Area Coordination Management Meeting

Denton, Droylsden and Audenshaw

Time: 10.00
Date: Friday 9th May 2008
Venue: Greenside Children’s Centre

Present:

• Bob Shaw Area Coordinator & Chair
  
• Sue Lennie Secondary School Rep – St Thomas More
  
• Phil Massey Primary School Rep – St Stephen’s
  
• Lynn Barber Children’s Centres and Extended Schools
  
• Diane King Youth Service
  
• Chris Harris Connexions 
  
• Lynn Jenkinson Droylsden School
  
• Paul Dodd Youth Offending Team
  
• Debbie Duddridge Family Support Team Manager
  
• Tracey Rowe Assessment Team Manager
  
• Lorna Grennan PCT 
  

Note taker: Jo Cole

 Item 1: Welcome

Bob welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for their attendance.

Item 2: Apologies

• John Rogers Primary School Rep
• Maureen Wallis Senior Education Welfare Officer

Item 3: Notes of last meeting and matter arising

Item 5 – Denton South Neighbourhood Renewal Programme

Bob, Lynn and Diane gave an update on progress since the last ACMT meeting.
Two 2 hour sessions has taken place to bring key partner agencies together to review the action plan and look at the content of a new plan.

The event was a success and highlighted issues and ideas for the future. The partnership forged from this is very strong and could possibly be used as a model of good practice for other areas.
The ultimate aim is to develop a 7 day service for young people and this will be possible if all key agencies in the area are working together to improve outcomes for children and young people.
The event was also a good opportunity to gain an understanding of the demographics of the area.
The area has seen many positive changes, including:

• reduction in anti social behaviour
• Park and play area have been refurbished with a new multi-games area being used by young people.
• The bowling green has been re-established, with two generations working together to teach and learn the art of bowling.
• A new neighbourhood ‘green’ centre has been built.
• The A* - C GSCE stats have shown a positive increase – 29% in 2006, 42% in 2008. It is appropriate to be cautious about these positive figures but necessary to relook at them once we have a 5-year trend.

Item 4 - Service Information Directory

This has now been re-launched and Bob has circulated the link via email. Please try and familiarise yourself with it as it is mentioned in the Area Action Plan. This will be discussed further under Item 4 on today’s agenda.
Tracey commented that she found the new SID system harder to use. Bob suggested Tracey use the feedback page on SID. All comments welcome.

Item 4 - Audit Commission Survey Presentation on Outcomes

Bob acknowledged that he has not yet circulated the Audit Commission Survey presentation. Bob will follow this up.

Item 4 - Area Profile

Future area profiles will be linked to the new National Indicator Set.
It was acknowledged that not many people present at the meeting are familiar with the National Indicator Set and the Outcome Framework. It was agreed that it would be useful for Bob to explain this further at a future meeting.

Item 4: Draft Area Action Plan 2008/09

Bob explained that the Action Plan is currently in draft form until it has been to all the ACMT meetings and to the Children’s Leadership Team meeting.
Bob went through each section of the Action Plan with the following points to note:

2.4 – Support and promote the implementation of a school based risk assessment model that will help identify children and young people who are vulnerable and ensure its integration with common processes.

Malcolm expanded on this. By using stats in a better way from all agencies, a traffic light system can be used to flag up vulnerable children and young people. It will probably be developed through a piloting exercise.

Bob commented that this should be linked effectively to the common processes.

5 – Develop area-based family information service and marketing activities / plans

Bob announced the latest proposal to produce a local ‘What’s On’ leaflet for each area on a monthly basis. This will involve the contributors of the information on SID to ensure it is constantly up-to-date as this information will then be used by the Family Information Service to produce the leaflets.
Comments were made:

Diane
People may not remember to update their information. It would need to be managed well.

Tracey
Some agencies would have to do more work than others as their events change regularly.

Lyn
There are plasma screens at Droylsden School – the ‘What’s On’ information could run on them.

Malcolm
Gets a bit more complicated when asking schools to distribute these leaflets if the school has pupils living in different areas. The same applies for PRUs and special schools.

Comments regarding the content of the Area Profile were welcomed.

Diane
Would like to see something tackling the quality of spaces for young people as this is a big issue. Need more useful spaces.

Any more comments please Send Bob a message 

Item 5: Parent Power: A Strategy for Supporting and Involving Parents in Tameside

Lynn Barber took the lead on this item and explained that a strategy has been developed entitled Parent Power.

• There are two elements to the Strategy:

Supporting parents – via looking at a range of services across the parenting needs framework (this is different to the children’s needs framework but does mirror it).

Involving parents – via consultation with parents.

• The Strategy has been developed by a multi-agency reference group and the parenting strategy group.
• It has links to the 5 outcomes and other children and young people strategies.
• A needs analysis has been undertaken and objectives have been agreed to drive the strategy forward.
• An action plan is being developed.
• A Parenting Strategy Support Manager will soon be appointed (advertised externally – closing date 16th May) and will work closely with the PCT.
• A Participation Manager, Parenting ‘Experts’ and Parenting Support Advisers will also soon be appointed.
• All agencies will have an input to ensure a more coordinated approach, with a range of services being delivered in each area.
• When the Strategy is finalised, an options paper will be given to senior managers for them to consider the sustainability of the programme.
• The Strategy will then be published on the website and will come back to this meeting for further discussion.
• The different Parenting Orders can be linked together with the Parenting Needs Framework as currently Parenting Orders are issued for youth offences, school attendance, and behaviours in schools, and also by New Charter.
• It was acknowledged that the main purpose of this strategy is to reduce the number of statutory measures being taken by early intervention.

