Your Work: Children and Young People's Strategy Group

Latest News

‘Make the Market Work’: Joining up providers and purchasers
Two important dates for your diaries: Market Place Events for Spring 2010

To all Voluntary and Community Sector providers of services to Children, Young People and Families in Gloucestershire

  • Do you ever think that the Public Sector doesn’t know what the Voluntary and Community Sector does, or the range of services we provide as a sector, or what your organisation in particular can do?
  • Ever think that you don’t know about the full range of commissioning opportunities in the county, and what your organisation may be missing?

To all commissioners of services, including lead professionals, SHAPE Teams, Extended Service School clusters, Schools, Children’s Centres, NHS Gloucestershire commissioners

  • Do you ever find it really difficult sourcing services to meet the needs of children, young people and families you are working with?
  •  Do you ever pull your hair out trying to work out how to contact some of the hundreds of Voluntary Organisations working with Children and Young People in the county?

 

These events are targeted at providers and purchasers serving the two new Locality Hubs in Gloucester, and the one in Cheltenham.

The events will be for local and county wide organisations either currently delivering services in these two areas, or who may wish to develop service in the two areas. .

  • Gloucester: 9 March 2010 from 10.00 a.m. – 2.00 p.m. at City Works, Alfred Street, GL1 4DF
  • Cheltenham: 24 March 2010 from 10.00 a.m. – 2.00 p.m at Cheltenham YMCA, 6 Vittoria Walk, GL50 1TP

Below are two booking forms (one for organisations wishing to ‘exhibit’ as providers, and one for people who act as purchasers of services)  – please fill in the appropriate from and return it to

Make the Market Work Booking Form for Providers

Make the Market Work Booking Form for Commissioners

If you want to find out more about these events and how they might benefit your work, contact Bob on 01452 522600, or e-mail


In 2010/11, we will be rolling these events out across the rest of the county

 

Latest News

Working together to improve the commissioning cycle: A story of successful partnership working to develop Children and Young People’s Commissioning Tools

The first significant piece of commissioning carried out by the CYPSP’s commissioning board was the ‘Prevention Fund’ in 2008, which lead to the award of a range of contracts for the period 2008 – 2011. Following the closure of the procurement phase of the cycle and the award of contacts, concerns were expressed by a range of Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations about aspects of the procurement phase of the cycle.

The Commissioning Board is a multi sector partnership body which oversees some of the Commissioning and procurement activities needed to implement the Children and Young People’s Plan. Following discussion about the concerns relating to the Prevention Fund, the board decided to commission an independent review of the Prevention Fund Process. This review, whilst critical of some aspects of the process praised the Commissioning Board for pushing ahead to develop an outcomes based commissioning model. Over the next few months the CYPD officers worked together with VCS representatives to refine a new set of procurement tools that avoided some of the problems of the prevention fund and build on its strengths.

The paper you can access here describes the process of working together across sectors to achieve these improvements, and some of the benefits that flowed from the process. If you want more information about this process, contact or Patricia Lomax patricia.lomax@gloucestershire.gov.uk.

 

 

About the Voluntary and Community Sector Children and Young People’s (VCS CYP) Network and Strategy Group

Under the umbrella of Gloucestershire's VCS Assembly, this network has been set up specifically for voluntary and community groups with an interest in providing and/ or influencing the development of, services for children and young people in the county. The network helps facilitate information sharing, consultation and collaboration between its member groups. Any voluntary or community /charity/ not for profit organisation working with children and young people, and their families, or with an interest in developments in this field can join the VCS CYP network.

In this page you will find information about:

 

VCS Children and Young People’s (VCS CYP) Strategy Group

The Strategy Group meets quarterly and its aim is:

“To influence the planning and delivery of services for children and young people in Gloucestershire, and to provide a voice at a strategic level for voluntary and community organisations working with children and young people in the county”.

The Strategy Group has the following functions:

To nominate VCS representatives onto external strategic partnership boards, in particular onto the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership Board and it’s various ‘sub groups’ (see list below)

To receive reports from all the VCS representatives on the work they have been doing to influence the development of policy, commissioning and procurement, and service development in the wide range of work strands that make up the Gloucestershire ‘Change for Children’ Programme.

To agree the overarching strategy for VCS representatives to follow in representing the interests of the sector, and for better outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Any VCS organisation in the network can attend and participate in Strategy group meetings, put items on the agenda, and influence the work of the representatives.

Click here for a diagrammatic overview of the way the CYP VCS Strategy group fits into wider structures of the Voluntary and Community Sector.

 

Next meeting of The Children and Young People’s Strategy group


 Tuesday 20 April 2010, 5-7.30pm (NOTE), at GAVCA

 

Past meetings of Children & Young People Strategy Group meetings

To access Minutes of previous meetings (all in Word document format), click on the links below.

Report of the Strategy Group meeting of 27 January 2010

Papers from this meeting:

 

Previous meetings:

 

Children and Young People’s Update

450 VCS groups are now part of this network. Network members receive invitations to events, regular updates on issues concerning children and young people as well as the weekly Gloshub ‘Children and Young People’s update’ email bulletin, packed with information including

  • Information about the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership
  • Workforce Development Information
  • Information about tender and contract opportunities and grants (including from the local Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership)  

To get yourself put on the network list, to receive weekly copies of the bulletin, information about the Strategy Group Meetings and invitations to important events download this form.

To read the latest CYP Update (the CYP Bulletin) click here

 

VCS CYP Network Reference Groups

In order to enable VCS groups to network around specific topics, a number of reference groups are being developed. These reference groups will facilitate discussion and consultation within the network on specific topics, and between the VCS representatives acting in particular parts of the Children and Young people’s Strategic Partnership, and people in the network who have a particular interest in particular themes of the partnership.

VCS Sexual health and early pregnancy reference group
Tuesday 2 March 1–3 pm.
City Works, Gloucester
There has also been some discussion within the Assembly’s Children and Young People’s Network about the need to consider establishing a Voluntary and Community Sector network or reference group to bring together VCO’s that work with young people, or have an interest in young people’s sexual health (in its broadest sense) and in issues of early parenthood and teenage pregnancy. Alex Corgier (Homestart Stroud and Dursley), the VCS representative on the Teenage Pregnancy Partnership Board is keen to explore the potential of such a group.

VCS Family and parent support reference group
Thursday 4 March 10–12 pm
GRCC, Gloucester
There has been some discussion within the VCS Assembly’s Children and Young People’s Network and Strategy group about the need to consider establishing a Voluntary and Community Sector network or reference group to bring together VCO’s that work with parents or in Family or Parenting Support.

A sandwich lunch will be provided but you have to book into the meeting to get one!

If you want to come along to any of the above meetings please e-mail Hannahg@glosassembly.org.uk or ring 01452 522600, or ring Bob Lewis on the same number to find out more.

 

Notes of previous CYP Reference Group Meetings

LOCALITY HUBS GO INTO THE IMPLEMENTATION PHASE 

The programme board has agreed major changes to the structure and management of the Change for Children Programme. The proposed changes are described in Agenda Item 4 – Locality Hubs Development Programme.

Read the report of the VCS representative about these proposed changes in the document Report from programme board.

For more information about how the Voluntary and Community Sector will respond to these changes and meetings on this topic coming up in January to further develop our response,  contact

Report back from the VCS Locality Hubs Reference Group

15 February 2010

This group has been formed as the group which will manage and decide on the input the VCS will make into the developing locality hubs agenda.

The group agreed that:

the VCS should keep a watching brief on the Locality Hubs Programme through Bob Lewis (Assembly Team) – who will continue to sit on the Programme Board (see above)

given the priorities of the sector at the moment (dealing with reducing income and public sector funding and the impact on sustainability) we could not commit the resources from the sector to identify VCS representatives to sit on a structure with over 20 new partnership bodies.

the current priority for the Locality Hubs Programme is likely to be for some time the integration of a number of CYPD teams at a local level – this will be primarily an internal matter for CYPD until the teams start to be effective on the ground

To see the notes of this reference group meeting go to http://www.gloshub.org.uk/docs/sg_cyp/VCS%20Locality%20Hubs%20Reference%20Group%20Meeting%20Notes%2015%20Feb%202010%20(2).doc

To see the proposed structure for the management of the Locality Hubs Programme  which the meeting discussed go to http://www.gloshub.org.uk/docs/sg_cyp/Copy%20of%20Locality%20Hubs%20Project%20Structure%20and%20Missions.xls

To see a briefing note for the VCS about the current state of play with regards to the programme go to http://www.gloshub.org.uk/docs/sg_cyp/Update%20on%20Hubs%20for%20VCS%20Jan%2027.doc

To find out more contact

 

Voluntary and Community Sector Children and Young People’s Representatives

Any one can be a representative. The list below tells you about who is currently acting as a representative across the ‘Change for Children’ programme in Gloucestershire.

Representatives are people who:

Represent the wider interest of the Voluntary and Community Sector in decision making about the development of children and young people’s services in the county

Understand that they are not in the role of representatives to push the interests of their own organisations

Are ratified by, and act with the authority of the Children and Young people’s VCS Strategy Group, and through it, of the wider voluntary and community sector and the Gloucestershire Assembly

Attend all meetings of the body on which they are representatives, reading the papers before hand and identifying issues of general relevance to the VCS, are confident to present those positions , and after the meeting report back to the strategy group about decision made

Follow this link for a brief generic description of the role and responsibilities of VCS representatives.

The section below gives you more information on the various forums where VCS representatives act to influence policy and service development, and to represent the interests of the VCS.

VCS Children and Young People Strategy Group
The Strategy Group meets quarterly to agree the strategy to be followed by VCS representatives. It brings together all the representatives from the workstrands below with the wider network of Children and Young people’s Organisations. Anyone can attend. Minutes of past meetings, and information on upcoming meetings are  posted above. Chair: Cordell Ray (from June 2008) Vice-Chair: Stuart Croft (from May 2008)

Children and Young People Strategic Partnership (CYPSP)
The CYPSP is the ‘Children’s Trust’ for Gloucestershire – a multi sector partnership bringing together; key public sector agencies  including police, health, social services and education (i.e. the Children and Young people’s Directorate of the County Council), Job Centre Plus, Colleges etc; the Voluntary and Community Sector through the VCS CYP Strategy group; and the Private Sector.
The CYPSP publishes a three-year plan called the Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP), laying out how all the partners will co-operate to achieve better outcomes for children, young people and families. This plan is sometimes called the ‘Change for Children’ Plan. To find out more about the CYPSP, visit the GCC CYPSP page or Gloshub's own CYPSP page.

To find out the names and contact details of representatives, and the partnership bodies they are on please download this document.

 

The Gloucestershire Assembly Team Children and Young People’s Development Worker
The Assembly Team has a contract with the Children and Young people’s Directorate (CYPD) of the County Council to support the engagement of the VCS with the broader Change for Children Programme. The Team employs the Children and Young People’s Development Worker to

  • Ensure that the VCS is represented across the wide range of decision making bodies that make up the CYPSP (see table above).
  • To support the VCS representatives in terms of their knowledge base and skills to enable them to carry out their roles as representatives.
  • To provide support to the VCS CYP strategy group (see above) and to carry out the decisions made by the group.
  • To organise events and activities that will increase the knowledge base of the whole CYP network (See above) in relation to the Change for Children Programme and the work of the wider partnership, so that the VCS is able to act as an effective provider of services and expertise to support better outcomes for children and young people.
  • Provide regular up to date information to the VCS about children and young people’s issues and developments, and tender and contracting opportunities.

 

CYP Development Worker

To find out more about the work of the Children and Young People’s Development Worker, about the CYP VCS Strategy group, or the relationship between the VCS and the Change for Children Programme, contact

Bob Lewis
Children and Young People’s Development Worker
Gloucestershire Assembly team,
75 – 81 Eastgate Street
Gloucester GL1 1PN

01452 522600

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