Health and well-being
To enhance the health and well-being of all children and young people
Further education and sexual health services project
Many initiatives relating to young people's sexual and reproductive health have focused on work with under 16s, which although vital, does not reflect the fact that a much larger percentage of 16 to 19 year olds are sexually active, and experience unintended pregnancies and poor sexual health. As one model of effective practice is to link educational provision to easily accessible services, this project will ensure that further education institutions in England, as well as service providers, have the information and support to develop appropriate and effective sexual health programmes.
Primary Care Trusts (PCT) Children's Network
Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) have a key role in providing health services for their local population including children and young people. They have told us that they lack the capacity to respond effectively to meet children and young people's health and well-being needs and as a consequence find it difficult to prioritise their needs at local level. The Network was launched in February 2003 and has a wide membership. It produces a monthly ebulletin that includes a regular summary of news and information on policy and practice in relation to children and young people's health and well-being as well as opportunities for PCTs and partner agencies to disseminate relevant information and to request ideas and get support.
Schools and Sexual Health Services Network
With an increasing number of schools developing innovative ways of linking with sexual health services, the Teenage Pregnancy Unit asked the Sex Education Forum to establish the Schools and Sexual Health Services Network. This free email network, launched in 2005, is aimed at professionals from the education and health sectors who are involved in delivering, managing and commissioning services for young people. It aims to facilitate information sharing and good practice to support professionals in developing on-site sexual health services in secondary schools.
'Healthier Inside' - Improving the health and well-being of young people in custody
The first stage of 'Healthier Inside' (2004-2006) focused on gaining a clear understanding of the health and well-being needs of young people in custody to identify priorities for action. We did this via extensive consultation with young people and staff across the secure estate and other key stakeholders. The next phase (2007-2010) will continue to focus on sharing and supporting effective practice by: supporting implementation of the Every Child Matters toolkit; producing bi-annual editions of 'Healthier Inside' good practice magazine; establishing an e-mail network for staff; and holding seminars and networking events for staff to share good practice.
Supported youth housing and health network
Between 2003-2006 NCB and Young People in Focus (previously TSA) worked together on a DH funded project that aimed to improve the health and well-being of young people in supported housing. The aim of the project was to develop a good practice guide and a training manual for staff and managers. Following on from this project, funding was secured to develop a training resource for staff. The Network will share information, expertise and good practice; work to influence national policy; support implementation of key government policy; and support the development and implementation of resources produced by Young People in Focus and NCB.
Anti-Bullying Alliance: a national programme of work
The Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA) was founded by NCB and NSPCC in 2002 and now has over 60 member organisations that work together to reduce bullying and create safer environments for learning, playing and being cared for. The organisations in the Alliance represent policy, practice and research interests. In 2007, the ABA received funding from the DCSF to raise awareness of how to recognise, prevent and tackle bullying in the education sector. The main activities under this strand of work have included ongoing co-ordination of national Anti-bullying Week, maintenance of the ABA website, the development of an ABA enquiry service, the production of short e-bulletins for members and support for the Young ABA (managed in partnership with the Diana Award).
Policy and Parliamentary Information (PPI) Digest
PPI Digest is a weekly round-up of the latest policy and parliamentary information which affects children and young people. Coverage is England, with reference to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where applicable. Emailed weekly, it covers legislation, parliamentary debates, statistics, consultation documents, policy reports and news. Each item has a brief abstract, details of which UK country it applies to and a web link. The Digest is added to the members' pages of NCB's web site every week.
Every Disabled Child Matters campaign
Every Disabled Child Matters is a national campaign to get rights and justice for every disabled child with a focus on targeting Westminster and Whitehall. The campaign is run as an equal partnership between all four organisations, who each have one seat on the campaign board. Our vision is that disabled children and their parents are able to live ordinary lives. We do this through: raising the political profile of disabled children and their families within central and local government; asking challenging questions to government in order to create the space for effective policy making; seeking to represent a credible voice for disabled children, their families and our campaign network.
