Minutes of Children and Families Partnership Board Meeting
Thursday 20 October 2016
12:00 – 2:00pm
Community Space, Bernard Weatherill House,
Mint Walk, Croydon CR0 1EA
Present:
Cllr Alisa Flemming (Chair)
Agnieszka Gebka, CYPFN (PiP)
Amanda Tuke, Head of Partnerships & Children’s Integrated Commissioning
Bernadette Alves, Consultant in public health
Jane Doyle, Director of Universal People Services
Karen Stott, CYPFN (Off the Record)
Maria Nawrocka, Children & Families Partnership Manager
Penny Smith-Orr, Faiths Together in Croydon
Sandra Richards, Designated LAC nurse, CCG
Sara Milocco, CVA
Virginia Marshall, Special Schools Headteacher
Kim Bennett, Croydon Drop-In
Liz Driver, CALAT
Chris Leigh, Early Intervention
Clare Brutton, Children’s Pathway Redesign Manager
Apologies: Margaret Bird, Bernadette Khan, Maria Gatland, Shafi Khan, Mark
Swindells, Paula Doherty, Sam Taylor, Ian Lewis, David Butler, Barbara Peacock,
Andy Opie, Jo Fletcher, Raquel Tomlinson, Shade Alu.
1:
Welcome, introductions and apologies:
Cllr Flemming welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were noted. Round
room introductions were made.
2:
Minutes of Children and Families Partnership Board meeting held on
Wednesday 20 July 2016.
The minutes were agreed as a true and accurate record.
Matters arising from the minutes:
The Children and Families Plan including Child Poverty Plan has been approved and
is on the Partnership pages of the Council website.
Action 2.1: Maria Nawrocka to send link to Children and Families Plan to members.
Action 2.2: Members to share the Children and Families Plan within their
organisations to ensure everyone is aware of the Partnership priorities.
CFP Board 20/10/16
Page 1
Love Lane has now been shortlisted as Play Street of the Year by London Play –
results will be announced at the awards ceremony on 27 October. This is a great
endorsement of the Love lane and Croydon Play Streets.
The Childhood Obesity workshop was held on 5 October and was a great success.
This is covered in Item 6.
3:
Early Help: Best Start Engagement
Best Start provides a multi-agency model for improving universal and early
intervention services for children from pregnancy to aged five and their families so
that every baby, child and young person is equipped with social and emotional skills
and resilience to maximise their life chances, enabling them to realise their potential
Best Start is driven by function not professional demarcation with cross-disciplinary
working and leadership changing the way professionals work together and with
children and families.
There are three workstreams:



Communications
Commissioning
IT
The Best Start Awareness Day on 14 October was a networking opportunity,
bringing together a range of partners, as well as a chance to engage with parents
and explain the Best Start approach. The event involved health visiting, school
nursing, breast feeding, children’s centres, school admissions, two-year-old funding
and voluntary sector partners. The event was well attended by families who found
out more about services available.
Going forward Best Start would build on community development and volunteering.
There was a parent champions programme to encourage other parents to engage. A
parent buddies scheme was being piloted at Kensington Avenue with the intention of
rolling this out more widely. It was noted that parent buddies would be particularly
beneficial for those with children with SEND. It was also important to identify buddies
from particular faith communities. Community builders would work in each locality.
Parents had also been involved in co-design and governance of Best Start with a
parent-led steering group.
3.1: Send Best Start contact details, facebook page and maps of children’s
centres and Health Clinics to members.
1Action
1
The PRISM consortium is commissioned by Best Start to deliver courses to parents of children
under 5 who are identified as having a Social & Communication Difficulty.
CFP Board 20/10/16
Page 2
4.1
Reduce child poverty:
The young people led Child Poverty Strategy identified four themes:




4.2
Poor education - low education achievement, lack of qualifications and
training.
Environment – poor quality housing and living condition, rundown areas
that lack facilities.
Unemployment - joblessness, lack of income and less opportunity
Poor health – young people can experience poor physical and mental
health
Reduce child poverty: Small Steps to Employment
The Small Steps to Employment started as a six week programme for 7
parents on the cusp of losing benefits. All were out of work bringing up young
children. The programme was delivered in collaboration between CALAT and
a children’s centre.