It was agreed that it would be useful for Lynn to circulate the Parenting Needs Framework.

A discussion followed regarding the possible gaps in provision and the remit of Connexions, Children’s Social Care, Children’s Rights Service, Family First Team and Housing Options was looked at.

Item 6: Common Processes

6.1: Management Information Update

The JASPER statistics up to 30th April 2008 were circulated at the meeting.

Looking at the borough wide statistics, it is encouraging to see the number of practitioners who are declaring that they have information to share.
The number of common assessments undertaken and the number of lead professionals assigned are slowly increasing.
A slight concern is that the number of Actions Taken has decreased.
The possible reasons for the high number in November are:

1. the launch of the two frameworks in October
2. the activity within connexions when PAs go into schools and identify young people to work with – these go on JASPER in November.

It would be interesting to see the difference in numbers if any during the school summer holidays in August. This will show if schools are using JASPER.

Tracey commented that the internal stats she has up to the end of April show a lot more common assessments being undertaken that what appears on these figures. This could possibly indicate an issue with people loading the information on to JASPER.

It was acknowledged that some people don’t have CRBs or enhanced CRBs so are unable to input on to JASPER.

There is an issue of children and young people living at addresses outside Tameside that won’t appear on JASPER although they will be known to various agencies in the borough. This issue should be resolved when ContactPoint is operational next year as this system will be nation wide.

Bob indicated that it would be useful for him and the other Area Coordinators to undertake some further work on this to establish actually how many CAFs have been done and to investigate why they are not on JASPER.

6.2: CAF and Referral
A Statement of Expectations has been approved at a recent Children’s Leadership Team meeting.
This will be going to the CYPSP and will then be widely circulated to staff in all partner agencies.
These expectations include the alignment of CAFs and referrals as discussed at recent meetings

CAF Adviser
Bob reminded everyone of the proposal for the CAF Adviser and gave an update on progress.
A job description has been written but some revision is needed.

6.3: FAQs and Training

Training
Bob reported that there are currently two sessions available to practitioners.

1. Training for Trainers Programme – a specific list of people have been invited on this course but if other people are interested in becoming a trainer, please contact Bob who can pass your details on to Lynn Ready and you will then be invited to attend the course.
2. Common Processes Workshops – there will be a workshop for each area with the expectation being that one will take place per half term, commencing after the May half term holiday. Approximately 20 practitioners will attend from all agencies and backgrounds. This should provide a good mix of people. There will be an opportunity to do ‘dummy’ common processes with partners.

FAQs
The proposal for this is to publish the top ten FAQs on the practitioner forum on SID. Practitioners are to be encouraged to log in to the forum to access these questions and then to ask others. These new questions will form a new top ten the next month.

There was also an (anonymous) casework discussion related to common processes centered on a young person at High School. This was helpful in the sense that the discussion led to a common appreciation that the circumstances indicated that a Common Assessment is likely the most desirable next step.

Item 7: Team review – Analysis of Returns

The updated feedback was circulated at the meeting and Bob went through the responses in more detail explaining that the response rate was just under 50%.
It was agreed that the responses were a good reflection of the overall view of ACMT members.

Item 8: Future Speakers / Topical Issues

Lorna took the lead in this item and posed the question of whether it would be beneficial to use this meeting as a forum to invite guest speakers.
It was agreed that this would be useful with suggestions being made to invite health reps (school nurse was mentioned), and a lead person on Teenage Pregnancy.
Lorna explained that she will email everyone to ask who they feel would be useful to invite.
Bob reported that Sue Jones from the Family Information Service has expressed an interest in attending the next meeting as a guest speaker. This will be useful for members to gain an understanding of what this service offers.

Item 9: Droylsden Network Event – April 29th – report back

Lynn Barber took the lead on this and gave an update on the network event which took place on 29th April.
It was held at Fairfield over a lunch time and 22 people attended from Homestart, schools, parent and toddler groups, regeneration, health, & New Charter.
From that they asked people for ideas for future networking events. It was decided that each event will focus on a different one of the five outcomes. The next one will take place in June and will focus on staying safe, in conjunction with the lead up to the summer school holidays.
Links were made at the first one with contact details being exchanged for future working.

Bob / Lynn will circulate a flyer for the June event when ready. Please advise Bob or Lynn of anybody that was not included on the first invite list.

Item 10: Future Chairing

Bob is willing to continue to chair the meeting but also recognises that there may be someone who feels they would like to become involved. It was agreed that Bob has done an excellent job of chair so far and it would be sensible for him to continue.

Members are welcomed and encouraged to suggest agenda items. Please send them to Bob no later than two weeks prior to the meeting.

Item 11: Date of Next Meeting

Bob reminded everyone that the next meeting takes place on Friday 18th July, 10.00 – 12.00, at Greenside Children’s Centre.

Item 12: Any Other Business

Paul Dodd reported on the new consultation and guidance around the introduction of the involvement of police schools and children’s homes for police involvement in schools and the behaviour orders that can result. The YOT are currently in discussion with the GMP and a period of wider consultation will follow.