Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults
Minutes:
Helen Blackman, Director of Children’s Integrated Services, gave a presentation identifying key headlines, challenges and an overview of areas relating to children and young people. Helen highlighted the following, under the headings of the four shared action plan priorities agreed by the partnership:
Safeguarding and supporting children and
families
(a)
the percentage of Common Assessment
Frameworks (CAFs) where parents and children report an improvement
in their circumstance has risen from 65.9% to 67.1%, and the number
of children who became subject to a Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
meeting rose from 28 to 62 showing a rose in awareness of
CSE;
(b)
following the appointment of a CSE
Co-ordinator, 25 schools have signed up to the SRE Charter. The
Safe Families for Children pilot is making excellent progress
providing children with alternative care who might otherwise have
been taken into care, and so has been extended until March
2017;
(c)
the number of Child Protection Plans
continues to increase. This is being monitored, but outcomes from
these remain positive. Also the number of offences where children
and young people are victims and the number of Accident and
Emergency admissions for children aged 0-4 years have risen and the
reasons for this is being investigated;
Promoting the health and wellbeing of babies, children and young people
(d)
48% of infants are being breast fed at 6
to 8 weeks which is significantly higher than the England average.
Obesity in Year 6 children and tooth decay in children aged 5 have
dropped but are still above the target;
(e)
the rate of first time entrants to the
youth justice system has dropped but is still over double the
England average. The number of 16-18 year olds who are not in
education, employment or training has also reduced but is high at
6.2%;
(f)
the smoking rate of 18.8% is higher than
the England average of 10.5%. The number of hospital admissions for
self-harm has reduced but is still higher than it was 2 years
ago;
(g) supportive actions encouraging people to be more active include the Sherriff’s Award and Opportunity Notts, and programmes exist for self-harm awareness and weight management;
Supporting achievement and academic
attainment
(h)
there has been a 12.5% increase in two
year olds accessing free nursery provision, which has exceeded its
target. There has been a rise of 19% from last year on schools
judged good or better by Ofsted, which is the best rate of
improvement in the East Midlands;
(i)
Key Stage 2 pupils in Nottingham have
maintained or improved in reading, writing and maths and match the
England average. The gap between pupils with special educational
needs and those without has reduced;
(j) attainment at GCSEs remains a key challenge with 42.4% of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grades including English and maths, against the English average of 53.8%. The attainment of Children in Care has also dropped. Another challenge is reducing the number of high performing pupils who choose to transfer out of the city for secondary provision as this stands at 29%;
Empowering families to be strong and achieve economic wellbeing
(k)
the number of families worked with as
part of the Priority Families Scheme is 898 against a target of
852, and the number of children in workless poor families has
reduced from 34.6% to 30.4%;
(l)
achieving the Priority Families targets
overall remains a challenge. The number of domestic violence
incidents where children are in the family also needs ongoing
scrutiny as the police now categorise this differently leading to a
drop in the number of reported incidents;
(m)supportive actions in this area include the Domestic and Sexual Violence and Abuse Strategy, the Domestic Abuse Referral Team and the Troubled Families scheme. There are a number of projects supporting children where there is domestic violence abuse in the family, such as Stride, the GREAT Project in primary schools and Equate in secondary schools.
RESOLVED to note activity against the CYPP action plan
Supporting documents: