Supporting Children and Young People to Achieve Economic Wellbeing

Notes of Meeting

Time: 9.00
Date: 11th March 2009
Venue: Greenside Children’s Centre
Chair: Lucy Davies

Note taker: Lindsay Patchett

Attendance:

Bob Shaw  - Area Co-ordinator and Theme Lead, TMBC
Lucy Davies - Head of Access & Equality and Chair, TMBC
Hazel North -  LDS
Alan Franco  - TMBC
Viv Robinson  -  Job Centre Plus
Tracy Fishwick -  Inclusion
John Symington  -  TMBC
Thomas Johnson  -  TMBC
Vicky Cuddy -  Children’s Centres, TMBC
G Smith -  TMBC
Phil Spence - TMBC

1. Welcome and Introductions

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

2. Apologies

Sheila Piazza – Connexions
Andrew Leah – TMBC
Steve Openshaw
Caroline Gregory

3. Minutes of the Last Meeting

Deferred to next meeting due to time restraints

4. Matters Arising

Deferred to next meeting due to time restraints

Item 5: Theme for the Meeting:

Action is taken by partners to support families in maximising their economic well-being

5.1 Tracy Fishwick introduced herself and gave details of her role.

Tracy is working in areas in the North West on Child Poverty and Strategic Support.
Tracy gave a brief outline on “Inclusion” which is an online toolkit on Child Poverty its main purpose being a platform to start to share information.

Tracy gave a presentation regarding Child Poverty and the background to the Child Poverty Bill.

Following the presentation the group took part in a short awareness raising quiz on Child Poverty.

A further presentation was given by Tracy based on the Child Poverty toolkit for Tameside which was then followed by a group discussion.

Thomas Johnson distributed a piece of work he had produced showing areas where Child Poverty is most prevalent and indicating where action was needed. This information is used for the profile areas for targeted work especially outreach work to engage more people with Children’s Centres and extended schools.

The group split into 2 smaller groups:-

1 group to discuss areas that are heartening
1 group to discuss areas that are troubling.

At the end of this activity a list was drawn up of priority actions

These priority actions were set out as:

1. Engage with every family claiming HB to offer support and choice to them to improve their quality of life
2. Gain more intelligence on the variables affecting those areas where there are more than 162 – 275 (highest density) children claiming HB to develop localised solutions
3. Ensure BSF contractor delivers local economic benefit and extended schools in pre and post construction phase
4. Ensure resources are targeted appropriately (intelligence led etc)
5. ensure commitment from all partners in the TSP
6. Be clear about an aspirations strategy and what we mean by that
7. Harness all new initiatives and ensure we maximise child poverty outcomes
8. Revisit the aims and objectives of the local lifelong learning agenda – link to intergenerational poverty / change etc
   

Item 6: Date and Venue of Next meeting

13th May 2009, Greenside Children’s Centre