Message from Cllr. James McInnes, Chair of the Children, Young People and Families Alliance following the meeting in the Executive Group
on the 27th January 2016
Dear all,
The Children,
Young People and Families Alliance has been established and is now up and
running. This is a great feat which has been made possible by joint efforts and
I would like to thank all of you for your hard work in making this happen.
We can however not rest on our laurels as much work remains
to be done. During the last couple of months I have presented the Children,
Young People and Families Alliance at different fora and meetings, and many
people have asked me “What is the Children’s Alliance?” and “What are we doing
differently because of the Alliance?”
These questions are valid and important to answer. We need
to continually be able to explain how the Children’s Alliance is adding value
for children, young people and families in Devon. Therefore, I have committed
myself to sending out a short update after each Executive meeting to outline
what has been discussed and what we will be doing differently as a consequence
of the meeting. This is my first of these updates. I hope you find it useful
and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any suggestions or
comments about this communication.
The Executive Group
of the Children, Young People and Families’ Alliance met on the 27th
January 2016 and I would like to highlight the following important miles stones that the Executive
has delivered over the past couple of months:
- We have agreed on a strategic Plan – My Life, My Journey: The Children, Young People and Families’ Alliance Plan – and a performance management framework, which will help us monitor the implementation of the plan and tell us whether we are making a difference in the lives of children, young people and families in Devon. The Plan has been developed with the input of children, young people and families and we in the Executive use it to guide our work and to decide on what we should prioritise.
- Within the framework of the Alliance Plan the Executive has started joint work on the 3 priority outcome that we have set ourselves for 2015-2016, and during our meeting on the 27th January we made the following progress:
Resilient -
- It is a key priority for us to ensure that children and young people in Devon enjoy good mental health and emotional wellbeing. Unfortunately, we know that many children and young people in Devon self-harm – more so than in the rest of the country – and therefore the Executive is trying to understand why this is and ultimately improve things. In order to better understand the issue Executive will be a) mapping the current mental health offer in Devon, especially the new support being rolled out in schools b) asking children and young people how they are experience the current support available to them.
Thrive -
- It is a key priority for
us to ensure that young people and their families have good economic prospects
and in particular we want to make sure that all of our young people are in
education, training or employment. So far we have in the Executive focused on
analysing what the situation is in Devon, and we now know that while young
people in general are doing well there are certain groups - particularly young
mums, young people with disabilities and children in care/care leavers - that
are struggling to stay in education, training or employment. In order to
support these young people we are working hard to ensure that links are made
between different parts of the system that these young people come into contact
with e.g. that Children’s Centres where young mums come are linked up with
providers of career counselling and that special education needs providers are
linked up with district councils to ensure that young people are in suitable
accommodation.
Connect -
-
It is a key priority for us to ensure that children and young people are influencing decisions that affect them. We want the Executive to be “the ear” that listens to children, young people and families on behalf of the Alliance across Devon. In order to do this a group of participation experts have been formed to link the Executive and the wider Alliance with children, young people and families across Devon. Key pieces of work over the coming period will be to establish mechanisms for the Executive to listen to children and young people on a regular basis, including ensuring that there are children and young people attending the launch event for the Alliance which is scheduled for June 2016.
- In addition to the 3 priority outcomes mentioned
above a number of cross-cutting pieces of work has also been initiative by the
Executive. This includes:
Joint Commissioning -
- We have brought all the senior commissioners from NEW Devon CCG, South Devon and Torbay CCG and Devon County Council together into a Joint Commissioning Board. This group is already starting to form a view of what is currently being commissioned across the partnership and identifying gaps and potential for improvements. Going forward this group will jointly plan future commissioning with a view to ensure better and more joined-up commissioned services in the future.
Early Help -
-
Early Help is about making sure that we know when children, young people and families in Devon need extra help and then giving them the support they need. 8 Local Alliances exist, one in each of the districts of Devon, and these Local Alliances are the essential structures through which the Alliance implements its work at a local level. This work involves all the agencies and organisations coming together to share information to identify families in need of extra help as early on as possible and for these agencies and organisations to work in a more joined-up manner at the local level to ensure that children, young people and families in Devon get the extra help they need. At the Executive meeting on the 27th January it was decided that members of the Executive will participate in some of the upcoming Local Alliance meetings in order to ensure better links between the Executive and the Local Alliances.
Children with Disabilities Board -
- The Children with Disabilities Board has started the important work to look at reforming our Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services across the partnership in order for us to deliver better services. The Alliance has already responded jointly to the consultation of the new local area SEND Ofsted/CQC inspection regime.
Communications group -
- A group of communications staff from across the partnership has been established to support the Alliance. The Communications group is working to ensure that the Alliance’s website is up-to-date with relevant content as well as supporting the Alliance in communicating across the partnership and with children, young people and families across Devon.
I apologise for sending you such a long update, but I feel it is
important to recognise the extent of work that has been put in place as a
result of the Children, Young People and Families’ Alliance already. It is also
crucial that we all start disseminating the priorities outlined in the Alliance
Plan within the organisations we work in order to ensure that we are all
working in the same direction. The next Executive meeting takes place on the 23rd
March 2016 and I will be sending you another update following this meeting. In
the meanwhile I hope this update is useful for you and I wish you good luck
with the important work you are doing for the Alliance.
Kind regards,
James
James McInnes
Chair of the Devon Children,
Young People and Families’ Alliance
Councillor for the Hatherleigh
& Chagford Division
Devon County Council
01837 861364 www.devon.gov.uk
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