Area Coordination Management Meeting

Hyde, Hattersley and Longdendale

Time: 9.30am - 11.30am
Date:  Thursday 22nd May 2008
Venue: The Jet Centre, Hattersley

Present:

Joyce Boyd Team Manager - Youth Offending Team
Jo Brown -  Connexions
Sue Garnett  - Area Co-ordinator & Chair
Beryl Oliver - Secondary School Rep - Hyde Tech
Linda Sidebottom - Regeneration - New Charter
Liz Taylor - Assistant Team Manager - Assessment & Family Support Team
Gill Gibson - LSC - PCT
Sandra Burns - Children’s Community Nurse Team
Chris Thean - Hattersley Neighbourhood Partnership
Phil Tomlinson - JAR Co-ordinator
Jane Forrest - Joint Commissioning Manager
Mary Clowrey - Education Welfare Service
Julie Chorlton - Behaviour for Learning & Inclusion Service (BLISS)
Rekha Patel-Harrison - Area Youth Service Manager
Lindsay Patchett - Observer

Note taker: Jo Cole

Item 1: Welcome

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

Item 2: Apologies

Vicky Cuddy, Children’s Centres
Janet Cooper ,Family Support Team
Janet Rathburn, Primary School Rep - Dowson

Item 3: Notes of last meeting and matter arising

The minutes of the last meeting were accepted as a true and accurate record, with the following matters arising:

Acresfield (refers to Item 3)
Linda reported that there has been great interested in this facility.

Connexions Statistics (refers to Item 3)
Jo reported the following:
SK14 169 registered NEET
30 teen parents
OL6 115 registered NEET
27 teen parents

Jo explained that although there are 169 registered NEETs in the SK14 area, some have intensive needs and are not ready to seek employment. Jo will bring stats to the next meeting which will be broken down to show level of need.

Role of Community Link Development Worker / Madrasah Project (refers to Item 5)
Beryl reported that she has met with Navin following the last meeting and that Navin attended the ‘Feel Great’ health event at Hyde Tech. Future meetings with Navin are planned.

Area Profile (refers to Item 6)
Sue reported that someone from the Policy Team will be coming to the area co-ordinator team meeting to discuss the ‘Quality of Life’ document to ensure duplication is avoided with the Area Profiles.

‘Feel Great’ Health Week (refer to Item 11)
Beryl thanked everyone for their support for this event. Amongst others, there were stands from New Charter, SID, and Connexions.

 

Action Item	Person responsible	Deadline
Connexions statistics to be brought to the next meeting showing level of need	Jo Brown	24th July 2008

 

Item 4: JAR Presentation

Phil Tomlinson attended for this item and gave a verbal presentation on the Joint Area Review.
Presentation attached for reference.

 In response to a question, Phil explained that the YOT inspection scores will not have a direct affect on the JAR scores but the JAR score will have a direct affect on the CPA score.

Whilst discussing the priorities, Sue reported on an exercise that has recently been undertaken, ‘Turning the Curve’, which had focused on changing the outcomes for Oral Health. It was very successful and may be used in the future, focusing on other priorities.

Anybody with any questions or needing advice, please contact Phil at the above email address.

Item 5: Role of Joint Commissioning Manager

Jane Forrest attended for this item and gave a verbal presentation explaining her new role as Joint Commissioning Manager.

• The Joint Commissioning Manager is a joint funded post between the Council and the PCT. Jane sits within Services for Children and Young People, in the Strategy & Commissioning Team, headed by Tom Coffey. Jane has been in post for approximately 3 months, with David Hoyle taking over her previous role as ISA Manager. As there has never been a post of this kind within Children’s Services and the role is still being developed.
• Joint Commissioning is seen as the strategic vehicle for working with partners to improve outcomes for children and young people.
• Jane has started a piece of work around prevention that will be driven by the Prevention Strategy. This will look at the various funding streams across the agencies for the different elements of preventative work and investigate how it can be streamlined.
• There is a great deal of commissioning work taking place within Children’s Services, for example Children’s Substance Misuse, Teenage Pregnancy, Children with Disabilities, CAMHS, with 3 permanent posts focusing on the overall strategic work (Jane Forrest, Tom Coffey & Pat McKelvey).
• A Strategic Needs Assessment must be undertaken in order to determine what services are in place, where the gaps are, and how we use our existing resources.
• A robust commissioning system needs to be in place to allow us to have service specifications, quality assurance measures, and agreements of expectations from providers.
• Most importantly, we need to gather evidence to show that the provision that is in place is having a positive impact on children and young people.

Jane concluded her presentation and invited questions and comments.

Joyce
Although funding is received from various national sources going to different agencies, would it be more beneficial to pool this funding at a local level?
Jane responded by reporting that this is already done with the Substance Misuse Team. The funding currently comes from the National Treatment Agency separately to the PCT, the Council and the YOT. This money is then pooled and a local provider is then commissioned to deliver the provision.

Sue (on behalf of Vicky Cuddy)
Will funding and budgets to some extent be the responsibility of the ACMT for needs within a particular area?

Jane responded by saying that it should be needs driven but it is not known at this stage how the budgets will be devolved.

Comments were made regarding the need to look at the resources and funding available to GPs and how this can be used affectively, and how commissioning is linked to multi-agency teams being located together e.g. No. 31 Clarence Arcade.

