Tameside Children's Trust

Every Child Matters

Our vision and aspirations for children and young people

Our shared vision is for all children and young people to aim high and realise their ambitions with the support of their families and communities. We will put children and young people at the centre of all we do, enabling them to have choices, equal life chances and a voice in shaping their future. We will also ensure that parents and carers are listened to and their views acted upon, whilst, at the same time, ensuring services are fit for purpose. We have also agreed on some key principles and values to underpin our partnership working.

A needs assessment

We have considered the needs of children and young people in Tameside against the five every child matters outcomes and from the perspective of children with specific needs. We have also taken into account the views of children and young people and of partners. This analysis has led to the identification of a number of indications for action, which have formed the basis of our commissioning intentions.

Further reflection on these indications for action has also enabled the Children’s Trust to identify an initial set of six priorities for 2011-2012, as follows:

SP 1. Promote healthy lifestyles with particular focus on obesity and alcohol

SP 2. Improve emotional health and wellbeing for all young people and their Families

SP 3. Promote the safety of all children and young people in all settings with a focus on domestic violence

SP 4. Increase the proportion of young people moving into education, employment, training and promote positive role models

SP 5. Continue to raise attendance and attainment at all phases of learning with a strategic focus on vulnerable children, looked after children and continue to narrow the gap for the lowest achieving children

SP 6. Reduce the rates of teenage Pregnancy

Children’s Trust Arrangements in Tameside

Partnership working is well developed in Tameside and we will build on this over the next three years, ensuring that the partnership has a stronger commissioning role and can act as an effective Children’s Trust. Membership is being extended and a more robust supporting infrastructure put in place. A range of subgroups, working groups and fora have clear roles to support the delivery of our joint priorities and ensure the views of children and young people are at the heart of everything we do. At the same time we will continue to improve and develop integrated processes and integrated front-line service delivery.

Commissioning Approach and Intentions

Our approach to commissioning and planning has been significantly strengthened, and the commissioning cycle (understand, plan, do, act) has informed our approach to the CYPP as a whole. The indications for action, arising from our needs assessment, have formed the basis of our commissioning intentions, and we will be taking forward a strategic commissioning programme based on the key priorities we have identified.

Delivery Arrangements

This Trust has identified the key actions that it will take over the course of the plan linked to the indications for action and the strategic priorities identified within the needs assessment. These are set out within the local delivery plan, which will provide the Trust with the means to continually monitor and evaluate progress and make informed judgements about how effective partners have been in meeting their objectives to cooperate to improve outcomes.

Performance management arrangements

Our approach to partnership performance management systematically considers performance against the key national indicators, supported by relevant benchmarking tools, together with performance assessment data from Ofsted.
In addition, the relevant partnership or strategy groups will monitor the progress of the key actions set out in the Trust’s delivery plan and report to the Board on an exception basis. However, in the light of experience, these arrangements are subject to review and refinement.

Conclusion

Our CYPP represents our vision and aspirations for children and young people in Tameside, setting out how partners will work together to improve the well-being of children and young people in the Borough.

Children’s Trust Boards will be placed on a statutory footing from April 2010 and will assume responsibility for developing, publishing and reviewing the CYPP which was purely a local authority responsibility before that time.

Draft guidance1 was published in November 2009 to support the production of local CYPPs and this has informed our approach.

In keeping with this guidance, Tameside’s CYPP does a number of things:

First and foremost, it sets out our vision and aspirations for children and young people in the Borough.

It then presents a comprehensive needs assessment for children and young people against the five Every Child Matters outcomes, supplemented by a focus on children with specific needs who are more vulnerable as a result of those needs. This, together with a consideration of the views of children and young people and of partners, has enabled us to identify a number of key messages as a basis for setting strategic priorities.

The Children & Young People's Plan 2010-2013 2.18 MB   next describes Children’s Trust arrangements in Tameside, setting them in the context of other local strategies and partnerships and describes arrangements for co-operation in key areas such as workforce development and early intervention.

In the light of the needs assessment and the identified priorities, the CYPP goes on to set out our commissioning intentions and arrangements for resourcing and delivering the plan, together with performance management, monitoring and reporting arrangements.

Our approach is fully consistent with Tameside’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) 2007/8 (published in February 2009) which identified the current and future health and well-being needs of the local population.

It also builds firmly on the earlier CYPP for 2007-2010 and the strong culture of partnership working that underpinned it and that has existed in Tameside for many years.

The broader context in which the CYPP is to be delivered is particularly complex and is characterised by an economic climate that will require partners to be highly innovative and creative as they seek new ways to work together to improve the well-being of children and young people. Resources will continue to be in great demand and will need to be deployed efficiently and imaginatively, with a focus on early intervention and an understanding of the impact of particular actions on the whole system..

Children’s Trust Arrangements will continue to deliver on actions articulated in the Children and Young People's Plan which support the six strategic priorities. This also includes further embedding common processes; further integrating frontline services by establishing COMPASS early intervention teams, aligned to the four areas, through redesign of existing provision into multi-agency teams; implementing Think Family reform; ensuring that the workforce is equipped to deliver our joint priorities and implementing a programme of service design /re-design as part of the approach to joint commissioning