outcomes Framework This Sandwell’s Children and Young People’s Plan is structured around three strategic or high-level population outcomes, which have been adapted from the five Every Child Matters outcomes to better reflect how Sandwell has developed its plan over the last five years. These outcomes are: •
Successful Families and Parents 1
•
Children have a Good Start to Life
•
Successful Young People.
Below the three strategic outcomes are second tier and third tier outcomes (except Successful Families and Parents) enabling them to be broken down into the elements that refine our understanding of what constitutes these strategic outcomes and begins to identify how we might measure progress towards achieving them. This hierarchy model is set out on the next page. By breaking down the strategic outcomes into their constituent parts it enables us to understand their interconnectivity and the required sequencing of actions, that is, what needs to happen first before an impact can be expected on the next level of outcomes. These outcomes represent a desired position or the ambition we have for children, young people and their families. How close we are to achieving these outcomes has been informed by a strategic analysis of the needs of children, young people and families based on three elements: •
Quantitative data (demographic, epidemiological, performance, evaluative);
1
Parent is used generically to refer any person who performs a caring role for children in the context of a family.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
•
Information gathered from children, young people and families;
•
Professional and political judgement.
This provides evidence of the key needs of the population and has informed the process of identifying key areas for action.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Children and Young People’s Plan 2011-2014
Children, Young People and Families Plan 2011-2014
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
5.2
Successful Families and Parents Family form is diverse but, nevertheless the importance of family life and good parenting is fundamental to the well-being of children and young people. No matter how good services are, they can never fully compensate for the lack of effective family support.
5.2.1
Families and Family Life are Supported There is a general belief that the family, as a key building block of society, has been undermined in recent decades. Successive Governments have tied to emphasise the need for individuals and communities to place more value and importance on the idea of family and kinship, in order for families to prosper and for society to be stronger and more cohesive. Both parents and young people we have spoken to recognise the importance of family life and how family members who support each other can better prosper. Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
There is very little information available that measures how much we value and actively promote families and family life. More research needs to be done to look at how families in Sandwell are perceived.
Service Priorities •
Continuing to develop our ‘whole family’ approach by having clear processes for referral and assessment of need;
•
Empowering parents to understand what services exist and to make informed choices about which ones are the most appropriate for them.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Commissioning Priorities •
Integrating and co-ordinating family support services that are easily accessed.
Priority Groups •
5.2.2
We need to target families most at risk of poor outcomes where there is; disability, poor mental health, domestic abuse, poverty; drug/alcohol misuse, offending behaviour, inadequate housing, young parents, foster carers.
Families have greater propensity for self care and display greater resilience Supporting and enabling families to better look after themselves is commonsense from a preventative perspective and is in the best interests of the family in terms of their self confidence and having the resilience to cope in difficult situations. Despite challenging times, most families in Sandwell demonstrate resilience. However, many of these families are only ‘just coping’ and may reach a point where their circumstances deteriorate to the extent that their ability to provide a supporting environment for all family members is compromised. Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
We need to know more about the families that are ‘just coping’ and what support they need to ensure that they can maintain a level of independence from intensive services.
Service Priorities •
Providing additional help including parenting, at a universal level to avoid issues becoming more difficult to resolve.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Commissioning Priorities •
Identifying and supporting those families needing extra support at the earliest opportunity especially through the re-commissioning of children’s centres.
•
Commissioning services to enhance family support (levels 2-3) including intensive interventions;
•
Ensuring that all commissioned services are delivered within an ethos of empowering parents and building their capacity for self care.
Priority Groups •
5.2.3
Lone parents, young parents, foster families, families where children are acting as carers, new arrivals, families, living in poverty, gypsy, Roma and traveller families.
Parents exhibit greater aspirations for their children Most children spend more time with their families than elsewhere including at school. It is widely understood that home and community have a significant influence on how children develop their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Parents who themselves exhibit positive attitudes, beliefs and attitudes and encourage their children to do so, are likely to raise children who exhibit good outcomes. The early years of a child are considered to be the most important in terms of outcomes for the rest of their lives. Parenting is an important factor that contributes to this. The quality of the home learning environment and parental aspirations are found to be particularly important for children’s development.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
Parental attitudes and how they can be influenced is a key area of understanding that needs to be developed to facilitate more effective engagement of parents.
Service Priorities •
Maximising the impact of Family Learning for both children and parents by increasing the number of schools/children’s centres involved.
Commissioning Priorities •
Engaging better with parents to identify with them their aspirations for themselves and their children and how they can be supported especially through the re-commissioning of children’s centres.
Priority Groups •
5.3
Lone parents, young parents, foster families, new arrivals, families living in poverty, gypsy, Roma and traveller families.
