Positive Contribution Theme Group

Minutes

Time: 9.30-11.00am
Date: 02 May 2007
Venue:The Jet Centre, Fields Farm Road, Hattersley

Present:

• Claire Bibby (Chair)
• Julie Lord (Theme Coordinator)
• Maurice Smith
• Catherine Mee
• Gideon Smith
• John Whittle
• Sue Nathan
• Caroline Gregory
• Lisa Hoyland

Note Taker: Julie Lord

1. Welcome

Claire welcomed everyone to this first Positive Contribution theme group meeting.

2. Apologies

Received from:

• Debbie Holland
• Jean Quinn
• Sandra Willans

3. Membership of the group

Claire asked everyone to introduce themselves and talk about which groups they link to.

Maurice Smith: Education Advisor to schools with responsibility for Citizenship & Religion.

• Supports the development of Eco-schools in primary & secondary schools
• Supports secondary citizenship teachers
• A member of the Participation Network
• Supports the Inter-faith Network.

Lisa Hoyland: works in the economic development unit to support the development of enterprising behaviour.

• Links with economic and learning partnership
• Tameside Business Family
• Education Business Partnership
• Links with businesses, developers and investors.

Catherine Mee: Parenting Facilitator for the Primary Care Trust, trains staff to deliver parenting courses and carries out research into parenting.

• Links with Health Visitors, School Nurses
• Links with staff from L.A.

Gideon Smith: works in Public Health.

• Has a strategic overview for Children & Young People
• Has the Prevention brief
• Develops the Needs Assessment.

John Whittle: Manages the Youth Offending Team (YOT)

• YOT is a multi-agency team
• Links with the crime & disorder partnership
• Links with Greater Manchester Crime Partnership, the courts, Police and Crown Prosecution Service.
• Links with education, substance misuse and young people's accommodation.
• Links with Youth Justice Board (YJB)

Sue Nathan: Operational Manager for the Youth Service. The service works with young people during the day, evening and at weekends, providing positive opportunities and involving young people in consultation opportunities.

• Chairs the Participation Network
• Develops relationships with the voluntary sector
• Manages the Youth Opportunity Fund

Claire Bibby: Manager of Inclusive Services, which includes:

• Children with disabilities
• Education Psychology
• The BEST team
• Behaviour improvement
• COLT(Consolidation of Learning Team) formerly known as TRASST
• Assessment, Review & Monitoring
• Pupil Referral Units.

Julie Lord: Area Coordinator for Dukinfield, Stalybridge, Mossley, theme coordinator for Positive Contributions.

• Links into Children's Fund
• Links into Domestic Abuse
• Links into Anti-Bullying
• Links into education transitions group
• Links into Participation Network
• Developing Parent Support Strategy

Caroline Gregory: Member of the Community Regeneration Team to readdress the balance and inequalities of communities, with a remit to improve health, attainment and reduce young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).

• Links into area coordination
• Young People are a priority for all Regeneration areas
• Improves the physical places to go and the community.

Judith Grigg the newly appointed Associate Director from the PCT will also be joining the group.

C.B. asked if the group thought there were any gaps in the membership, further education was suggested. Community Safety???

4. Outcome Sub themes

C.B. went through the terms of reference, which have been agreed by the Children & Young People's Strategic Partnership (CYPSP). Section 3 and 6 was focussed on which related to the functions and the main focus of the theme group.

J.L. talked to the document which set out all the outcome sub-themes from Every Child Matters, Local Priorities in the Children & Young People's Plan (CYPP), the key area of improvement from the Area Performance Assessment (APA) 2006, targets from the Local Area Agreement (LAA) and a focus on the self assessed red areas of the health National Service Framework (NSF) standards.

The group discussed about how we would address cross-cutting themes, as many of them also applies to other outcomes. J.W. spoke about the difficulties of providing evidence in different formats. S.N. talked about how important it was to celebrate the achievements of young people. M.S. asked the question how we could capture the global activities of young people for example, fund raising for Red Nose Day. The comment was also made that this had to be much broader than the JAR inspection and we wanted positive outcomes for all young people.

There was a request to send out the membership of the other theme groups.

Action: Julie to send out membership of the other theme groups.

5. How do we approach this?

There was a whole group discussion to how we go about this. There was a suggestion about taking an area and exploring that. G.S. stated that the N.S.F. was one of the biggest sources of information. It was felt the group needed to look at the sub themes and key outcomes. S.N. suggested celebrating what has been achieved and focusing on the neediest group of children and young people. The focus on geographical areas was discussed but this falls into the remit of Area Coordination Management Teams (ACMT).

J.L. informed the group that Positive Contributions had to be reported to the CYPSP at the August meeting and talked to the group about the report card format which had been adopted by the CYPSP as a method of reporting. A copy of a completed report card was passed round for information.

The group needs to think about which area is focused on first.

Action: Julie to send out information on the sub themes and key outcomes. Members of the group to think about which area to focus on first.

6. AOB

None.

7. Frequency, dates, times, venues of future meetings

Next meeting: Friday 22 June 1.00-2.30pm @ the Portland Centre in Ashton

Future meetings:

Wednesday 19 September 9.30-11.00 @ the Jet Centre, Hattersley

Wednesday 31 October 9.30-11.00 @ the Jet Centre, Hattersley