Young People, Drugs and Depression
This project is innovative as it is the first national development project to build an evidence base of current good practice and support new approaches and interventions to address the links between depression and drug use among young people. Children and young people will be involved in the project.
Young Children's Voices Networks within local authorities
More evidence is needed to establish guidance and support for listening to young children's views in an ethical and purposeful way. This project will develop and pilot Listening as a Way of Life Training for practitioners and identify training needs for advisers. Twenty local authorities throughout England will be involved in developing local Young Children's Voices Networks for practitioners in their area, offering them guidance, support, free training and resources. A national network will be developed to provide guidance, training, resources and support to LAs and practitioners.
'Talkin' Transition' - promoting sustainable travel for children making the transition from primary to secondary school
Past work carried out by Young Transnet has identified that the point of transition between primary and secondary school is a crucial time to engage children and their parents/carers in discussions about transport choices and an ideal time to encourage them to consider a range of travel choices as they plan their new journey to school. This project will help support implementation of the DCSF school travel action plan and associated policy that aims to improve children's health and well-being. Working in partnership with two secondary schools and some of their feeder primaries, NCB will develop and pilot new creative approaches to promoting sustainable travel for children making the transition from primary to secondary school.
Improving the Health and Well-being of Black and Minority Ethnic Children and Young People in and Leaving Care
The Healthy Care Programme has identified that carers, parents and service providers lack information and understanding of the specific healthcare needs of BME children and young people. Concerns have been raised that services are discriminatory and inadequate.
The project will help ensure that young people in and leaving care receive high quality and culturally appropriate assessment, treatment and support for their healthcare needs. To achieve this we will: establish an expert advisory group with representation from the Black Health Agency, CPHVA, and the Royal College of General Practitioners; develop and disseminate a questionnaire to map existing practice to meet the healthcare needs of BME groups in and leaving care; recruit three Healthy Care Partnerships to work with us as pilot sites; carry out consultations with children and young people in each pilot site to explore their experiences of health-related support and ideas for improvements; hold multi-agency workshops with practitioners in each pilot site to identify existing good practice and gaps in provision; and work with the pilot sites to develop and test out new resources to address gaps in provision.
Young people and open space
A work plan will be developed and implemented to influence policy development on young people and open public space, generate an increased understanding and tolerance of issues facing young people using public open space, and increase the extent to which young people feel safe and accepted whilst playing or hanging out in public open spaces, particularly those within their local communities.
Case studies of play provision
Play England has developed a database of good practice in play provision. This is available online via the Play England website www.playengland.org.uk. Case studies of good play provision are available to provide inspiration and good practice ideas. The case studies are recorded using a set format of questions and criteria, and will be verified using referees.
Local government reform and its impact on play provision
The project aims to monitor changes in local government to see how they impact on children's play provision. We aim to publicise these changes to the play sector and interpret complex policy documents. In addition, we will lobby for guidance relating to play and play space to be taken forward.
Play England will be developing an indicator that will help measure improvements in play provision. It is hoped that this indicator will be adopted within a suite of indicators that local authorities can use in order to measure improvements in play provision within their local area.
National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC)
NCERCC disseminates good practice for children in residential care through the production of relevant materials and resources; hosting and participating in conferences, seminars and training events; and undertaking appropriate media activity in collaboration with relevant NCB departments. It organises an annual sector-wide conference on residential child care, which brings together a wide cross-section of stakeholders to discuss key issues and exchange good practice. Conference proceedings are widely circulated to promote discussion and development.
'All Salted?': reducing salt intake in young parents and their children
Although young parents receive standard advice on a healthy diet during maternity care, there are barriers that make it difficult to follow this advice: young women report not liking healthier foods, being unable to afford them, and lacking the cooking skills or equipment to prepare fresh food. This project will address some of these challenges by working with young parents and the practitioners who support them The programme will incorporate key messages on reducing salt in their own and their children's diets, directly address the barriers they face to making dietary change, and enable them to make healthy food choices. It will help them to assess their own and their children's salt intake, to understand salt content information on packaged foods and to identify low salt options.
