Newsletters

The Way Forward

Welcome to the first newsletter from the Durham County Council Children and Family Services Coordination/Integration Team. The newsletter will be published bi-monthly to keep all stakeholders informed about developments as we move forward towards the new era for services for children, young people and their families described in the Green Paper 'Every Child Matters'.

You can also obtain a PDF version of the newsletter at the bottom of this page.

In this Edition

Every Child Matters and the Children Bill
The County Council's Response
The Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership
Current and Future Service Provision
Priorities: 'The Durham 5'
Contact Us

Every Child Matters and the Children Bill

Every Child Matters set out an exciting vision of integrated services for all children, young people and their families based on the achievement of key outcomes.

The main areas of action were:

Supporting parents and carers.
Early intervention and effective protection.
Accountability and integration.
Workforce reform.

A single organisational focus for services for children and young people was proposed through the creation of a Director of Children's Services to replace both the Director of Education and the Director of Social Care and Health and the creation of Children's Trusts based in local government.

Children's Trusts as integrated commissioning organisations, formed through the pooling of budgets across LEA, children's Social Services, Connexsions, certain health services and possibly Youth Offending Teams to lead to more integrated service delivery and better outcomes for children. Local authorities to have clear partnership arrangements and where Children and Young People's Partnerships exist, to build on these.

Safeguarding Children Boards, a lead Elected Member and a Commissioner for Children to improve accountability and shared responsibility for child welfare and protection.

Integrated processes such as single assessment and information sharing are key requirements to underpin the new service.

The Children Bill has endorsed these proposals, whilst acknowledging the need to resist approaches to change bases solely on structures.

The County Council's Response

Durham County Council has established a Children and Family Services Coordination / Integration Team with representation from every service of the Council, chaired by the Chief Executive, Kingsley Smith. A Member Panel has also been constituted chaired by the Leader of the Council Councillor Ken Manton.

Supporting this group is the Children and Family Services Coordination/Integration Project Team.

Debbie Jones (Joint Project Leader) - Social Care and Health
Amanda Johnson (Joint Project Leader) - Education
Lynne Gregory - Education
Judy Lomas Chief Executive's Office
Carole Payne Social Care and Health

We decided at the outset to ensure we focused on the best outcomes for children, young people and their families. A staged approach has been developed that starts with this focus on key outcomes:

Stage 1 Agree vision, values and key outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Stage 2 Develop a strategy to address the needs of children, young people and their families.

Stage 3 Agree a framework so that the services we offer or buy-in (either alone or together with partners) meet the needs of all children, young people and families.

Stage 4 Identify the processes required to integrate working arrangements and access to services.

Stage 5 Identify and agree structures to support delivery of the joint strategy.

Stage 6 Implement structural changes.

A Project Plan has been developed with the objective of achieving the required changes by 2006. Whilst some of the work is concerned with the internal arrangement of the County Council alone, many of the opportunities require a response from all agencies working with children and their families. Therefore, work is also proceeding apace on the broader partnership front with the backing of the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership.

The Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership(CYPSP)

The CYPSP was created in 2002 with the aim of bringing together all agencies working with children and families. Building on the recommendation of the Children Bill and the 'Next Steps' guidance, it is envisaged that this partnership will provide strategic leadership towards the integrated future of services.

The function of the partnership will be to provide:

Strategic leadership
Strategic planning
Strategic commissioning

In order to play this role, a significant reshaping of the partnership is needed. It is proposed that an Executive Group, consisting of Chief Officers be convened, supported by the current group, which will in future be known as the Stakeholder group. The Executive Group could, if required, form the basis of a Children's Trust in the future.

Work So Far

From its early days, the CYPSP has worked to build a vision for young people and their families with young people in County Durham. This was used as the basis for the current work and following the recent consultation period, our vision is now agreed.
In County Durham, all children, young people and their families will:

Be healthy.
Be safe.
Enjoy and achieve.
Make a positive contribution.
Have economic well being.

All children, young people and their families will be:

Listened to.
A full part of decision making.
Comfortable with the decision making process.
Aware of the opportunities to be involved.
Treated with respect and dignity.

It is recognised that the involvement of some groups of young people may pose challenges to organisations. This is a challenge we wish to meet.

The Vision

Having decided what we are all working towards, the next step is to describe the type of service we will need to become in order to achieve our vision. This vision for services will be developed with staff in the coming weeks. The conference 'Every Child Matters in County Durham', held at Van Mildert College on 22 April, began the process of involvement by which staff in all agencies can influence the shape of children and family services in the future.

Current and Future Service Provision

Whatever the future holds, children, young people and their families deserve the best possible services. This will involve building on what is best about current provision whilst identifying gaps and areas for development.

A county wide mapping exercise has been designed within the Local Preventative Strategy that will:

Identify need.
Map current provision.
Audit what works well and what needs to change.
Identify the new framework of service provision needed to meet needs.

This will be the biggest single exercise ever undertaken within County Durham for children and young people, and will provide the information needed to plan effective, accessible services for the future.

Priorities: 'The Durham 5'

An Action Learning Set has been established from the membership of the CYPSP. This group has taken forward work in a number of areas towards the creation of a clear commissioning framework and shared priorities.

In line with the principles and vision, young people have been involved throughout. A group from Investing in Children has worked to identify what they see as the highest priorities for young people. This work was used by the Action Learning Set to identify the 5 most urgent priorities for County Durham.

These are 'The Durham 5':

Number
Outcomes
Priorities

1
Be healthy Increase the numbers of children and young people involved in regular exercise
Reduce alcohol and drugs abuse

2
Be safe Reduce accident and injury

3
Enjoy and achieve Increase the number of young people who feel they have achieved their personal goal following receiving exam results

4
Make a positive contribution Increase the level of respect young people feel they get from different services

5
Have economic well being Decrease the rate of children and young people living on or below the poverty line

With young people, we are now working to identify what the desired outcomes will be for children, young people and their families and on how we will measure our collective success in achieving these priorities. In due course government will develop an integrated set of targets and performance indicators, but in the meantime we are trying to understand how our current regimes can work together more coherently.

How You Can Be Involved

Everyone has a stake in the future of services for children, young people and their families. We would like everyone to become involved with this work so that the outcome is truly inclusive. Over the coming months, a series of events will be organised, giving a wide range of staff and other stakeholders the opportunity to consider some of the possibilities an integrated service could provide. Look out for the Every Child Matters in County Durham logo and encourage people to attend these events. We need to go on this journey together.

This is a truly exciting period in our history. Join with us to create the kind of service the children, young people and families of County Durham deserve.

Please feel free to contact any member of the Implementation team with any suggestions or enquiries.

Debbie Jones, Acting Director, Social Care and Health 0191 383 3296

Amanda Johnson, Head of Education Service 0191 383 3887

Lynne Gregory, Head of Learning Support 01740 656998

Carole Payne, Strategic Commissioning Manager, Social Care & Health 01325 375 636 / 0191 383 3320

Judy Lomas, Senior Policy Officer, Chief Executive's Office 0191 383 3908