Area Coordination Management Meeting

Stalybridge, Dukinfield and Mossley

Minutes

Time: 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Date: Thursday 5th July 2007
Venue: Micklehurst All Saints C of E Primary School

Present:

• Julie Lord - Area Co-ordinator
• Linda Sidebottom - New Charter
• Pauline Venus - Youth Service
• Liz Price - Education Welfare
• Gabrielle Bold - Stalybridge Family Support Team
• Rachel McHugh - Children's Centres
• Anne Short - Primary School Rep Yew Tree
• Gillian Barratt - Primary School Rep Micklehurst All Saints
• Tracy Wood - PCT
• Rosemary Mallace - Connexions

Note Taker: Jo Cole (Rachel Lees observer)

Item 1: Welcome

Julie welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made around the table.

Item 2: Apologies

• Kathleen Nickson - Inclusive Services
• Sue Collins - Primary School Rep - Arlies Primary School

Item 3: Notes of last meeting and matter arising

The minutes were accepted as a true and accurate records, with the following matter arising:

Item 3

The bid to the CWDC for CAF Champion was unsuccessful. Other avenues are being explored.

Item 8

Julie has requested data from Jane Forrest regarding the percentage of people who have completed the CAF training and this will be fed back to the meeting once received.

Item 4: Managers' Updates

Rachel

• The building of the Micklehurst Children's Centre looks set to begin in October 2007, with a completion date of September 2008.
• The keys will be handed over for the Ridgehill Children's Centre on Monday 9 th July. Rachel had a tour of the completed building yesterday, and recruitment has already begun.
• Rachel gave an update on behalf of Pauline Daniels on the Teens and Toddlers Programme.
• The outline of the programme has been sent to headteachers.
• Ridgehill Primary School and Ridgehill Children's Centre are both willing to sign up and are very supportive.
• At Yew Tree Primary School , the headteacher is very supportive and is willing to sign up. She has passed the information on to staff and is waiting for a response.
• The identified candidate from Connexions have had the first meeting this week, with more training to follow in September.

Item 5.1: Area Action Plan

2.1 and 2.2 – CAF Sampling Feedback and Draft Flowchart

CAF Sampling Feedback

Julie explained the feedback the area co-ordinators had received from the CAF Sampling exercise. A point to note is that there had been some confusion between CAFs and Child and Family meetings (C+F) so the data received is somewhat distorted. There is clearly an issue with language, which needs addressing. The area co-ordinators want to see this exercise repeated in order to identify trends.

Comments were welcomed.

Gabrielle

The Family Team are currently in the process of changing their process, and any meeting that takes place with the family will be known as a Child and Family Meeting. This may distort the data even further.

Anne

It is clear from this data that Child and Family Meetings are taking place, but CAFs are not be completed. The reason for this could be that people do not have the time to complete a CAF on top of existing workloads.

Draft Flowchart

Julie then explained the motivation behind and the purpose of the CAF wall chart. The wall chart consists of two Common Assessment Framework diagrams and a flowchart devised by the area co-ordinators. The flowchart is to assist service providers when going through the CAF process.

Comments were welcomed.

Liz

There is conflicting information between the flowchart and the CAF training. The flowchart states to assign a Lead Professional before establishing need. The training advises people that if the need is level 1 or 2, a CAF does not need to be done, therefore and Lead Professional does not to be assigned.

General CAF Feedback

Liz

• A CAF doesn't need completing if services are already working effectively together.
• General feedback from EWOs is they are the only ones logging anything on JASPER - why is this?

Julie responded by agreeing that there are issues regarding access to JASPER, due to training and CRB checks.

Anne

• Sometimes it is not always practical and necessary to complete a CAF. Often, a meeting develops into a Child and Family Meeting once need has been established and highlighted. By that point, the agencies needed are already engaged and plans are already being implemented.
• Completing a CAF can often slow down the process of providing services to children, for examples, when getting parental consent.

Julie

• Other authorities have multi-agency meetings, where practitioners look at particular cases.
• Derbyshire Council have budget-holding Lead Professionals who can fund resources for children and families.
• Bob has visited colleagues in Stockport and has reported that 2 CAFs are being completed each week. Children's Social Care in Stockport will not accept a referral without a CAF.

Rosemary

• CAFs are useful when young people are getting the ‘brush off' from service providers - ensures they engage.

Tracy

• Successful CAFs have been completed in cases of severe medical needs.
• Only need to complete a CAF when there's an unmet need that can not be resolved.
• CAFs can identify areas of need - this can eventually lead to extra services being commissioned.

Item 5.2: Area Action Plan

4.4 – Twice Yearly Meetings

The purpose of these meetings is extended membership - to include the wider audience e.g. patrollers, the police, the fire service, parents, resident groups, community forums, etc.

