Children's Trusts
Children's Trusts bring together all services for children and young people in an area, underpinned by the Children Act 2004 duty to cooperate, to focus on improving outcomes for all children and young people.
The terms Children's Trust and Children's Trust arrangements also include the concept of the totality of change needed to deliver better and more responsive integrated services a change process that is still ongoing.
Guidance
Revised guidance on the 'duty to cooperate' was published on 18 November 2008. The new guidance, available below, raises the bar for Children's Trust partners to champion and take responsibility for achieving measurable improvements in the lives of children across all five ECM outcomes. It aims to help partners engage more effectively within the Children's Trust and to promote a step change in early intervention, in narrowing the gap, and in the involvement of schools. In future, all schools should be strongly supported by their Children's Trust and schools need to have a real involvement in the strategic work of the Children's Trust.
The Children's Plan: Building Brighter Futures sets high expectations for Children's Trusts to deliver measurable improvements for all children and young people and, in support of this, to have in place by 2010 consistent, high quality arrangements to provide identification and early intervention for all children and young people who need additional help. It emphasises the crucial role of local authorities in driving change.
What does a Children's Trust actually do?
The essential features of a Children's Trust are:
- A child-centred, outcome-led vision for all children and young people,
clearly informed by their views and those of their families
- Inter-agency governance, with robust arrangements for inter-agency
co-operation
- Integrated strategy: joint planning and commissioning, pooled budgets
- Integrated processes: effective joint working sustained by a shared
language and shared processes
- Integrated front-line delivery organised around the child, young person or family rather than professional boundaries or existing agencies
A short leaflet explaining clearly what a Children's Trust is for, and what it does, was also published on 18 November 2008 and is available below.
Documents
Children's Trust
Guidance
This includes the revised guidance on the 'duty to cooperate' and
the short explanatory leaflet.
Frequently asked questions on Children's Trusts.
This page was last updated on 19 November 2008