Children have a good start to life It is generally accepted that pre-birth and the earlier years of a child’s life are particularly important in determining long term outcomes. We will support parents to ensure that children have a healthy start, remain healthy, are safe and able to achieve.
5.3.1
Children have a healthy start to life It is widely acknowledged that the period from pre- conception to the age of three is the most critical period in a child’s physical, emotional and intellectual development. It is crucially important that we support parents during this time.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
We will help parents to ensure that they have: •
healthy pregnancies, births and,
•
healthy babies and infants.
Sandwell has a high rate of infant mortality. Infant mortality is correlated with poverty, poor maternal health and poor housing. For every baby that dies many more will have lived despite their mothers experiencing similar levels of need. This is exhibited in a high rate of low birth weight babies and consequent health problems. Parents we have talked to know the importance of supporting women before, during and after pregnancy and the need for good antenatal and postnatal services. Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
Better identification of women at risk of experiencing infant mortality or having babies with low birth weight.
Service Priorities •
Encouraging women to engage with maternity services early in their pregnancy;
•
Encouraging more women to initiate and sustain breastfeeding;
•
Support parents to make informed health choices for pregnancy and their infants, including weaning and immunisation.
Commissioning Priorities •
The continued development and provision of a holistic maternity service that is not just about the best clinical care but one that will also address those factors that can have an adverse impact on a baby’s health such as smoking, obesity, mental health, poor housing and poverty.
•
Using the re-commissioning of children’s centres as an opportunity to better integrate ante-natal services.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Priority Groups •
5.3.2
Young parents, new arrivals, families living in poverty, gypsy, Roma and traveller families.
Children choose healthy lifestyles It is important that children continue to get support to maintain a healthy lifestyle and to avoid habits and actions that may have long term detrimental effects on their health. To do this, we will support and encourage children to: •
have healthy weight play
•
exercise and have opportunities for recreation Obesity in children is of serious and increasing concern and a quarter of Sandwell’s children are obese by the end of primary school. This is due to a combination of poor diet and lack of exercise – children’s participation in sporting opportunities is much lower than the average for England.
•
choose not to use tobacco, alcohol or drugs Although there is no evidence to suggest that there is a major issue with children using substances, early exposure to tobacco, alcohol or drugs through young people and adults who do, can lead to habitual use and addiction in later life.
•
have emotional health and well-being Emotional health and well-being is important to quality of life and when compromised can impact on wider outcomes. The data shows some recent decline from a good position but services are poor in relation to the national average.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
Increasing the understanding of parents and professionals of emotional health and how to respond when children show the signs of poor mental health.
Service Priorities •
Ensuring that universal provision promotes emotional health and well-being in children;
•
Ensuring that targeted and specialist mental health support is accessible and meets the diverse needs of children.
Commissioning Priorities •
Provide family-based services for all identified obese and overweight children in Sandwell combining physical activity and dietary advice;
•
Implementing plans to expand and strengthen Health Visiting services including Family Nurse Partnership.
Priority Groups •
5.3.3
Young carers, children of families living in poverty, gypsy, Roma and traveller families.
Children are safe and feel safer Safeguarding children from unintended and deliberate harm will remain our first priority and proving children with a safe environment is a prerequisite for them to prosper across all other outcome areas.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
To do this, we will ensure children are: •
safe from accidental harm Accidents are the leading cause of injury to children and disproportionately affect children from lower socio-economic groups, and as we know such groups make up the largest proportion of Sandwell’s population.
•
safe from Crime
•
safe from Bullying and Harassment Whilst there has been in a reduction in child victims of crime, children still cite bullying and harassment as one of their major concerns.
•
safe from Abuse and Neglect The number of children with child protection plans and being looked after has increased in Sandwell in line with the national trend following the Baby Peter case, however Sandwell figures may not represent a true reflection of the number of children and young people requiring protection. Key Areas for Action
Understanding Needs Better •
Profiling by gender, ethnicity, age, and location to enable better identification of children at risk of both unintentional and deliberate harm.
Service Priorities •
Putting in place preventative services to limit the number of children and young people entering care and protection systems including through ensuring the embedding of the ACCSS service and implementation the family support service.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Commissioning Priorities •
Ensuring the services that support prevention, early intervention and the building of resilience in groups of children vulnerable to requiring more intensive intervention.
Priority Groups •
5.3.4
Children on the ‘edge of care’ children of families living in poverty.
Children achieve Children who achieve well in their early years and into primary school are much more likely to be successful in future education and in later life. To support this we will encourage and enable children to: •
participate in and enjoy early years provision Attainment in early years has gradually improved but not as fast as the rest of the country. There is growing evidence that delayed speech and language in children moving into primary school is an issue that needs to be addressed.
