Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership
What have we done so far?
These are some of the main events undertaken by the CYPSP in the last year. Please see the newsletters under documents for more information.
Priorities 2008-2009
The annual priorities meeting between the Department for Children Schools and Families took place and agreed 6 priorities. These priorities were agreed following discussion at the Children and Young People Strategic Partnership about what our joint priorities needed to be to improve outcomes for children in Tameside.
The 6 priorities are:.
- Promote healthy lifestyles with particular focus on Obesity and Oral health
- Improve Emotional Health and Wellbeing for all young people
- Increase the proportion of young people moving into education, employment and training
- Continue to raise attainment at all phases of learning with strategic focus on under-achieving groups and schools.
- Reduce the rates of Teenage Pregnancy
- Continue to reduce the gap in the outcomes of Looked After Children and other vulnerable groups.
Case Studies
Carrie, aged 20, writes…
I started accessing SureStart when I found out I was pregnant I had just turned 18. I met a fantastic SureStart worker who was looking to set up a group to help support pregnant teens like myself through their pregnancy and birth. I really enjoyed attending this group as everyone there did not judge and was really supportive of the decisions I made. I decided to breastfeed my daughter but was concerned about what other people would think. The SureStart workers and everyone else in the group gave me lots of support and I realised that it did not matter what other people thought as I was doing the best for my daughter. After I had Erin-Leigh, who is now two, I decided to volunteer and support other breastfeeding young parents. I took part in a La Leche League training course to become a Peer Supporter.
As my daughter got older I helped to set up a tots group for young parents with some other young parents from the pregnancy group. I was very active in setting up the group. We received training from SureStart and TOPS, now called the Family Information Service. I took my daughter to the tots group every week and had a great time. I was recently successful in getting a job at St Peters Children’s Centre as a Community Project Worker, and I think this was a result of volunteering with SureStart St Peters and building up my skills and confidence. I now support other young parents to enjoy to the tots group and hope to give them the same level of support I was lucky enough to receive. I am really proud to say I work at St Peter’s Children’s Centre and would like to show other young parents that you can still be successful in a career.
Carrie is a Community Project Worker for St Peter’s Children’s Centre.
School Councils play a vital role
School Councils have been shown to be able to play a vital role in the life of a school. Effective school councils canpromote a sense of shared ownership of and responsibility for the school and encourage pupils to take an active role in school life. They can also improve communication between pupils and staff and reduce disaffection by promoting positive behaviour. In short, they demonstrate a strong working partnership between pupils and teachers. School councils enable pupils to contribute to their class and school community increases children’s self esteem. At the same time, children learn social skills and morally responsible behaviour towards each other and staff members. Successful councils demonstrate that pupils can enhance the influence of peer leadership. Pupils effectively become partners in their own education empowering them to make positive contribution to the school environment. Children learn to listen to others and to understand their right to be heard, powerful skills that they stand them in good stead for life. There are clear benefits for the school.
School is a community and a School Council can make a positive contribution towards that community. The School Council can develop shared standards of behaviour across the school. Bad behaviour becomes the responsibility of the class and can reduce the authority of those committing antisocial behaviour. School Councils contribute to the schools provision for citizenship education. Making the most of the existence of a school council means ensuring that pupils are able to fully participate. Holy Trinity Primary School approached this challenge by putting together a training programme for school council members.
School Council Training was designed to bring about a number of outcomes:
- Raised self-esteem and improved self-confidence
- More positive attitudes to learning
- Improved motivation and attendance
- Less exclusions
- Improved relationships
- Improvements in the schools’ physical environment
- Less anti-social behaviour e.g. bullying,racism
- Reduced vandalism
- Whole-school and community projects
By increasing the skills of school council members the body became more effective. Success was measurable in terms of better attendance, and education attainment and young people’s making decisions in making the school a better place.
Jam club
The ability to fit in is a key skill for young people. Some struggle with this in practice. Alienated young people can be more easily drawn into anti-social behaviour as they strive to find an identity and a sense of self-worth by other means. A youth group which the children named JAM club was established to create a safe social space where children could learn and develop their social skills enabling them to integrate into community-based groups. The overall aim of the JAM club was to introduce young people who have not had the opportunity or do not have the skills to access community based activities to a safe place to practice negotiating, sharing, co-operation and acceptance of others.