Julie explained the draft programme and invited comments and ideas. A date, time and venue need to be decided.

The purpose of the proposed presentations from Sports Development and Children's Centres is to raise the awareness of what these services can offer.

Anne

• What are people going to gain from attending? What will attract them to attend?

Rachel

• This can go on the agenda at her parents group meeting to establish what parents would like to see at the meeting and what they want to gain from it.

General suggestions

• Change the name - the name at the moment doesn't explain the purpose or reason behind it. Make it more child and family friendly - maybe call it ‘What's on for you in your area'.
• Services providers could have stalls to showcase their services, rather than doing a presentation.
• There should be an event in each of the 3 areas with the same agendas.
• Could the event be sponsored by local businesses / have presence from a local celebrity?

Item 6: Area Action Plan Update

Julie explained that the latest version of the area Action Plan has progress updates. The Action Plan will be an item on the agenda at each meeting, in order to provide an update on progress made.

Item 7: Incident in Cheethams Park

Following an incident in which a young woman was assaulted and mugged in Cheethams Park , Julie opened up the discussion to establish ways in which the park could be made a safer place. The victim concerned is looking at fundraising ideas to provide extra security for the park. Julie explained that extra lighting and CCTV are not an option due to the size of the park and the close proximity of some houses, the possibility of extra patrols are being explored.

A discussion followed regarding possible outreach work in the park and co-ordinating the services of the police and patrollers.

Action items:	Person responsible:	Deadline:
Linda to establish if there's a PAT?? Meeting for the Cheethams Park area, and whether the young woman would be able to attend.	Linda	As soon as possible.
Julie to contact Steve Dix – Tameside's Partnership Inspector at Greater Manchester Police	Julie	As soon as possible.

Item 8: News from around the area

Linda

• A residents groups event is taking place on Saturday 7 th July, 12.30 - 3.30, to celebrate National Play Day. Depending on the weather, it will either be held on Mansfield Road field (Mossley) or at Micklehurst All Saints Primary School.
• There is also an information event being held at Micklehurst Primary on 1 st August.

Julie

• Also to celebrate National Play Day, there is an event taking place in Hyde Park on 5 th August.
• Julie gave an update on the Parent Support Strategy which she is producing with Catherine Mee from the PCT. The Strategy should be complete in October/November 2007.
  There is the possibility of providing short workshops, as opposed to the current longer parenting courses, and promoting these with local businesses for their employees i.e. Tameside Council, the PCT, Tescos, Asda and IKEA.

Rachel

• A family-friendly ‘What's On' guide has been produced for Ridgehill, pooling together information from a number of service providers. This will be jointly distributed to 2500 addresses in the area. If it is a success, it could be something that can be looked at for other areas.
• From this, it is quite apparent that there is a huge gap in provision for the 6-10 age group, apart from chargeable sporting activities at Copley and West Hill.

Pauline

• The official opening of Blocksages in Dukinfield is on 27th July, 10.00 - 1.00.
• The official opening of the Mossley Youth Base is on 1st August. This coincides with the information event being held at Micklehurst School .
• Pauline has met with the organisers of the Mossley Music Festival, taking place on 25th and 26th August, looking at getting young people involved.

Julie suggested for Pauline to contact Mossley Hollins, as there are a number of young people at the school who are willing to volunteer for various projects.

Rosemary

This year saw a high number of NEETs and Rosemary asks that everyone refers appropriate Year 11s to the Connexions service.

Action items:	Person responsible:	Deadline:
Rachel to email Julie a copy of the Ridgehill What's On guide	Rachel	As soon as possible.
Pauline and Linda to discuss how the two events at Micklehurst can be integrated	Pauline / Linda	1 August 2007
Pauline to contact Mossley Hollins regarding student volunteers	Pauline	25 August 2007

The meeting closed at 15.45

Glossary

• ACMT Area Co-ordination Management Team
• BEST Behaviour and Education Support Team
• CAF Common Assessment Framework
• CAMHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service
• CLT Children's Leadership Team
• COLT Consolidation of Learning Team
• CRB Criminal Records Bureau
• CWDC Children's Workforce Development Council
• CYPSP Children and Young People Strategic Partnership
• ECM Every Child Matters
• EWO Education Welfare Officer
• JAR Joint Area Review
• JASPER Joint Assessment System for Prevention and Early Referral
• NEET Not in Education, Employment or Training
• NOF New Opportunities Fund
• PCT Primary Care Trust
• RASH Ridgehill, Arlies, Springs & Hague
• SEN Special Educational Needs
• SENCO Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator
• SCYP Services for Children and Young People
• T3SC Tameside Third Sector Coalition
• TASH Tameside Association of Secondary Head teachers
• TRASST Traveller, Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support Team
• VCF Voluntary, Community, Faith (sector)
• YOF Youth Opportunity Fund