•
attend and enjoy school Attendance and enjoyment are basic prerequisites of achieving at school. Absenteeism remains a persistent problem.
•
attain in Education Attainment to Level 2 is considered a minimum to enable future achievement and a significant number of children fail to reach this, in particular children from poorer backgrounds. However, progression is also considered to be the key benchmark for future achievement and many of Sandwell’s children still make considerable progress at primary school even when starting from a low base.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
Increasing our understanding of the reason why some families do not access early years provision.
Service Priority Actions •
Improving attainment at Early Years Foundation Stage;
•
Supporting schools to improve provision, the curriculum and quality of teaching and learning, and work intensively with schools when necessary to ensure acceptable pupil performance.
Commissioning Priority Actions •
Integrating better early years provision especially through the re-commissioned provision of children’s centres.
Priority Groups •
5.4
Young carers, children of families living in poverty, looked after children, children and young people with SEN and/or disabilities.
Successful Young People A successful transition from childhood through adolescence into adulthood is largely dependent on young people being supported to make positive choices and to be able to fulfil those choices through the provision of appropriate services. This will be achieved through enabling all young people to engage in positive activities, helping them to avoid risky behaviours, providing safe environments and supporting them to have the best opportunities for education and training.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
5.4.1
Young People Engage in positive activities Activities that offer young people enjoyable ways to use their time also provide opportunities to acquire a whole range of social and personal skills. We will achieve this through supporting all young people to access positive activities but also by targeting those: •
who are at risk of offending
•
who do offend Young People who engage in positive activities are less likely to offend. For those who have offended, positive activities can be a key part of preventing re-offending. There has been a general decline in offending over the last four years which has coincided with more young people being involved in positive activities. However, there is over representation of black young people known to the Youth Offending Service and this is a concern that continues to get worse.
•
Increasing positive activities for all young people In terms of activities for all young people, whilst formal provision is used, most prefer to organise their own leisure time. However, the opportunities for leisure for young people in Sandwell are limited and many choose to go out of the Borough to access facilities. Key Areas for Action
Understanding Needs Better •
Increasing our understanding of young people at risk of offending.
Service Priorities •
Delivering a core offer of youth provision that all young people can access;
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
•
Enabling young people to enjoy local facilities such as leisure centres including through encouraging the provision of safe transport.
Commissioning Priorities •
Focusing on young people at risk of offending.
Priority Groups •
5.4.2
Young offenders, young people at risk of offending, LAC, NEETs, Young people with poor emotional health, young carers.
Young People Make Positive Lifestyle Choices Young people who maintain healthy lifestyles and make healthy and positive choices and are supported to do so, are less likely to engage in risky behaviours that can lead to poorer life chances as they move into adulthood. This will be achieved by young people: •
Being supported not to use drugs and alcohol; Sandwell young people are misusing drugs and alcohol inline with national and regional trends. The overall trend is young people are drinking less often but when they drink it is significantly more units. Cannabis use remains high, but there has been a steady decline of other drugs. It remains a concern that young people who are misusing substances are more likely to be involved in risky behaviours including offending and other poor health choices. More Sandwell young people are admitted to hospital, through A&E, for substance misuse than regionally and nationally.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
•
Choosing not to get pregnant but are supported to ensure that parenthood does not disadvantage them; Teenage conception rates have fallen, although this is from a high baseline position.
•
Are supported to have emotional health and well-being Participation in risky behaviour is often the result of poor emotional health, especially relating to self esteem and self worth. Key Areas for Action
Understanding Needs Better •
Better understanding of young people at risk and how this can be used to predict possible future behaviour;
•
Having a better understanding of the emotional health needs of young people and designing services to meet them.
Service Priorities •
Supporting young people not to use drugs and alcohol;
•
Supporting young people to choose not to get pregnant but being supported as young parents so that parenthood does not disadvantage them;
Commissioning Priority Actions •
Ensuring the services that support prevention, early intervention and the building of resilience in groups of children vulnerable to requiring more intensive intervention.
•
Ensuring that universal provision promotes emotional health and well-being in young people;
•
Ensuring that targeted and specialist mental health support is accessible and meets the diverse needs of young people.
Priority Groups •
Looked after children, young people offending or at risk of offending, NEETs, young people with poor emotional health.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
5.4.3
Young People are Safe and Feel Safer As with children, safeguarding young people from unintended and deliberate harm will remain our first and foremost priority. To do this, will ensure that young people are: •
Safe from accidental harm; Accidents are the leading cause of injury to young people and disproportionately affect young people from lower socio-economic groups. Data shows that there has been an increase in the numbers of 5-14 year olds attending hospital with accidental injuries.