Trust for the Future: the role of health staff in the transition to adulthood of disabled children and young people
We will work with six local authority areas and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), consulting with disabled young people on their experiences of this process and their ideas for improvements.
We will also work closely with health and other professionals across services to learn about key challenges and successes and make links with existing projects addressing similar issues.
A national project to support improvements in personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education in schools
NCB is working with partners, including children and young people, to promote and support PSHE in the context of the five 'Every Child Matters' outcomes. There are three distinct project elements within the national project: enhancing the development and delivery of PSHE through participation; Deep Dive: why PSHE thrives - conditions, practice and provision; and a national information network for PSHE. This project is a continuation of the PSHE Programme (Project Sheet no.255).
Evaluation of the CAPE Project in Greenwich
The CAPE Project aims to bring about sustainable change to the ways in which agencies work with families where a parent/carer has a severe and enduring mental illness or disorder.
There are two main strands to the CAPE Project's work: work with professionals and practitioners and direct work with families. The evaluation will employ a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and will collect data from a range of different sources and informants, including: collection and analysis of documentary evidence; semi-structured interviews with key professional and managerial stakeholders; telephone interviews with professionals and practitioners who have received consultation and advice from the project; quantitative feedback about the impact of direct work with families from relevant parties; qualitative case studies focusing on a sample of families who have received direct support from the project; and a survey of relevant professionals and practitioners in Greenwich.
Patient Advice and Liaison Services (PALS) - Getting it right for children and young people
PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Services) are available in most hospitals and PCTs (Primary Care Trusts) and provide an ideal opportunity for children and young people to engage with their healthcare. Research carried out by NCB in 2007 found that 75% of PALS weren't actively involving children and young people in any way. In response to this finding, the Department of Health funded NCB to run a three year project to equip PALS with the skills and knowledge to engage children and young people in their services.
Systematic evaluation of early years interventions in Northern Ireland (research support for the Making it Work programme)
The early years 'Making It Work' programme seeks to design and deliver innovative early years services in Northern Ireland with the aim of improving outcomes for children in three key areas: children's respect for differences; their enjoyment of learning; and their emotional and physical well-being. Between April 2007 and December 2010, Early Years aims to develop and deliver a number of innovative services, with the aim of enhancing these three outcomes. Research support to the project will be given by conducting comprehensive literature reviews of existing research evidence relevant to the three core outcomes; and by identifying, and where necessary, piloting and validating measures to be used in relation to the outcomes.
Life Routes - phase 2
Life Routes provides young people aged 11 to 19, in alternative education and community settings, with the opportunity to develop the skills necessary for emotional health and well-being. These skills include decision-making, problem-solving, communication, teamwork and responsibility and will be acquired through volunteering, developing positive relationships (for example, peer mentoring), and developing enterprising behavior (for example, fundraising). Life Routes works in areas identified as requiring specific regeneration and development and is delivered through a network of local programmes by social workers, youth workers, teachers and other professionals who work directly with vulnerable young people.
Health Challenge Programme
The Health Challenge programme (HCP) aims to support children, young people, their families and the wider school community to initiate and maintain healthier lifestyle changes.
The project will implement and evaluate a four-week Health Challenge programme in three primary and three secondary schools in Kent. The HCP involves children and young people identifying one challenge that they would like to work towards to improve their health and well-being. They can choose from three challenge areas - healthy eating, physical activity and emotional health and well-being. All participants will keep a journal and will be provided with information beforehand and support throughout the challenge.
Play and exercise in early childhood provision
DCMS picks up a certain amount of data on child physical activity through school-based programmes, such as the National School Sport and Healthy Schools Programmes, but there is a lack of information on physical activity in early years provision. In order to fill some of the gaps in their evidence base, DCMS have asked Play England to undertake a research project on physically active play in early years settings, including a review of the existing literature and some settings-based primary research. The project will look at how factors in the child's environment, their relationships with others and adult attitudes affect the extent to which children attending provision play in physically active ways. This is an exploratory study in which the overall methodological approach is observation of children in a small number of pre-school settings, triangulated with more ethnographic data on the environment and data on adult (parent and staff) perceptions collected through interviews. Observation of 16-18 children will take place in three settings in a London borough in autumn/winter 2007.