Item 6: Hattersley 5-13 Project

Chris Thean attended for this item to ask for input and suggestions to develop options of sustainability for the Hattersley 5-13 Project which currently has funding from the Children’s Fund up to March 2009.
Chris circulated a briefing note and explained the project in more detail (attached for reference).

Any suggestions please email Chris at the email address above.

Item 7: Draft Area Action Plan 2008/09

The draft Area Action Plan was circulated prior to the meeting and Sue went through each of the action points in more detail.

The following comments and suggestions were noted:

• It is very useful when guest speakers attend - ACMT members are able to get an insight into other areas of children’s services.
• It would prove useful for frontline practitioners to shadow a practitioner from another service area in order to gain an understanding of different cultures and ways of working. It will also help to understand the levels of stress of colleagues and their capacity and diary commitments.

This could be something that is discussed in supervisions / EDRs and then managers can progress further.
Connexions have already started this process.

There was a discussion regarding the use of the common assessment form being used as the universal form for requests for service (referrals).

Sue explained that it still won’t be the ONLY form used as there sometimes may be a need for additional information in different formats. The proposal of having the one universal form is a way of reducing paperwork and duplication.
It was noted that not all practitioners feel this is an appropriate solution as the common assessment form sometimes does not address the need.

Sue suggested that David Hoyle (new ISA Manager) is invited to the next meeting. In the meantime, managers are asked to speak to their teams / colleagues and gather together questions and comments that David can answer at the next meeting. Please send these to Lindsay Patchett (at the email address above) for collation. 

Action items	Person responsible	Deadline
Gather questions and comments for David Hoyle re: common processes. Send these to Lindsay Patchett	All	17 July 08

 

Item 8: Team Review - Analysis of returns

The analysis of returns was circulated prior to the meeting and Sue went through these results in more detail. It was agreed that the results are a true reflection of the feelings of the ACMT.

In response to a comment recorded in the results regarding obtaining minutes from other area ACMT meetings, Sue explained that all the ACMT minutes are located on the Tameside public website in the CYPSP section - www.tameside.gov.uk/cypp/documents

Item 9: Common Processes

9.1: Management Information Update

• Sue reported on behalf of Janet Rathburn that Dowson have recently completed 3 common assessments. 
• The number of practitioners with information to share is slowly increasing each month.
•  If a child’s address is incorrect or is not recognised on JASPER, it will not be included in the stats report.
•  A Statement of Expectation in relation to common processes is due to be circulated to managers for dissemination to all staff. It sets out the expectations the Partnership has of the children’s workforce for their consistent use of ‘Common Processes’, underpinned by effective information sharing.

9.2: CAF and Referrals

The advert for the CAF Adviser has been emailed out to schools. Responses have already been received and the interest is positive.
Once the CAF Adviser is in post, the CAF champion roles will be developed.
David Hoyle, the new ISA Manager is very keen to attend a future ACMT meeting to discuss common processes issues and answer any questions.

9.3: FAQs and Training

• Sue reported that details of Common Processes workshops will be circulated soon - these being open to all staff working with children and young people. 
• A list of FAQs will soon be published on SID. Managers and staff are encouraged to access these questions and suggest new ones to be published the next month.

Sue will give a further update at the next meeting.

Item 10: Fire / Smoke Alarms

In Vicky Cuddy’s absence Sue explained that the reason for this item on the agenda today is to raise the issue of obtaining the addresses of families within the Bangladeshi community in order to allow the Fire Service to install smoke alarms, and discuss ways forward.

Suggestion were made as follows:

• Training the Trainer course (similar thing has been done for first aid).
• Linking with T3SC within the community.
• Beryl has links with the Bangladeshi Welfare Association with some being members of the Parent Voice group at Hyde Tech - Beryl will raise this issue at that forum. Could also been done through citizenship lessons.

Vicky will be contacted to suggest this item is added to the agenda for 24th July to ensure a fuller discussion takes place.

Action items	Person responsible	Deadline
Contact Vicky to add this item to 24th July agenda.	Sue	10th July 2008

 Item 11: Good news items

Linda
Residents groups in Dukinfield, Crowswood and Mossley working and training with Groundwork on open play areas.

Julie
The EBD Outreach Team are now known as BLISS - Behaviour for Learning and Inclusion Service.
There are no changes in the actual service.

Beryl
The Parents Voice group at Hyde Tech are developing a school calendar to raise school funds. Anyone wishing to advertise or have their logo on the back, please contact Beryl as soon as possible. All donations gratefully received. Year 11 GCSE art work has been used for each page of the calendar.

The plan for the future is to develop a joint, sponsored calendar and possibly have competitions to decide the content e.g. pictures, creative writing, photographs, models, etc. Details of events could also appear on the back.

Gill indicated that if a future calendar has a health theme there would be PCT money available.

Everyone agreed this was a very positive idea for integrated working. Beryl will bring the finished version to the meeting in July.

Action Items	Person Responsible	Deadline
Contact Beryl if you wish to advertise in the calendar	All	ASAP

 

Item 12: AOB

Sue announced that she is retiring at the end of September 2008 and requested that the meeting scheduled for 2nd October be changed to September.

It was agreed that the meeting will take place on Tuesday 23rd September, 9.30 - 11.30am. Linda has offered to provide a buffet lunch and a tour of the New Charter building following the meeting.

Sue thanked Jo for the admin support provided for the past 18 months and welcomed Lindsay as the new administration officer.

The meeting closed at 12.00
Next Meeting 24th July Youth Offending Team - Clarence Arcades  9-30am
Sue thanked the Jet Centre for their kind hospitality.