'Top 6' Major Projects for the Council
Integrated Delivery of Children's Services
As a Council we are relentless in our focus on getting the best outcomes for children and young people in Solihull, particularly those who are vulnerable or underachieving. The safety, health and wellbeing of all children in Solihull remains our priority.
We have identified four areas for 'step change' improvement over the next two years to March 2015:
- An issue tackled early is less likely to become an intractable problem later. Early intervention improves the lives of children and young people and saves money. The Council will strengthen the availability and range of evidence based early intervention services and work with partners to join up assessments and interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people, from pre-birth to adulthood. This approach will reduce the demand for specialist and emergency services and keep children safer.
- A strong, supportive extended family and community is key to achieving better outcomes for children and young people. The Council will support children, young people, families and communities to identify and act on their needs, concerns, ideas and aspirations and strengthen their own capacity to tackle the problems they face.
- Children and young people who are unable to live with their own family benefit from retaining a strong connection to their local community - including school, extended family and friends. The Council will develop more local family-based placements and reduce reliance upon more expensive externally commissioned placements.
- Integrated delivery is about joined up services which make it easier for children and families to get the support they need. This customer eye view is a way of thinking across all services, not just those that are co-located or multi-disciplinary.
Our Long Term Objectives
- Learning: Schools, early years settings and other learning providers are the universal services at the heart of the community - working collaboratively, in partnership with the local authority, public services, other agencies and organisations - providing high quality education and services to effectively meet the needs and aspirations of children, families and the community.
- Early Help: All children and young people whose needs cannot be met through universal services alone are helped by evidence-based early intervention services according to their needs.
- Commissioning and Performance: Improved outcomes and more cost effective services for children, young people and families are secured through robust commissioning and performance management arrangements.
- Placements: Reduce the need for children and young people to come into care in Solihull, improve outcomes for children looked after through greater use of local family-based placements, and prevent delay in moving children looked after into permanent arrangements.
- Health and Wellbeing: All service providers in partnership focus their assessments and interventions more effectively and efficiently to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people, from pre-birth to adulthood.
- Family Recovery: Families facing multiple and complex needs are helped and empowered to live happy lives within their communities.
Our Medium Term Goals
Our medium term goals for 2013/14 include:
- Transforming Council services for schools, early years’ settings and other learning providers.
- Delivering an all age early intervention support offer.
- Strengthening capability and effectiveness in commissioning of children’s services.
- Increasing the availability and use of family based placements within Solihull or which are local for the child or young person.
- Reducing levels of obesity in children.
- Implementing a multi-agency recovery system for the most troubled families in Solihull.
Our Tactics
The identified activities to achieve our goals include:
- Delivering a school and early years and childcare related transformation programme.
- Developing an early intervention partnership strategy.
- Building a common understanding of the needs of children and young people in Solihull and the impact of services, using a business intelligence hub.
- Publishing a Placements Strategy and action plan.
- Refreshing the childhood obesity strategy to include social and environmental factors.
- Developing an approach to engaging with families, based on intelligence about family needs and existing relationships.
Measuring Success
We will know that we have been successful in achieving our medium term goals because we will see:
- A rise in educational achievement, including for vulnerable groups of children, in the early years and at Key Stages 2 and 4.
- A reduction in cost and improvement in outcomes and customer satisfaction due to applying a robust commissioning approach.
- Improved outcomes for children who are Looked After.
- A 50% rise in the number of children eating 5 a day in schools taking part in the Food Dudes Programme.
- 90 families supported through the multi-agency recovery system.
The goals, tactics and measures above are illustrative.
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