Healthy Care programme
The Healthy Care programme is a practical way of improving the health of looked after children and young people in line with Department of Health guidance Promoting the Health of Looked After Children (2002), Every Child Matters, Time for Change and the Change for Children Programme. Through partnership working, policy development, and with the participation of looked after children and young people, the programme ensures that services are child-focused, provide a healthy care environment and support the National Healthy Care Standard.
Cards for Little Lives
Cards for Little Lives will extend the very successful 'Cards for Life' series, which was first published by NCB in 2005. NCB will consult with a range of children aged 7-11 and their carers, workers or teachers to identify real life dilemmas, which their age group has to address on a regular basis. These dilemmas will be 'worked up' into a scenario, which can be used with a set of questions to facilitate discussion and skill building. Each scenario will have a moral aspect, which requires children to think about the scenario and work out what they would do in this 'real-life' situation and the support and help they would need.
Locked Into Play
Existing work in secure settings indicates that enabling vulnerable young parents to learn about and practice playing with their children helps to promote positive relationships, enhance parenting skills, and improve the well-being of child and parent alike. Working in partnership with four secure centres and a range of service providers, key local and national stakeholders including children and young parents, will be consulted to guide the project and to identify areas of need. The project will support service developments in the four secure centres and devise new resources to capture the learning and disseminate replicable models of good practice across the secure estate for young people.
Consultation for CAMHS review
The review is one of several announced in the Children's Plan and NCB is conducting focus groups and interviews with young people and supporting a young person's reference group. Seven focus groups, in a range of geographical locations across England, will include different levels of user experience of mental health problems, (i.e. those with direct experience of mental health problems; those with 'significant other' experience; and, those with no direct experience). Topic guides for the focus groups will be drafted by NCB and agreed with OPM. Five in-depth semi-structured interviews with children and young people (one child in custody (or with experience of accessing CAHMS whilst in custody); two young people who have gone through transition from CAMHS to adult services; and two with experience of CAMHs and substance misuse issues). A core reference group of 10-14 children and young people with experience of mental health issues will be established.
INVOLVE reference group
INVOLVE is an advisory body funded by the National Institute for Health Research (Dept of Health) with a brief to promote public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research. Louca-Mai Brady is a member of the 'Evidence, Knowledge and Learning' working group and attends INVOLVE meetings and events.
PEAR: Young People's Public Health Research group
Following on from the pilot project, this project will support children and young people to contribute to the UK public health agenda by giving them opportunities to learn about the current public health research and policy agenda, feed their views and priorities into current public health policy and the research agenda, translate and disseminate research findings to their peers. Two young people's reference groups will be set up in London and the north of England, and a website developed which, with other activity, will facilitate the communication of public health research by, to and between children and young people.
Evaluation of Young Children's Voices Networks (YCVN)
The project will evaluate YCVN's contribution to promoting and sustaining good listening practice within settings, and the value of a listening culture; changes in attitude towards young children's involvement in service development; improving outcomes for children (ECM) and quality assurance; promoting and ensuring inclusion of views from young children from black and other minority ethnic groups, disabled children and children with special educational needs; supporting local authorities in meeting their duty to 'have regard to the views of young children in the design, development and delivery of childhood services' (Childcare Act, 2006); and whether young children's views have been used in service development.
C4EO (Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services)
C4EO will focus on six national themes: early years; disabled children; vulnerable children (particularly children in care); youth; parents, carers and families; and schools and communities. Each theme will have three priorities or 'key lines of enquiry'. Local authorities and children's trust partners will be provided with the most robust analysis of data trends and evidence showing what works nationally and regionally. They will also have access to tailored specialist support from the sector to help them apply lessons to their local circumstances, and will be encouraged to offer their own specialists to help others. NCB is the lead partner. It is also responsible for the early years theme, leading the evaluation function, and giving operational support to the Centre.
