Children are quite clearly the future and evidence supports the need to start early and to ensure support, learning, safety and consistency of services, positive family and community networks through to adulthood. With this in mind the LSP Children and Young Peoples Group was established.
The Hyndburn Children & Young Persons Group is made up of representatives from a range of organisations responsible for the planning and delivery of services and activities for children and young people. The group reports back to the Local Strategic Partnership with their ideas, conclusions, recommendations and new ideas for the future. The ethos of the group is a refreshing mix of not getting too weighed down with meetings and unnecessary work yet working strategically through coordination, joined working and partnership. For a group to be seen as successful it is important that they carry out their work without exclusion or barrier and that they are seen as a helpful entity.
The Local Strategic Partnership has agreed that this task group’s initial area of work should relate to the onset of Children’s Centres and The Local Preventative Strategy and what this will mean for children and young people of Hyndburn. The group’s focus will constantly remain on the children & young people with their priority being to ensure that they do not get lost in such wide, national agenda.
The group aims to be a central point of information from children’s and young people’s services providers to ensure that children and young people are at the centre of service delivery and planning for the long term future. The Hyndburn Children and Young Persons Group is also considering the number and purpose of meetings in Hyndburn relating to children and young people and will make recommendations on their findings. This unique approach will ensure that work is not being duplicated and time is optimally used thus avoiding the popular criticism of there being too many meetings making too many demands on people’s busy agendas.
Another developing area of work relates to raising the profile of the needs of young people in Hyndburn.
The group intend to report to the LSP Board in July 2005 on the following:
Children’s Centres, the Local Preventative Strategy and raising the profile of the needs of young people in Hyndburn. It is also anticipated that the group will make recommendations to the LSP on which topics / issues need to be examined next and why.
Working in this way means the group will provide a local central point for coordination and information. By highlighting and commending good practice they will be able to assist in the development of reshaping and mainstreaming services and resources. Past and present experience illustrates that there is no need to start from the beginning as there is a commitment to build on existing services and resources to make efficient, effective and coordinated responses to help them develop.
The Hyndburn Children and Young Persons Task Group will work as guided by national and local agendas and in full recognition of the work which is being carried out at a local level without which the group could not function. The recognition of the group and understanding of its function is an area of work being undertaken at the present time. Together we will help to build a brighter future for the children and young people and help pave the way for them to become tomorrow’s grown up citizens of Hyndburn.
We are in the process of bringing together information which will be more helpful and user friendly to children, young people and families so please WATCH THIS SPACE!
We will also add useful contact details for organisations which offer services to children and young people. Please let us know what information you would like to see and how we could make this more interesting and simple to understand?
For more information about the group contact:
Anne Marie Foster, Sure Start Manager
Tel: 01254 387757
Email: surestarthyndburn1@btinternet.com
Click here to visit Surestart's website