The course involved all the elements required to support people on the
transition into get a job. All parents had confidence and literacy needs but
there was also support in writing a personal statement and developing a CV.
All seven were now in work, volunteering or in training.
There were now five progammes across the borough and they have been
extended to eight weeks. The parents were all referred through the children’s
centre host.
CALAT provided a wide range of family learning in the community working
with both parents and children
Action 4.1: Liz Driver’s contact details to be shared with members.
4.3
Reduce child poverty: Flexible Working
The Partnership survey of lone parents had identified that lack of working
opportunities that fit with childcare responsibilities was the main barrier to
employment. The current focus in reducing child poverty was on achieving
accreditation for Croydon as a Flexible Working Borough.
Flexible working benefits:
– Employers - attract, retain and progress the best talent; deliver services
cost efficiently; and adapt to changing business conditions.
– Individual employees - balance their work, family life and community
commitments.
CFP Board 20/10/16
Page 3
–
Social benefits - more inclusive local labour market; reducing the
number of people dependent on benefits; reducing the number of
children of working parents who live in poverty; enabling older workers
to stay in the labour market; enabling carers to balance their caring
responsibilities with paid work.
Part of the process was about the Council as an employer and recruiter and
part about influencing other employers in Croydon to increase flexible working
opportunities.
The Flexible working steering group is currently developing the
Implementation plan. When this is approved by Timewise Croydon will be
accredited as a flexible working borough.
The action plan is organised by five themes:
 Leadership;
 Flexible Working (within the Council);
 Flexible Hiring (by the Council);
 Flexible Labour Market (Other Croydon employers); and
 Flexible Commissioning.
The Steering group were consulting on including the following high level
actions:



Ensure our recruitment processes are inclusive and accessible including
reference to flexible working
Improving understanding of current flexible working arrangements
through
Introducing an Employment Charter for Croydon which includes a
commitment to flexible working and timewise accreditation
It was expected that the Implementation Plan would be submitted in
November with accreditation in December, 2016.
Board members undertook a bench marking exercise on attitudes to flexible
working in partnership organisations.
5.
Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health
The Local Transformation Plan was being refreshed: the priorities were
unchanged but was more specific around some themes particularly universal
and community services and the very vulnerable, especially looked after
children and young offenders.
Provision needs to be evidence based, to meet need and meet our priorities.
There were presentations on the services offered by voluntary sector partners.
All voluntary sector partners had experiences an increase in demand for their
CFP Board 20/10/16
Page 4
services and had been able to extend their offer due to funding from the Local
Transformation Plan.
Croydon Drop-In (cdi)
CDI provide free, confidential services to young people 10 – 25 who live, work
or study in the borough of Croydon and opening hours had been extended to
8pm. They use volunteer counsellors and currently have a six week waiting
time,
The core services provided:
 Drop-In support service ( an open door policy / open access provision)
 Counselling Service
 Advocacy and Advice a wide range of information on health; housing;
money; debt employment/training - working within a Human Rights
framework
 Counselling In 8 Schools (primary and secondary)
 Outreach Health and Wellbeing Education,
 TALKBUS service and Community Support
 Information / Sign Posting / Support
 Young Peoples’ Groups
 Training – Accredited and non-accredited courses and workshops
 Parent Infant Partnership – In partnership with Croydon Best Start and
PIPUK - PIP is a new initiative for CDI.
Off the Record (OTR)
OTR provide a wide range of free, friendly and accessible support services for
young people in Croydon and Sutton.
 Counselling – a friendly, non-judgemental and confidential space for 14
– 25 years olds to explore their thoughts, feelings, beliefs or experiences
with a trained listener.
 Compass - specialist mental health service providing support to young
people in Croydon who are refugees, asylum seekers or forced migrants.
 The Young Carers Project - a free, friendly and professional service,
offering support to young people (aged 7-25) who are caring for a parent
or sibling.
 BME Community Development Workers - helps the Black and Minority
Ethnic (BME) community to develop mental health services. By providing
support to mental health and community organisations to help the
development of services for young people and young adults aged 0-35
years.