Risk in play: research to support Playday 2008
Playday is a national campaign which celebrates children's right to play. The focus of Playday 2008 is risk in play - supporting children's access to play opportunities that involve challenge, adventure and risk. Eight focus groups were set up with children aged 8-13 in six locations in England with the aim of exploring how children and young people experience risk in play, how they talk about risk, what they see as the positive and negative aspects of risk, how they assess risk, what constrains them from taking risk, and whether they would like more opportunities for risk in play. The groups took part in a range of school and play settings and discussion, pair work and stimulus material were used to explore children's perspectives.
Special Educational Needs and Disability: Understanding Local Variation in Prevalence, Service Provision and Support
There is growing evidence of wide variation between local authorities in the proportion and the categorisation of disabled children and those with special educational needs (SEN). There are variations in the number of children being identified, the correct identification of their primary condition; and the identification of their need for School Action, School Action Plus or statementing. There is also evidence of variation in the extent and quality of provision to meet their needs. The project will undertake a literature review; an analysis of existing data on SEN prevalence and practice; and case studies in 16 local authorities involving interviews with strategic leads for SEN, inclusion or disability; SEN leads in twenty one schools, strategic leads for ASD and hearing impairment, parent partnership service coordinators, and voluntary and community sector representatives.
Evaluation of the Health Challenge Programme
The Health Challenge Programme (HCP) involves children and young people identifying one challenge that they would like to work towards to improve their health and well-being. They can choose from three challenge areas: healthy eating, physical activity and emotional health and well-being. The project will implement and evaluate a four-week HCP in three primary and three secondary schools in Kent. As part of the evaluation, the feasibility of running HCP in schools will be explored, barriers and facilitators to implementation will be examined; together with why the programme works better in certain schools; and what the cost implications are for running the programme. For more information on the Health Challenge Programme, please see project no.416.
MENCAP Young People Together Project: needs assessment
A range of good practice summer scheme activities will be set up, in partnership with other agencies, in up to nine target areas throughout Northern Ireland. These areas will include a balance of rural and urban areas and will take account of the following: numbers of children, young people and family carers who may benefit from the project in each area; levels of social disadvantage; and availability of suitable alternative summer activity provision.
The Good Childhood Inquiry: consultation with diverse groups of young people
As well gathering research evidence and talking to adults, this project will gather the views from children and young people in Northern Ireland. The Children's Society has identified six groups of children and young people they wish to consult: children with disabilities, traveler children, children under five years of age, children in secure accommodation, children in public care and refugees and asylum seekers. Each group will meet once to discuss one of the following themes: friends; family; learning; lifestyle and health and diet.
Active play research study
Working in five pilot communities with children aged 5 - 9 and their parents, the project will identify issues and barriers to involvement in active play and develop tools and recommendations to address the issues identified. Through consultation with each pilot community, tools and recommendations will be developed for use by local agencies and communities to enhance children's levels of active play. The data gathered from these pilots will be used to develop a range of recommendations for the Department of Health on how parents' and children's views and experience affect children's active play.
Transition mapping
Following the publication of a transition guide for all services in 2007, the Council for Disabled Children plans to build on existing research, policy and practice. The map will identify the elements that make up successful transition, such as multi-agency planning, protocols and working, and will highlight examples of good practice in each of these areas. It will give examples of how these elements can be put together to create successful and comprehensive transition provision, and provide a tool to be used by local authorities. There are numerous new developments and initiatives, such as the Getting a Life pilots, and self-directed support programmes, that are being trialled in various areas, and as part of the project we will look at the impact that these initiatives have on young people and the transition process as a whole.
