Children’s Services Needs Analysis Evidence Base The APA Self Assessment and outcomes • The Joint Area Review data set • Audit Commission survey of school views of their LA • Inspection outcomes • The requirements of PSAs and LAAs • Review of current business plans • Feedback from individual services • Feedback from voluntary organisations • Feedback from children and families •
Areas for Further Evidence 1. Feedback from external organisations and other departments, particularly: PCT • Police • LSC • Housing • Regeneration • CIP • 2. More feedback from children and families
Areas for exploration in the Joint Area Review: Being Healthy Outcomes for CAMHS and the timeliness of referrals • Staying Safe Timeliness of assessments • Long-term stability of looked after children • Enjoying and achieving Rate of unauthorised absences • The attainment gap between targeted groups and highest achieving groups • Making a positive contribution Work to prevent new offenders entering the youth justice system. • Economic well-being Progress of underachieving groups and standards reached in academic attainment • post-16
Emerging issues Management and Organisational Issues 1.Developing a co-ordinated approach to Children’s Services This will include the full implementation of the Council’s re-organisation and continuing work to build effective working systems across all the organisations working with children and young people. 2. Further develop opportunities for children and young people to contribute to the development of services This refers particularly to the implementation of the new Participation Strategy 3. Recruitment and Retention of staff in shortage areas There is a continuing shortage of key categories of staff in social services and health. Teacher recruitment has improved but there remain some particular shortages. There will also be the need to enhance the skills and qualifications of many groups of staff who are working with children. 4. Developing a co-ordinated approach to sharing information and data The first stage will be to share information about all the available services in a structured way. Work on linking IT systems will continue. 5. Improve communications between schools and social services, particularly in relation to looked after children. The Audit Commission survey shows that schools consider this to be an area of weakness
Targeted programmes 6. Develop preventative/ early intervention services (tier 2) This will involve the development of multi-agency teams working with children and families at an earlier stage in the hope of reducing the number of looked after children and the number of exclusions from school 7. Implementation of the Extended Schools Strategy This is a government strategy to develop enrichment and support activities with local clusters of schools working in partnership with partners. This will include the development of new Children’s Centres. 8. Placing more Looked After Children locally This will provide more stability for the young people and will also enable resources to be used more efficiently 9. Integrating services for children with disabilities This is the first area in which joint commissioning and a common assessment process will be implemented. 10. Developing Youth Work This area is highlighted in the Youth Matters Green Paper and is likely to be a focus of the Council’s Local Area Agreement
Schools Issues 11. Achieve targets for the continued improvement in pupil attainment The government expects to see year on year improvement in standards as seen in tests and examinations at all key stages 12. Identify schools causing concern and ensure that they become more effective During 2006-07, School Improvement Partners will be introduced. This is a government programme to reform how schools are monitored and supported and it will require changes to how the LA carries out these core functions 13. Improve support for schools in areas currently rated unsatisfactory . The Audit Commission survey shows that schools have identified technical services, health and safety, financial management, ICT, admissions and planning school places as areas for improvement. 14. Raise the attainment of groups of pupils currently under-achieving A number of priority groups have been identified including certain (but not all) ethnic minority groups, white working class children, looked after children and Traveller children. This was highlighted in the APA.
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