In Summer, 2016 Skyline was launched to provide online counselling and
workshops to young people aged 14-25 in Croydon and Sutton.
The workshops are free, informal and online, providing practical help and information
about key issues such as depression, stress, anger or anxiety.
SkyLine counselling provides one-to-one support online. Users write about
their problems giving them space to explore their thoughts and feelings in their
own time and in their own personal space.
CFP Board 20/10/16
Page 5
The counselling happens through a secure website, so messages are
exchange privately and confidentially with a counsellor. There is a choice of
live chat or message-based counselling.
Other voluntary sector provision
There was a diverse range of services provided by the voluntary sector in
Croydon to support children and young people emotional wellbeing and
mental health. These include:













RASAC
Cassandra Learning Centre
Safer London Foundation
NSPCC
Croydon Relate
Time4me
Place2Be
Roundabout
HomeStart Croydon
Woodside Bereavement Services
Young Roots
Asset Based Community Development
Health Champions
Action 5.1: Contact details of the voluntary sector organisations supporting
children and young people emotional wellbeing and mental health to be
circulated to members.
Action 5.2: Skyline services to be promoted with school nurses and special
school nurses
Action 5.3: Skyline services to be promoted at GP events
Action 5.4: Skyline services to be promoted through the schools bulletin
Action 5.5: Skyline services to be promoted at Secondary Heads meeting
Action 5.6: Skyline services to be promoted through Faiths Together in
Croydon newsletter
Action 5.7: Skyline services to be promoted at SENCOs Forum
6.
Reducing Childhood Obesity
The Healthy Weight workshop brought together a wide range of stakeholders,
including young people, concerned with reducing obesity in children and
young people. 60-70 ideas were generated by the participants which were
voted on to identify the top ten.
CFP Board 20/10/16
Page 6
An action plan would now be developed covered physical activity, healthy
eating and self-esteem and a range of activities already being undertaken as
well as areas where value could be added.
From the many actions in the Plan it was important that these were prioritised
to ensure that the work of the steering group was focussed and achievable.
There also needed to be a balance between heathy eating and physical
activity. Success would depend on strong community engagement and
ownership of the plan.
7.
AOB
The Partnership launched its new e-learning course on Autism Awareness in April.
This was developed with parents and carers in Croydon. Already almost 500 people
had completed the course and the ratings were extremely positive with 99%
‘agreeing’ or ‘strongly agreeing’ with the statement ‘I will be able to apply the
knowledge I have learned’.
Action 7.1: Details of the e-learning offer to be circulated to members
Action 7.2: Proposals for future Board meeting items to be sent to Maria Nawrocka
The Chair thanked everyone for attending.
Next Meeting of the Board: Thursday 20 October 2016.
Action
No
2.1
Action
Action by Status
Link to Children and Families Plan to be sent
to members
Maria
Nawrocka
Complete
2.2
Members to share the Children and Families
Plan within their organisations to ensure
everyone is aware of the Partnership priorities.
All
On-going
3.1
Send Best Start contact details, facebook page Maria
Nawrocka
and maps of children’s centres and Health
Clinics to members.
Complete
4.1
Liz Driver’s contact details to be shared with
members.
Contact details of the voluntary sector
organisations supporting children and young
people emotional wellbeing and mental health
to be circulated to members.
Skyline services to be promoted with school
nurses and special school nurses
Skyline services to be promoted at GP events
Maria
Nawrocka
Maria
Nawrocka
Complete
Amanda
Tuke
Sandra
Richards
Complete
5.1
5.2
5.3
CFP Board 20/10/16
Complete
Complete
Page 7
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
7.1
7.2
Skyline services to be promoted through the
schools bulletin
Skyline services to be promoted at Secondary
Heads meeting
Skyline services to be promoted through Faiths
Together in Croydon newsletter
Skyline services to be promoted at SENCOs
Forum
Details of the e-learning offer to be circulated
to members
Proposals for future Board meeting items to be
sent to Maria Nawrocka
CFP Board 20/10/16
David
Butler
David
Butler
Penny
Smith-Orr
Agnieszka
Gebka
Maria
Nawrocka
All
Complete
Complete
For 10.4.17
Newsletter
Complete
Complete
On going
Page 8