My Money - Support for the Development of Financial Capability in Schools
My Money is a £10m financial education programme developed and executed, on behalf of the DCSF by pfeg and its partners. pfeg is heading the initiative in its role as the leading finance education organisation helping schools to plan and teach financial capability relevant to student's lives and needs. The programme will build capacity for those working in local authorities and in schools; provide materials, training and support for schools; develop a compelling and energetically delivered communications strategy; and deliver an annual activity week: My Money Week.
Play in Schools and Integrated Children's Settings
The group convenes on a quarterly basis to share information, network and learn from each other's experience. It will coordinate lobbying on the policy and practice of external stakeholders, including government agencies and regional bodies, champion play and collate and disseminate case studies that demonstrate how quality play provision can be provided in a variety of staffed children's environments.
Evaluation of School Based Health Centres in Greenwich
In response to relatively high teenage pregnancy rates in Greenwich, school based health centres (SBHC) were established in six schools to support young people's health and well-being and raise their awareness of local services. This evaluation examined whether SBHC are an effective way of providing health services for young people. In particular, the evaluation provided early evidence of pupils' use of SBHC, their awareness and use of other local services as a result, and the impacts of SBHC on young people's health and well-being. It also investigated if and how SBHC improved the overall quality and experience of health provision for young people via changes in staff behaviours, knowledge and confidence. Finally, the evaluation examined the relationship between PSHE and SBHC. The evaluation comprises five components: interviews with key staff involved in the SBHC; interviews with key strategic service leads; a survey of young people in the target schools; interviews with young people in the target schools; and secondary data analysis of existing monitoring and evaluation data.
Work-Based Learning, SRE and Sexual Health Project
Evidence shows that young people with low attainment and negative experiences of school are at a high risk of teenage conception and poor sexual health outcomes. This project engages with these disadvantaged and hard-to-reach young people by enhancing the role of Work-Based Learning (WBL) providers in supporting their health and well-being. It will start by collecting base-line information about current activity in relation to WBL and sexual health services/SRE in a sample of nine local authorities in England. Together with findings from focus groups with young people this will build up knowledge about the needs of young people attending WBL and enable change over the course of the project to be measured. The development of the project will be steered by a project advisory group.
Childminding Practice in England
The project will include a survey of childminders, interviews with childminders, focus groups with parents who use childminders and observations of childminding settings. There will be a review of information available from Ofsted on its approach to childminding inspection.
Small Steps to a Sustainable Future
Working with children and young people in primary and secondary schools, pupil referral units, youth and community provision, residential care homes and secure children's homes, to choose one challenge that the children will stick to for at least four weeks. Their choice should make a positive difference to their environment and/or community. Small Steps to a Sustainable Future is a project that all children and young people can relate to and enjoy, but it is particularly beneficial to vulnerable children and young people, especially those in out of school/community provision.
Building a Climate Smart Future
Six UK-based children and youth organisations from across the spectrum of service providers, policy and umbrella organisations, and child protection agencies have been invited to participate in the programme. IDS (Institute of Development Studies) and NCB will facilitate a learning process to explore the organisational change tools and processes that child and youth organisations need to develop more climate friendly (in terms of reducing carbon footprints) and climate resilient (addressing the wider impacts from climate change through their aims and programme of work) activities.
IDS will build on a previously developed 'climate smart' organisational change framework to enable organisations to self-assess their activity at key points in the project cycle. The process will be one of mutual learning and the organisational framework will be adapted to suit the needs of each organisation.
Small Steps 4 Life
The website will be developed within the context of the findings from NCB's Health Challenge evaluation to ensure it is evidence-based and meets children and young people's needs. A draft framework for website content will be done in conjunction with the Profero creative team. Consultation events with children and young people will be held across the UK and an on-line survey conducted with potentially 1,000 respondents in England and more in the UK.
Play Pathfinder Adventure Playground Support
Twenty local authorities will deliver new adventure playgrounds or play parks by 31 March 2010 and a further 10 will deliver by 31 March 2011. The new playgrounds will reflect the essential elements set out in the Play England briefing 'Developing an adventure playground: the essential elements' and DCSF expectations set out in the Play Strategy and conditions of grant letters. They will be developed with the full engagement and involvement of children, young people, local communities and elected members and reflect good practice and learning across the programme and the wider adventure playground sector. Progress will be monitored through the Play England Red/Amber/Green (RAG) rating system, regional networking events and visits to playground development leads and project implementation groups to inform bi-monthly reporting to DCSF.