The approach enabled group members to begin to recognise that effort put into activities and relationships will bring them positive rewards and acceptance. From March through to November 2007, 28 children attended for 2.5 hour sessions, the children had a variety of complex social needs some of whom were suspended from education provision or asked not to go back to universal social groups such as Brownies, primarily because of their behaviour. Eighteen managed to access and maintain attendance at universal activities. As a result many of the children are now able to access community based activities. Their self-esteem and confidence has improved and their ability to interact with their peers and adult have also improved. They have wanted to join in other activities and its raised their aspirations and they have made friends.
Family First Team
The Family First Team was developed to specifically work with young people and their families to try and reduce the numbers of young people becoming accommodated by the local authority. Family breakdowns or crises are not always predictable. Matters can quickly escalate and when there is little support, the results can be devastating. Being on hand at crisis points was a key success factor. The Family First Team offer a flexible response and respond to emergency requests over 7 days a week. Equally, it’s important to recognise that one size does not fit every set of circumstances. Another key feature of the team was the ability to customise the response to meet the individual needs of each family.
The success of the approach has hinged upon encouraging positive relationships within families building and working on strengths. This has been underpinned by having direct access to Clinical Psychology services for families with complex needs. Initially the majority of the team consisted of staff from youth work backgrounds, which was felt to be the most appropriate, however as the work of this team developed a more balanced mix of skills and experience was becoming clearly needed. Staff were employed from various backgrounds but experience of working with parents/ carers was becoming more of a necessity in this work. The Team now has a good mix of staff from various backgrounds who have been able to share their skills and experiences. The result of this holistic approach has been crucial support to families in their time of need which has resulted in fewer young people leaving their family home.
Children and Young People are heard in Child Protection Procedures
More children and young people are now contributing to CP conferences, in both attendance and contributing their views. Children and young people have been able to contribute in a more meaningful way to the achievement of successful outcomes. A Child Protection Participation Pack was developed and produced in full consultation with children and young people, representatives from the Assessment and Family Support Unit, User Involvement Coordinator, a representative from the Conference & Review Team and the Quality Assurance Unit Service Unit Manager.
The Pack consists of
- An information leaflet for children, created by children
- A consultation document that allows the child to express their view in a non-threatening manner and with support from their worker that can represent them in the conference arena
- Guidance for social workers that focussed on the importance of involving the child in the whole process and giving direction and guidance as to how to do this successfully
- An evaluation and feedback process was also devised that would capture the experience of both the child and their parent/carer following de-registration
This approach raises the importance of children and young people’s views as well as enabling them to become much more engaged in what is a highly sensitive arena.
Environmental issues are in the safe hands of children
Environmental issues are, by definition, something that should be more of interest to younger people than others. Tomorrow’s world will be theirs. Canon Burrows C of E Primary School’s School Council has seized the environmental agenda with both hands. The children themselves identify possible areas for change. Pupils drive forward many of the schools initiatives including environmental change, curriculum change & inclusion.
The results of this approach are tangible.
- Energy teams monitoring of water and electricity use has resulted in increased use
- Children’s planning of new gardens in school grounds
- Children’s ideas used in new toilets refurbishment
- There are improved school dinners using children’s menu suggestions
- There is increased involvement in Tameside Young peoples Forums where pupils’ ideas for improvements for the local authority have been proposed to councillors
Children have seen that their voices are heard. This has boosted their confidence and their desire to influence other areas. Pupils have been able to increase their influence on parents’ behaviour. Some parents have been persuaded to give up smoking, use their car less and improve their eating habits. The children’s work in improving and caring for their local environment also influences local residents. One local dog walker regularly picks up litter in the school’s nature reserve and has said he does so because of the hard work the children have done to create this area and to maintain and preserve it.
Families & Schools Together (FAST)
The FAST project was established to address young people’s behavioural issues. It recognises the powerful impact of involving both young people and their families in designing a programme that is an alternative to exclusion following errant behaviour. The project is evidence-based. In 2002 Ashton Regeneration employed a researcher to identify young people’s needs and issues in the area.
There was:
- A high level of anti-social behaviour
- Low level of educational attainment
- Poor community cohesion
- Low levels of literacy and numeracy
- Low levels of parental support
- Low expectations for the future
- Poor health deprivation (one super output area within the worst 1% nationally)
The project, commissioned through St. Peter’s Youth, engages two local primary schools Holy Trinity & St. Peter’s. FAST provides extended school provision, free to parents in the Ashton Regeneration area as well as support parents into employment, education and training. It set out to improve schools attendance, punctuality and behaviour, to increase educational attainment key stage 2 level 4, and to promote good community cohesion and enrich the lives of young people.