•
Safe from crime; There has been a reduction in the number of young people as victims of crime. However young people tell us that they some times feel unsafe on public transport, at night and in certain areas.
•
Safe from bullying and harassment; A significant number of young people experience bullying although the number is declining and is good against national and statistical neighbours’ comparators. There is a need to understand when bullying and harassment is racist or homophobic in nature.
•
Safe from neglect and abuse. The issues that result in the abuse and neglect of young people are often different than those that impact on children, but our understanding of these issues is less well developed such as sexual exploitation, self-harm and neglect.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Key Areas for Action Understanding Needs Better •
Better understanding of the protection needs of young people, as opposed to younger children are may not be served well by child protection services;
•
Work needs to be undertaken in relation to young people’s perceptions and experiences of street crime, gangs and use of weapons.
Service Priorities •
Having a better understanding of safeguarding for older children in recognising they have more distinct needs than younger children;
•
Continuing to reduce victims of bullying, harassment and crime especially in relation to race and sexuality;
•
Having safe environments for them to meet.
Priority Groups •
5.4.4
Young people vulnerable to bullying and harassment; those with disabilities, looked after young people, those from ethnic minorities, LGBT young people.
Young People Engage in Education and Achieve Economic Well-Being Young people who attain high levels of learning are better equipped with skills for life and are more able gain meaningful employment. To help young people to achieve this, we will support them to: •
Remain engaged with their education through transition and during their time at secondary school;
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Although there has been a reduction in exclusions over recent years, a significant number of young people are missing out on education through absenteeism. •
Engage in and enjoy learning in secondary and further education; There has been significant improvement in attainment at secondary stage, only one school has fewer than 30% of pupils achieve 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE or equivalent including GCSEs in English and Maths.
•
Access appropriate and impartial information, advice and guidance to support them in choosing post 16 education, employment and training. The post 16 position in Sandwell remains a key challenge. Although there has been a gradual increase in post 16 education this is not in line with national average and remains low. Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) has seen some decrease over recent years but from a poor start position. Key Areas for Action
Understanding Needs Better •
Increasing our understanding of the impact of the recession on young people.
Service Priority Actions •
Supporting young people to remain engaged with their education from transition and throughout their time at secondary school;
•
Supporting young people to achieve a good level in key areas of knowledge and skills, especially numeracy and literacy;
•
Supporting young people to be ready and equipped for the world of work;
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
•
Supporting LAC and disabled young people in their transition into adult life.
Commissioning Priorities •
Increasing the number of 17 year olds in education and training;
Priority Groups •
5.5
Looked after children, young carers, young offenders, disabled young people.
Cross Cutting Themes There are a number of themes that cut across each of the three strategic outcomes and will need to be considered in how we design and deliver services. These themes are:
5.5.1
Safeguarding Safeguarding will remain the number one priority for all children and young people. Key to this will be to continue to develop collaborate working between the Children and Young People’s Trust Board and Sandwell’s Safeguarding Children’s Board. The Trust Board will need to demonstrate to the Safeguarding Board that its partners are able to deliver not only the services that protect children and young people who are abused and neglected but also those services which will prevent children and young people being abused and neglected.
5.5.2
Focusing on the most vulnerable Those children and young people most at risk of poor outcomes will continue to be priority groups across all areas especially:
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
5.5.3
•
looked after children,
•
children with disabilities,
•
young carers
Early Intervention and prevention By striving to have the best universal and preventative services, fewer children and young people will become vulnerable to poor outcomes and those at risk will be identified and supported at the earliest opportunity.
5.5.4
Inclusion Given the growing diversity of Sandwell’s population, we need to ensure that children, young people and families from all backgrounds and circumstances are able to access services equally and have the opportunity achieve the best possible outcomes.
5.5.5
Poverty Poverty can often be the root cause of many of the issues and problems that face families leading children and young people to lack many of the experiences and opportunities that others take for granted. Sandwell, as highlighted earlier, has levels of deprivation and family poverty. Children who grow up in poverty can be exposed to severe hardship and become socially excluded. This can harm their physical, cognitive, social and emotional development resulting in lower educational attainment, low skills and poor health. Poorer outcomes for children and families affects the whole of our community not just in terms of the extra burdens and costs on public services, such as health care and children’s services but affect everybody’s day to day experiences of safety and well-being.
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Section 5
Improving Outcomes
Tackling and mitigating the effect of child poverty will help to improve children’s lives today and it will also enhance their life chances: enabling them to make the most of their talents, achieve their full potential in life and pass on the benefits to their own children. This in turn will support stronger, more cohesive and prosperous communities.
