Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Service and the Chair of Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board (CYP&F) that provided an update on the development of the new County Durham Children, Young People and Families Strategy – Growing Up in County Durham (GUiCD) 2022-25 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Joint Head of Integrated Strategic Commissioning and Deputy Chair Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board and the Strategic Manager, Partnerships were in attendance to present the report and deliver a presentation (for copy of presentation, see file of minutes).

The presentation provided the aims of the strategy, what the Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board had been focussing on, Coproduction – working with the whole family, what’s important to young people, families and carers and timeline and next steps.

Members were advised that the new strategy would run from 2022 to 2025 and was aligned to the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. The new strategy underpinned the work carried out by the service and with partners including the voluntary sector.

In refreshing the strategy, the Children, Young People and Families partnership had obtained the views of children and young people via the Youth Council, Investing in Children, One Point service and schools.

The main focus of the strategy was in four areas; Best Start in Life to promote support from the earliest stage; Prevention and early help to reduce reliance on services and to develop family hubs; Transformation that includes a maternity pathway and continuity of care; and Transitions where there are gaps in support for families.

Members were advised of the process in developing the strategy and for their input in providing answers to a series of questions:

·       What words and phrases do you think should be included in a new vision for children, young people and their families?

·       What aspirations should we have for our children and young people?

·       What things are important as young people get older and become adults?

·       What challenges do children, young people and families face?

·       What can families and communities do?

The Strategic Manager Partnerships offered to come back to committee with a developed strategy at a later date.

The Chair thanked officers for their presentation and reminded members that comments on the new strategy would be recorded and collated and sent back to the service as a formal response of the committee, but that did not prevent any members who wished to comment individually.

Councillor Gunn commented that she was pleased to see that the Youth Council were involved in the development of the new strategy and that voluntary organisations were seen as part of the partnership. She indicated that it was crucial for school staff to be involved in the strategy as they were the first port of call to identify children and families in need, supported children and were part of the community. She then referred to words and phrases and a key word was opportunities and they needed to look at a succession of opportunities, it was about going forward while children and young people were developing.

The Strategic Manager, Partnerships responded that she would take on board Councillor Gunn’s comments in the development of the strategy. She would reach out to schools and link with the Head of Education and Skills and schoolteachers and take account of what she said in relation to key words.

Councillor Walton commented that she was thrilled at the involvement of children in the strategy who had a powerful voice and opinion that was heard at the Corporate Parenting Panel and the children felt that they were listening, and it was important that this continued. She then suggested there should be a specific focus on teenagers as they were often negatively portrayed by the media and there could be issues with maturity of some teenagers. She was thrilled that voluntary groups and community groups were recognised and indicated that there was an issue around people saying that there was nothing for children to do but in her ward that was not the case but finding enough volunteers to run events such as youth clubs was the issue and they needed to impress on adults that they needed to be involved and be part of the solution. She suggested that a key word was connectivity and that using other avenues for promotion such as schools, doctors’ surgeries and community groups and encouraged councillors to promote the work too. She would like to see the draft report and indicated that consideration needed to be given to the language and words and phrases used so that it was not negative and that positive words be used.

The Strategic Manager, Partnerships responded that she would take on board her comments and thanked the Councillor for her suggestion of asking councillors to support the work of the strategy.

Ms Evans commented that she would like to see the implications of climate change embedded into the report. She then referred to co-production and County Durham did well in talking and engaging with communities, but this was not true co-production as the parameters were set, it was not starting from the bottom, but she could see a lot of work with groups within the community. She then referred to the end of the universal youth work provided by the council and that relying on the voluntary sector to run events was fine but if you did not get volunteers the event would not happen; equally funding was problematic too. She also referred to distances and access to services, especially in the Teesdale area and commented that there was not a lot of information on this in the strategy and should be included.

The Strategic Manager, Partnerships indicated that she would take on board the comment on climate change. She acknowledged Ms Evans’ comment with regard to co-production, and stated they were on a journey which was heading in the right direction. In terms of access to services this was something that young people had brought forward and would be considered as part of the development of the strategy.

The Joint Head of Integrated Strategic Commissioning and Deputy Chair Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board responded that in terms of the voluntary sector she agreed with all the comments and that more of the NHS budget went into mainstream services than the voluntary sector and they needed to change their approach to this. They had set up a voluntary sector development fund in health which was designed to do that and look at how the voluntary sector could add to that pathway and deliver part of the service and shift some of the funding into the voluntary sector if they could better deliver that pathway.

Ms Evans referred to social prescribing and that she was not sure how much it did for young people.

The Joint Head of Integrated Strategic Commissioning and Deputy Chair Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board indicated that there was a social prescriber for children.in the Chester-Le-Street area and she thought that more would follow in future years.

Councillor Varty commented that people don’t get to see the same person due to changes in personnel and that continuity was needed to be included into the strategy.

The Joint Head of Integrated Strategic, Commissioning and Deputy Chair Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board agreed that continuity was important as the practitioner would know the back story without the person having to repeat the details of why they needed an appointment. She commented that the partnership were working with Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust to improve staffing within the service and were working together with family hubs. The comment on continuity would be reflected into the strategy.

Councillor Townsend commented that her area had two Sure Start Centres that were now gone and had resulted in difficulty contacting the Health Visitor as they were now located in the Church Hall, and this was not publicised. She then referred to the creation of play groups, there were residents who had ideas and knowledge but did not have support in governance or finance, but she was glad to hear about the voluntary sector development fund. She commented that a number of voluntary sector organisations were no longer able to be fully non-commercial due to the funding which was seen as negative from the users.

Councillor Townsend suggested that if the partnership had engaged with children who had special educational needs and disabilities and children in the care system it was important, they were able to read the strategy and the words they have used.

The Joint Head of Integrated Strategic, Commissioning and Deputy Chair Children, Young People and Families Partnership Board responded that they had looked to increase funding for Durham Community Action who work as an infrastructure organisation across County Durham and looked to stabilise them by giving a longer-term guarantee of funding and would encourage voluntary sector organisations to link in with Durham Community Action.

Councillor Gunn commented that the funding was not there for a universal youth service and was lost some time ago. She then commented that one in four children were living in poverty and she did not know what words or phrases could be put other than how to lift children out of poverty. She asked how often when talking to young people in the groups identified did the issue of poverty come up. This was an area that was cloaked for a variety of issues such as free school meals. She wanted to stress that the issue of child poverty was important and crucial and would like to know if it was on the agenda.

The Strategic Manager, Partnerships responded that it had come up in their initial findings from young people in terms of the consultation and engagement done so far. Finances and the cost of living was on their agenda and were concerned about.

Resolved: (i) That the report be noted.

(ii) That the comments on the new strategy be recorded and submitted as the formal response of the committee.