Version 7
Children’s Services
Strategic Plan
2014 to 201735
Version 7
Contents
Borough of Poole’s Priorities 3
Priorities for Poole and Bournemouth Health and Well-Being Board 3
Priorities for Bournemouth and Poole Local Safeguarding Children Board 4
Foreword 4
Summary of priorities and challenges 5
Part 1 8
1. The Needs of Children, Young People and Families in Poole 8
2. The Views of Children, Young People and Families in Poole 10
3. The Performance of Children Services in 2013/14 13
4. The National Context 14
5. Joint working across the Council 15
Part 2 17
6. Our Priorities 17
Overarching Priorities 17
Priority 1 - Improve Health, Well-Being and Enjoyment 18
Priority 2 - Improve learning outcomes for Children and Young People 20
Priority 3 - Reduce Inequality (including Health Inequality) 24
Priority 4 - Ensure children, young people and families receive effective early help and early intervention to improve their resilience and improve outcomes 25
Priority 5 - Improve outcomes for children with SEN and disabilities 28
Priority 6 - Ensure children and young people are protected from abuse and harm to grow up in secure and permanent care 29
Priority 7 - Ensure permanence, stability and positive outcomes for children and young people in care and support successful transitions into adulthood 31
Priority 8 - Improve outcomes for vulnerable young people. 33
Borough of Poole’s Priorities
· Promoting the health and well being of our population, especially those who are vulnerable
· Supporting local people to take greater control of their communities to improve the quality of life at a local level
· Stimulating and maintaining a vibrant, mixed economy
· Protecting and enhancing our natural and built environment
· Ensuring all children and young people have the chance to achieve their full potential
Priorities for Poole and Bournemouth Health and Well-Being Board
The joint priorities relating to children young people and families are developed through the Poole Children’s Trust. The Health and Well-being Board priorities are:
· Reducing inequalities
Early intervention and support for pre-school children and their families to avoid ill-health and poor outcomes in later years
Working with complex families
Tackling poverty and worklessness
Developing more affordable housing
Tackling domestic abuse
Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour
Priority communities (Bourne estate, West Howe and Boscombe)
· Promoting healthy life styles and preventing ill health
Developing a holistic approach to supporting lifestyle changes (stopping smoking, drug and alcohol misuse, eating more healthily and taking more exercise)
Reducing the harm caused by drugs and alcohol
Tackling isolation and improving mental wellbeing
Health Protection
· Working together to deliver early intervention, high quality care and better value
Improving services for children and young people with emotional and mental health problems
Working better together for children with special educational needs, disabilities and acute medical needs
Working better together to provide integrated health and social care for people with long-term conditions, including dementia
Working better together to improve mental health services
Working together to improve services for adults with learning disabilities
Supporting carers
Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults from abuse and harm
Priorities for Bournemouth and Poole Local Safeguarding Children Board
To ensure that children are safe (see priority 6) the developmental priorities of the Board are;
· Early Help
· Children being sexually exploited or who are missing
· Domestic abuse
· Responding to neglect
Foreword
For the Children’s Trust partnership, led by Borough of Poole, ensuring all children and young people have the chance to achieve their full potential is a key priority. To do this we must ensure that our children and young people are safe and healthy, have access to play and positive activities, receive the best early start. We will work with our schools to maintain high standards of education and progression through learning for our more vulnerable children. It is more important than ever that we prepare our young people for the world of work and that they live in families where adults are working.
In the period covered by this plan we will implement significant changes to the way that children’s services work to ensure that families get the help they need at the right time to prevent their problems getting worse. We will also be making changes to improve information and support for children and young people who have a disability or special education need and their families.
Some children in Poole live in families who have complex needs and we will ensure our services focus on these families and work with them to solve their difficulties. In some areas of Poole there are more vulnerable children and young people. We will work on a multi-agency basis with children, young people, families and communities in these neighbourhoods to improve their quality of life.
We will continue to be challenged by the rise in demand for our services such as children’s social care and specialist mental health services and the increased demand for school places at a time of constraint in public sector funding.
This plan lays out how the Council and its partners, like Health and schools, will work with children, young people and families to give our children and young people the best start in life.
Cllr Janet Walton, Portfolio Holder Children’s Services
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Summary of priorities and challenges
Looking back to 2013/14
Looking back 2013/14 was a year of very significant change for very many key organisations working with children and young people in Poole. This included changing the Age of Transfer for the majority of schools in Poole, which has been a ten year programme. There were significant changes in the way health services are organised and commissioned which led to the setting up of both the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group and Dorset Public Health, which was formed by the Borough of Poole, Dorset County Council and Bournemouth Borough Council. There were also changes to the statutory framework for local authority children’s services and to the way in which services are inspected.
The outcomes for most children in 2013/14 were good. While there was a continued rise in the contacts to our Children’s Social Care Services, our performance in relation to keeping children safe and achieving good outcomes for children in care has continued to be good.
Most schools in Poole are rated by Ofsted to be “Good” or “Outstanding” but there were significant challenges around the progression and achievement for our children at Key Stage 2 which has required action by schools and the local authority to address.