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Section 6
Delivery Priority Actions
The agreed priorities for the Plan will be delivered through an on-going process of service review and commissioning and by ensuring we have a workforce with the skills to meet the requirements of a continually more integrated way of working. The Children and Young People’s Trust Board will continue to oversee and drive the Plan and work alongside the Shadow Youth Cabinet to support the complementary priorities outlined in their manifesto. Through the strength of its local leadership and clear sense of direction, the Trust Board, Sandwell MBC and its key partners will ensure that we are “getting it right” for all Sandwell’s children, young people and families.
6.1
Partnership and Engagement Key to meeting these challenges will be how well we are able to work with Sandwell’s children, young people and families to jointly shape their future. Children, young people and their families will be supported to play a lead role in shaping their communities and in the design and delivery of services to meet the needs they identify. This will include building on the role that children, young people and families have played in the commissioning process and in the governing of services such as children’s centres and schools. The governance arrangements for enabling the most effective collaboration between all stakeholders will need to be developed to reflect the changing landscape of public service provision. The current Trust arrangements will need to be reviewed at the strategic level and will need to reflect the development of the statutory Health and WellBeing Board and the growing importance of locality working.
6.2
Service Commissioning and Review The key actions described in the previous section are high-level and intended to set the strategic intentions for critical themes. They begin
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to identify the services and the activities that are crucial for delivering better outcomes. Supporting the delivery of this plan will be the processes and the mechanisms that turn strategy into action providing the evidence on which the Children and Young People’s Trust Board can make its decisions. A detailed commissioning and service review strategy will be produced that will set out our intentions over the next three years for the commissioning and configuration of service provision. This plan will need to be owned by all Trust partners in recognition of the fact that good outcomes for children, young people and families can only be achieved through continued integrated working. The Healthy Child Programme will remain a key supporting mechanism to ensure that health outcomes for children, young people and families are met. Sandwell MBC’s Commissioning Directorate along with commissioning partners will provide the capacity and infrastructure to both lead on service commissioning and review but also to support partner agencies in their own commissioning and review activities.
6.3
Workforce Development and Integrated Working The Children, Young People and Families’ Plan needs to complement and influence the Workforce Strategy. Whilst services can be commissioned and restructured, the quality of provision will be determined by the skills and commitment of those directly delivering services.
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Emphasis will remain on key areas of the workforce namely early years and social care. However there also needs to be a focus on both the health sector and family support. The latter has developed rapidly over recent years and is crucial to the future structure of service delivery. The implementation and embedding of family support will take place during the period of the plan and provide a framework for integrated working. How services adapt to and are commissioned to facilitate this way of working will be fundamental to the holistic approach required to improve outcomes for all children, young people and their families.
6.4
How we will know we are successful Although there is no statutory requirement to have a Children and Young People’s Trust, there is still a need to have strong governance arrangements to ensure that the key areas for action are delivered. This will be supported by an infrastructure and capacity that is able to provide: •
A sophisticated understanding of need and evidence of effective practice from local and national experience and gives clear ways of measuring success;
•
A performance management framework that translates key areas into detailed actions with indicators that can be measured to help determine how well we are improving outcomes;
•
A strategic approach to resource management that provides a clear understanding of where budgets sit, what services cost and how budgets can be disaggregated. Making best use of all resources including finance, workforce, providers, buildings and community assets.
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6.5
Challenges, Risks and Issues Our ability to deliver on the priorities will be challenged by the changing policy environment in which we now have to operate. There are two main aspects to this:
6.5.1
Reduced resources but higher demand The reduction in public spending as outlined in the Comprehensive Spending Review will mean having to make difficult choices over what activities and services can be funded. These choices will have to be made at the same time as demand for services is likely to continue to increase due to the impact of the economic recession. This situation emphasises the need to have an approach to designing and delivering services that provides greater effectiveness and efficiency in the use of resources.
6.5.2
Reform of the public sector The delivery of priorities contained within the Children and Young People’s Plan are contingent on effective partnership working between all agencies that provide services for children and young people. The influence that the Council has over schools has reduced significantly in recent years with the development of Academies and Trusts, a situation that is likely to accelerate under the current Government. A similar scenario is emerging with the proposed National Health Service Reforms where GPs will have the main influence over heath resources.
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Our ability to work effectively in partnership in the future will be less determined by Government guidance and direction and more by our willingness to embrace the challenge of ‘localism’. This emphasises the point made earlier regarding the need to work closely with parents, children and young people and to have the structures and governance arrangements in place that reflect the new realities.
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