Children's area partnerships
Integrated service delivery at local level
There are some exiting things happening for children and young people in Walsall. One of these is the development of Children’s Area Partnerships.
The aim of the Children’s Area Partnerships is to meet the needs of children, young people and their families in a local area by services working together to ensure Every Child Matters in Walsall.
The Children Act 2004 requires all local areas to have Children’s Trust arrangements in place for April 2008. An important element of the Trust arrangements is delivering services at a local level. In a nutshell, the needs of children and their families in a local area will be met by services that work together to ensure the best outcomes for the children and young people.
The vision for Walsall is that this will be accomplished by Children’s Area Partnerships (CAPs) in each locality. These partnerships will complement the work of the Local Neighbourhood Partnerships by focusing specifically on Every Child Matters outcomes in meeting the needs of children and young people.
Areas are being involved in the CAPs in phases. Each CAP will have its own local chair and will have to complete the development support programme for extended schools and show that they can work in an integrated way. Local areas will be involved in the CAPs in three phases. Two phases have already been established and the third phase will be introduced in November 2008.
Each CAP will have a membership spanning the services and settings for that local area; schools are obviously at the heart of regeneration and these community developments and headteachers play a critical role along with other senior managers from across agencies/partners as well as colleagues from the community and voluntary sector. It is hoped that representation would be drawn from all of these areas.
It is clear that the CAPs will complement the work of the Local Neighbourhood Partnerships by focussing exclusively on the lives of children and young people through a community engagement approach. We all know that when partners in a community put their efforts and resources into addressing the priorities in a joined up way then the potential to improve the lives of children and young people is overwhelming.
While there will be flexibility to address specific local issues, there will also be agreed terms of reference and ways of working in order to ensure consistency across the CAPs. Terms of reference have been agreed and these will be reviewed during the first phase of the CAPs. We will capture any changes that need to be made to the constitution of this important element of the Children’s Trust governance arrangements in Walsall.
The CAPs will also be instrumental in bringing some important agendas together, for example, extended schools, children’s centres, youth provision and targeted youth support. CAPs will be an extremely important part of Walsall’s Children’s Trust arrangements and will require the support of all agencies and settings in getting them off the ground successfully.
To find out more read the CAPs terms of reference (Word 46KB) and the Locality Partnership Events summary report (PDF 606KB).
Contact us
If you have a query about a specific locality, contact the chair of that locality using the locality pages above.
If you have a general query contact:
Carol Boughton
Head of Service
Prevention & Locality Services
Telephone 01922 658352
Email boughtonc@walsall.gov.uk