We have also made changes to and invested more resources in our Children’s Centre services to ensure we target help to our most vulnerable families and ensure children are ready for school. These changes have aligned Children’s Centres to our local health visiting services so that we can ensure services work closely and effectively together to provide the best possible start in life for children and the best possible support to their parents.
Through 2013/14 the rising demand for emotional and mental health services and concern amongst parents, young people and services about young people’s mental health was an issue which is addressed as part of this plan.
We have also been working across partners to ensure that we have information about the employment and education status of young people aged 16 to 19 years. We have reduced very significantly the numbers of young people whose status is not known. We have also been working to ensure that young people are provided with advice and guidance which enables them to access and maintain education, training and employment that is tailored to their needs and interests.
I would like to thank staff working in all organisations as well as children and young people, parents, carers and Councillors for all their hard work and dedication in the last year to improve the quality of life for children, young people and families in Poole.
In developing the Children’s Services Plan, we have been concerned to build our priorities and actions on the views and concerns of children and young people and indeed of parents. In our most recent large consultation 3,118 children and young people contributed (about 10% of all children in Poole). They told us that, for most of them, they are happy and like living in Poole. They value playing in the parks and open spaces, meeting their friends and being safe when they are out and about in Poole. They report improvements in the response to bullying and a reduction in numbers of young people using alcohol, but they highlighted concerns about living a healthy lifestyle. They are also concerned about the cost of public transport, would like more access to affordable positive activities and only 42% of young people think they are valued in Poole. This consultation exercise will be repeated in 2014 and will inform the review of this plan. In the last year, young people have also raised issues about information and access to services, youth unemployment and emotional and mental health. We will continue to engage with children and young people in the year ahead in a wide variety of ways to hear their views and involve them in everything we do.
Improvement Challenges
While the outcomes for most children and young people in Poole are good, there are some key areas for improvement in terms of outcomes and services which as partners we have identified as the central. These are:
· Continuing to develop our services for children in the early years and their families so that children have the best start in life and where families have complex problems, they receive services at the earliest point in their child’s life.
· Closing the gap in educational attainment and progress for children and young people who have disadvantage, who are vulnerable, have additional needs and/ or who are in care.
· Ensuring that children who are at risk of harm, neglect or sexual exploitation are always identified at the earliest possible time and that all agencies provide effective and co-ordinated services to meet the needs of these children and young people and their families.
· Ensuring that children and young people are able to have a stable and permanent placement and that whether possible that is with a foster family and within or close to Poole. This includes our continued commitment to excellent adoption services and comprehensive support for care leavers.
· Ensuring that the emotional and mental health needs of children and young people are identified and met at all levels of need.
· Ensuring that through our new approach to Early Help Services and through our Families with Futures programme that children and young people and their families get the right support at the right time.
· Ensuring that we implement the new statutory requirements in relation to children and young people with disabilities and special educational needs in a way which improves the outcomes for children and young people and the quality of life and support for all their family members.
· Ensuring that we work with communities where evidence show us that more children and young people live in poverty and they have less life chances than most young people in Poole in order to raise the aspirations and quality of life with children, young people, their families and their whole community.
Priorities for Children’s Services for 2014-2017
We have two over-arching priorities:
· Listening to children, young people and their parents and families and ensuring their views are heard in all our planning and design of services.
· Ensuring children aged 0-5 yrs receive the best possible start to life and achieve the best outcomes
Our other priorities are to:
· Improve Health, Well-Being and Enjoyment
· Improve learning outcomes for children and young people
· Reduce Inequality (including Health Inequality)
· Ensure children, young people and families receive effective early help and early intervention to improve their resilience and improve outcomes
· Improve services for children with SEN and disabilities
· Ensure children are safe
· Improve outcomes for looked after children by ensuring children are provided with secure and permanent care
· Improve outcomes for vulnerable young people
These priorities are agreed by the Poole Children’s Trust Board and the Board will ensure they are delivered and monitored in the year ahead.
Jan Thurgood, Strategic Director - People Theme
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Version 7
Part 1
1. The Needs of Children, Young People and Families in Poole
This provides a broad overview of the current and emerging issues for children and young people in Poole. It draws on evidence from the Children and Young People’s Needs Analysis, other Strategies and Needs Assessments relevant to Children and Young People in Poole performance data, and consultation with children and young people.
Key issues for Children and Young People in Poole
Responding to changing demographics
In 2012 there were 33,800 children and young people in Poole aged 0-19. Overall, numbers are projected to increase by 1,000 to 2017, and a further 1,600 by 2022.
Current projections suggest a significant shift in the age distribution of children in Poole over the next decade to 2022: 0-4s will remain relatively stable with only a slight increase of around 200 children to 2017 and then level off; 5-14s will increase steadily over the period by 2,600 (+16%); 15-19s will decrease by 500 young people to 2017 and then regain those numbers to 2022.
Reducing inequalities in priority areas of need in Poole
The majority of children in Poole thrive and achieve and have excellent life chances, with good support, good health prospects, and success in education and training.
45% (14,500) children and young people required extra support in 2011/12. 3500 of these were vulnerable children with multiple problems.
Children with the poorest outcomes and most complex needs are concentrated in small areas within the Borough. Priority areas with the highest levels of need identified for Poole are:
· Bourne Valley Area in Alderney - area with the most entrenched need