Young Children's Voices Network (YCVN) within Local Authorities: Phase 2
YCVN will support local authorities (LAs) in meeting their duty under the Childcare Act 2006, 'to have regard to any information about the views of young children which is available and relevant to these duties'. The project will develop a national network to; provide guidance, training, resources and support to LAs and practitioners, collate evidence of what works and share best practice nationally, and bring together partners and expert practitioners in a national advisory group to inform the project and influence policy makers.
NCB research centre will undertake a smallscale evaluation research project about YCVN activity which will result in casestudies and a report by end of March 2011.
The Effective Engagement of Young People in Camden PCT's Consultations During 2009/11
A range of different groups of young people willl be recruited and their skills developed. Data from the interviews will be analysed and a report will be produced at the end of the project.
Building Capacity to Address the Mental Health Needs of Vulnerable Young People Outside of Mainstream Schools
The first stage of the project will recruit local authority PRUs and undertake a matching needs and services audit which will highlight the prevalence, type and severity of mental health issues and the extent to which current arrangements are meeting those needs.The second stage will identify two local authorities to undertake more in depth development work using information from the MNS audits. Development work will be evaluated and used to inform an accessible and realistic advice document/resource for PRUs.
Child Safety Education Coalition
Members of the coalition will work together to identify common and avoidable injuries to children and young people. Activities where practical safety education could be improved, extended or introduced will be identified to provide children with opportunities to develop risk competence appropriate to their age and developmental stage. These skills will be transferable to all aspects of their lives and will enable children and young people to have the confidence to put their risk competence into practice.
Mapping Local Play Provision
Every local authority in England will be asked to identify the locations and quality of all their play provision. This information will then be entered on a mapping system for analysis. Data will be shared between local and national government, with partner organisations and to the public, via local authority and national websites.
Managing My Way
This project extends 'Staying Positive' to look at focused work on the self management of health conditions by disabled young people. It will help health staff to understand what young people and families want and need in order to feel in control of their own health care, and provide good practice examples where this is happening already. It involves the active participation of disabled young people working with the Alliance for Young Peoples Health. The range of protocols and materials to support young people which it will develop will be transferable across a range of Children's Trust partners.
Creativity and Looked After Children and Young People - Phase 2
Local projects will be developed with looked after children and young people, aged between 8-15 years, which are sustainable and of high quality. We will identify effective approaches for embedding creativity in the lives of young people in care, by identifying effective partnership working, creative practices and policy support. We will explore ways in which creative practice can inform, and be informed by, social pedagogic practice nationally and on the evidence of international research. An evidence base will be developed to show the effectiveness of arts and creative practice for children and young people in care in order to inform and influence national policy and decision makers and to deliver a national programme of work.
Mobile Youth Facilities
NCB is part of a partnership that aims to provide funding, expertise and governance to an exciting new national mobile youth facilities project. The partnership will channel national funding and resources to improve the sustainability of new and existing mobile youth facilities. These facilities are performing valuable and effective outreach youth work in some of the most deprived communities where other provision is largely unavailable or inaccessible. As part of the project we are also setting up a framework to monitor the provision and outcomes of mobile youth faciliites.
Local Involvement Networks (LINks) - getting it right for children and young people
NCB's Voluntary Sector Support Programme has been funded by the Department of Health to deliver a three year project that will increase children and young people's involvement in LINks. LINks are networks of local people, organisations and groups that want to improve local health and social care services. LINks will listen to local people about their needs and experiences of services and feed this information back to those responsible for commissioning, providing, managing and checking up on health and social care services. LINks operate in each local authority and are managed by a host organisation. Research has shown that although some LINks have groups dedicated to children and young people, activity so far is mainly focused on adult services.