The results are:
Improved community cohesion – St. Peter’s area is a hotspot for hate related crime, last year saw 86 incidents compared to this quarter April – June a figure of 10 incidents compared to 23 for the first quarter of last year – a reduction over 50%
Improved educational attainment and achievement – in 2002 English 44%, Maths 56%, Science 72% this has increased in 2006 to English 69.9%, Maths 77.3%, Science 88.2%
Improved punctuality, attendance & inclusion – in 2002 actual attendance was at 88.9% it has now risen to 93.5% above the Tameside average an increase of 4.4%
Fire Service celebrate achievements
A Life Skills Presentation evening was held at the Village Hotel, Hyde, on Wednesday the 23rd January 2008. Sixty young people aged between thirteen and sixteen have just completed the Life Skills Multi Agency Programme with Greater Manchester Fire Service at the Tameside Borough Command Youth Engagement Centre.
The six week course has had a positive influence on many of the young people’s lives with a one hundred percent attendance and has enabled them to develop their own community responsibilities.
The young people have had the opportunity to approach and work around some very thought provoking community issues e.g. arson, fire safety and practical fire fighting skills. Together with our Council’s children’s services, they have developed a joint package with the use of a driving simulator, scrap vehicles and other partner agencies addressing the subject of car crime and road safety. The impact of Drugs and Alcohol on young people has been delivered through ‘Branching Out’ Drugs and Alcohol Information Service.
2007 Preparing for the Joint Area Review
Tameside's aligned corporate assessments and joint area reviews will take place in 2008. In order to prepare for this process our Chief Executive, Janet Callender, has been meeting with a consultancy company called Tribal and with senior managers from Services for Children and Young People along with those from our Policy Unit. Plans are to conduct a mock Corporate Assessment and a mock JAR to take place in 2 phases - Phase 1 (3 days) from 14th May and Phase 2 (3 days) from 4th June - to prepare us for the real one in 2008. Staff will be informed of the JAR process in a number of ways. Preparations for the JAR process are also a subject for discussion at the CYPSP development day being held in February.
2007 Plans underway to improve our teenage pregnancy rates
Tameside remains a red area for Teenage Pregnancy, which means that we are under performing in this area, as there is a variable rate of progress being made despite some of the rates coming down in 2004. Whilst the pregnancy rates amongst under 16's are declining, pregnancy rates amongst over 16's and second pregnancies are rising. There is some concern as to whether we will be able to deliver the 2010 target.
This is a matter of high priority for Services for Children and Young People and recently Ian Smith discussed local issues with Government minister in a recent visit.
The Teenage Pregnancy Board also has undertaken a stock take exercise on what is working and what can be improved.
Tameside has trained "peer educators" that will be working in secondary schools in the summer term 2006, and there are now teachers in 11 schools that have achieved the PSHE Certification that develops expertise and good practice in PSHE, Sex and relationship and Drug Education. Plans are to: review current commissioning strategies; review sex and relationship policy and implementation across Tameside schools; better identify young people most at risk of teenage pregnancy using a national data tool and; develop a condom distribution scheme.
2007 Tameside children take up sport
Nationally, almost a third of schoolchildren play little or no sport, adding to fears about unhealthy lifestyles causing obesity, a new report has revealed.
One in five pupils aged five to 16 play games for only an hour or less per week, and a further 12 per cent never play, according to the latest research.
In Tameside, growing numbers of children are getting at least two hours of physical education a week, which will contribute to stopping the growth of obesity among under-11s by 2010.
2007 Tameside's LAA went live in April
A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three year agreement, based on local Sustainable Community Strategies, that sets out the priorities for a local area agreed between Central Government, represented by the Government Office (GO), and a local area, represented by the lead local authority and other key partners through the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP). They devolve decision making to the local level by relaxing central government constraints and the pooling of funding streams. Greater freedoms, through the agreement of enabling measures, provide the opportunity to think innovatively, and develop new solutions to local priorities.
The primary objective of an LAA is to deliver genuinely sustainable communities through better outcomes for local people. LAAs also have the secondary objective of;
- Improving Central and Local Government relations
- Enhancing efficiency
- Strengthening partnership working
- Framework for local authorities to enhance their community leadership role
LAAs will develop a range of outcomes based on local priorities, which all partners in the area will work towards achieving. Each outcome will have a designated owner who is responsible for leading on the achievement of that target.
