VCS Children & Young People Strategy Group

 

About the CYP Strategy Group

The VCS Children and Young People’s Strategy Group is an email group of voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) working with children or young people.  The aim of the group is to give VCOs a chance to think about how they might co-ordinate future work around children and young people in the county, as well as to share relevant information (training, funding, events) via email.  The group will also come together for specific consultation events as and when needed.

Chair: Cordell Ray (County Community Projects)
Vice-Chair: Stuart Croft (Inglos)
Assembly Board Link: Sue Barker (PATA)

 

News for CYP

Key Messages from the Commissioning Forum held on 23 September

The forum is the part of the Children and Young People’s strategic partnership which process the forward planning and ‘blue skying’ of commissioning processes.

The forum discussed the work that is developing within the partnership to make sense of the commissioning of services for children and young people with complex needs. £22m of services a year are commissioned by public agencies, across a range of cost centres, creating duplication inefficiencies. A significant number of very expensive placements are out of county, and there is a need to develop in county capacity to meet need. This review will result in the development of commissioning programmes to significantly alter the nature and focus of services.

For more information and an electronic copy of the presentation contact Chris Sands, Head of Individual Commissioning, by ringing 01452 426916 or emailing chris.sands@gloucestershire.gov.uk

For more information on this important meeting, contact Bob Lewis at the Assembly Team on 01452 522600 or by email to

 

Key Messages from the Commissioning Board meeting held on 25 September

The board makes the key decisions on commissioning processes for recommendations to the Strategic Partnership (what, when and how to commission).  This meeting made the following key decisions:

  • To commission an independent evaluation of the prevention fund commissioning process to include interviewing ‘participants’ to identify what needs to be learnt from this major round of commissioning. The Evaluation Trust has been contracted to carry out this work and will be starting as a matter of urgency. They will work closely with the Assembly Team to identify who they should talk to.

  • To consider at the next meeting how the prevention fund process has affected the VCS in terms of what work/ outcomes for young people have been lost through the process of organisations losing funding.

  • To delay by a further 6 months the upcoming round of commissioning of services for young people, to allow the lessons from the prevention fund to be ‘embedded’ in this new round. This will result in a further rollover for groups receiving funding, and will also mean that the contracts offered from the new round will be 18 months rather than two years. This difficult decision was supported by VCS reps at the meeting. There was also a commitment given from commissioning team managers that the outcomes/ service specifications (yet to be decided which) will be published in January.  This will allow almost nine months for the total process to be completed, as the new contracts will run from 1 October 2009.  This timing will also allow VCS support/ infrastructure groups like the  Assembly Team and Young Gloucestershire time to work closely with groups on partnership and capacity building for the process.

For more information on this important meeting, contact Bob Lewis at the Assembly Team on 01452 522600 or by email to

 

Children and Young People’s Needs Analysis 2009 – 2012 Published

The CYP Needs Analysis will form the basis of the children’s plan 2009 – 2012, and the results of the 2008 analysis have now been published. If you want to know how the strategic Partnership will understand the needs against which it will commission services for all ages over the next few years, this is the document to read.

Download the report from the Gloucestershire County Council website.

 

Next meetings

Tuesday 20 January 2009, 2.00pm to 4.00pm at GAVCA

 

Children & Young People Strategy Group meetings

Minutes of previous meetings (all in Word document format)

21 October 2008
09 July 2008
29 April 2008
07 February 2008
13 July 2007
20 June 2007


Contact details

Bob Lewis

Development Worker (Children and Young People's Services)

Gloucestershire Assembly Team

t: 01452 522600    
f: 01452 332131
e: