Your Work: Children and Young People's Strategy Group
'Make the Market Work' Event Gloucester March 2010
Latest News
Make the Market Work – New dates announced for Cotswolds and Tewkesbury
After the success of the CYP Market Events in Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud, we are pleased to announce the following dates for the next 3 events:
- Moreton Area Centre (High Street, Moreton in the Marsh, GL56 0AZ)
Wednesday 6 October 4.00 – 6.00 p.m.
- Cirencester. Bingham Hall (28 King Street GL7 1JT)
Tuesday 19 October 4.00 – 6.00 p.m.
- Tewkesbury Town Hall (High Street, Tewkesbury GL20 5AL)
Tuesday 2 November 4.00 – 6.00 p.m.
These events are an informal way of bringing together providers of services for children and young people and commissioners of services for children and young people.
What people who attended our previous Market events said:
- An excellent opportunity for liaison with service providers & purchasers
- Very useful – lots of info and contacts gathered. Thank you
- Being able to promote my organisation effectively
- It was very useful interacting with other organisations to find out about the services they provide & determine a way in which we could work together
- It was very useful meeting people wanting to contract services & being able to answer their questions face to face
- Seeing what providers are in the area and being able to discuss individual need first hand (Children’s Centre Manager)
- The range of provider organisations was so much better than expected (Headteacher)
To download a booking form for the Cotswolds events , click on the appropriate link: For Providers of CYP services For Purchasers of CYP services.
To download a booking form for the Tewkesbury events, click on the appropriate link: For Providers of CYP services For Purchasers of CYP services.
For more information contact Bob Lewis by email Bob Lewis or phone 01452 522600.
Volbase and GLOSFAMILIES directories are working together to share information
New Opportunity for Children and Young People’s Groups to advertise what you do.
Gloucestershire County Council has just launched an updated version of their GlosFamilies Directory. This online portal brings together information from around the county to make it easier for families and professionals to find help, support and activities aimed at children and young people.
GlosFamilies now incorporates a very useful ‘What’s On’ service which provides information about events and activities for all families and residents in the county
As part of our partnership working with the County Council, GAVCA will be phoning groups in the children and young people’s sector to make sure we have the most up-to-date information about their services, facilities and contact details on our VOLBASE data base and directory.
By agreeing to share information with GAVCA and the GlosFamilies Directory, voluntary and community organisations will have the great opportunity to reach a much wider audience, and will help to ensure that families in the county have access to the best and most up-to-date information about support.
Click here to visit Glosfamilies Directory
Click here to visit Glosfamilies Directory – What’s On
Always remember you can update your existing entry and information now on VOLBASE, or enter the details of your organisation and its services yourself.
To find out how to do this, please ring James Colborn at GAVCA on 01452 509708.
You can also easily create your own entry on GLOSFAMILIES, with details about your services. This opens your organisation up to potentially thousands of people wanting to know what services are available for CYP in the county. Go to http://www.glosfamiliesdirectory.org.uk/kb5/gloucs/glosfamilies/addentry.page
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:
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Next meetings of The Children and Young people’s Strategy group
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Voluntary and Community Sector Children and Young People’s Representatives
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The Gloucestershire Assembly Team Children and Young People’s Development Worker
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.
Voluntary and Community Sector Children and Young People’s Strategy group - Meeting of the 6th July
The last meeting of the Strategy group was well attended with about 25 people from across the Voluntary Children and young People’s sector.
The meeting was dominated by discussion about the growing impact of public sector spending cuts (see local news and events section below)
There was a long and useful discussion about the type of support the sector needs in this period and how we should attempt to influence decision making about cuts and spending priorities. The following points were made
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We should as a sector argue strongly to uphold the importance of early intervention and preventative services – there is a strong risk that funding that does survive will go towards higher level crisis services (like child protection). All the evidence is that early intervention saves vast amounts of money but over a long time scale
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Local organisations should engage with their local councillors – showcasing what they do and enlisting their support.
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The sector needs help and support to access and research alternative sources of income through the charity sector.
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There is a need for ‘joined up thinking’ from our public sector partners. What are the overall priorities for service delivery in the coming period? – these should be set by agreement with all partners if possible. At the moment there is a danger that budget cuts in different funding streams take place without reference to each other, and that the cumulative effect will be disastrous
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That there should be proper risk assessments where cuts are being proposed – what will the affects of cuts on service users and communities. Public authorities have a duty to consider this, as well as the effects on equalities groups’.
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The VCS assembly board should consider how to support VCO’s that are faced with cuts – and how to support them to work with their service users and communities to press the case for their organisations…
Papers from the meeting July 2010:
Agenda
Bob Lewis report
VCS Reps Reports
Feedback Glos Families Total Place Board June 2010
Public Spending Reductions
Next meeting of The Children and Young People’s Strategy group
Monday 4th October 2010, 2 - 4.30pm 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.
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.
Notes of previous CYP Reference Group Meetings
Meeting of the VCS Drugs and Alcohol Reference Group
12 April 2010
The notes of the meeting can be accessed here
Meeting of the VCS Parenting and ‘Think Family’ Reference Group
March 4 2010
You can find the notes of the first meeting of this new reference here
To find out more contact Bob Lewis, Children and Young People’s Development Worker, Assembly Team
VCS Locality Hubs Reference Group
15 February 2010
To see the notes of this reference group meeting go to http://bit.ly/LocalityhubsFeb10
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
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