David Armstrong welcomed the new members to the Board.  Councillor Tony Smith,  who is the new Lead Member for CYP, Cllr Chris Meaden and Councillor Wendy Clements who is the new Chair of Overview and Scrutiny for the department.

Bev Morgan by virtue of working within a commissioned service.  Cllr Meaden by virtue of her daughter’s employment.

Anne Tattersall outlined the Being Healthy report. 

Key achievements include:

·  The successful uptake of the Healthy Start and Vitamin D policy which has been developed.

·  Successful working with 28 schools including all faith schools and special schools.  The programme includes targeting support for smoking cessation, positive mental well being and sexual health services.

·  The results of the national Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) show a reduction in obesity levels for both reception and Year 6.

Key Issues for 2012/13:

·  Pilot to work with 100 pregnant smokers, living within the 20% most deprived areas.

·  Teenage conceptions remain higher than statistical neighbours.

·  Alcohol use is being addressed; two workers are present in A&E six days a week, including Saturday, to engage with young people who have been admitted due to alcohol intoxication.

·  Wirral has a higher rate for emergency admissions for unintentional/deliberate injuries to children, a needs assessment in the children’s A&E department to develop recommendations for this report.

·  Dental decay remains an area of focus; as approximately 600 children had teeth extracted with a general anaesthetic.

·  Breast feeding rates are significantly lower than the regional and national average.  Retention of breast feeding is good but initiation rates are lower than expected.

A discussion took place about the support in place across the Borough for mums who chose to breastfeed.  Anne outlined the importance for partners to promote breastfeeding and outlined that key challenges ahead include the sustained delivery of the Healthy Child Programme.

There is continued concern of the low engagement of parents/carers around the weight management programme and this continues to pose a risk to being healthy outcomes.

Anne noted that current needs assessments underway include, young offender health needs assessment, including adolescent emotional well being and mental health check and an Eating Disorders needs assessment.

Anne summarised the areas for reporting focus, case studies.

Anne Tattersall noted that the Healthy Child Programme is well embedded within the Being Healthy Group and work schedule.  It is important that this group remains well represented.

Mark Parkinson noted that the partnership working in Wirral should be celebrated and thanked colleagues for their support.

Mark Parkinson outlined that behaviour is an issue that sits across the partnership agendas.  He added that behaviour can be very challenging issue and often causes a great emotional response.

Mark presented the issues surrounding behaviour that have been identified, these include:

-  Referrals to Social Care

-  Low level disruption is a factor in school reviews.

-  Increased numbers of exclusions/threatened exclusions

-  Increased demand for managed moved.

-  Also assumption that behaviour issues mean SEN.

Mark gave a summary of the current alternative provision across the borough and added that some children require provision out of borough either for the specialist provision or because Wirral provision is full.

Mark ended his presentation noting that actions have been written in the Children and Young People’s Plan to deliver the integrated Behaviour Support Strategy.

Councillor Tony Smith commented that in his experience with other authorities a lower level of BESD special school support can be integrated into main stream schools.

Councillor Meaden added that children are quickly labelled as “problem children” or SEN.  She added that children require more one to one support than teachers and teaching assistants.  Councillor Meaden added her thanks to Mark for a good informative presentation.

Richard Longster commented he found the presentation very helpful and informative.

Andy Davies noted that the landscape across schools is very different.

David Armstrong thanked mark for his work on behaviour and his contribution to the Children’s Trust Board over the last few years.

Maureen McDaid updated that for the EIG priority Areas 1, parenting 80% of providers are meeting or exceeding their contractual targets.

Two services have failed to meet their targets and the contracts will be renegotiated.

The Short Breaks priority providers, 9 out of 13 providers have met or exceeded their targets. 

The services that aren’t hitting their targets will be renegotiating and contract values revised.

For Risk Taking Behaviour, work in this area is rated green.  There were 2,085 young people participating in Universal services, 340 young people participating in targeted services.

Bev Morgan updated on the latest position with regard to the Child Poverty Working Group.

The Council budget resolution on 1^st March set out an agreed investment of £400,000 to take forward the “Roots and Wings” strategy.

The report outlined that Frank Field MP addressed presented an application to establish a virtual free school for pregnant women from 12^th week onwards.

Cabinet recommendation is to look into this area and provision already in place.

Bev Morgan noted that a fair commissioning process should remain in place.

Derek Kitchin has met with Frank Field to discuss the current provision.  Frank will visit the Hospital School shortly.

Bev added that the Liverpool City Region group are working in Wirral to look at faith schools and their approach to the Child Poverty Strategy.

Bev recommended that Councillors attend the Child Poverty Training.

Vivian gave a quick refresh around the work underway CEIAG to enable, encourage and assist young people to stay in education, employment and training.

Vivian gave an update on the level and location of Personal Advisor and Paul gave a demo of an interactive information resources relating to CEIAG. www.merseyinteractive.com

Jane Owens asked how the registration process works and how this data is used.  The data is used to monitor usage and also used at the level of usage for add-on widgets/programmes.

However, Vivian noted that all children can access the website for CEIAG information.

Tracy Little gave a progress report on the performance of indicators against the Children and Young People’s Plan. For the year end position 55 performance indicators are available for report, of which 69% have met or exceeded their targets compared to 58% in the previous year.

Amongst the indicators that were red include:

PI 53 – Prevalence of Breastfeeding

PI 60 – Timeliness of Core Assessments

PI 61 – Timeliness of Adoptions

PI 62 – Stability of Placements

PI 65 -  Percentage of Children with a CP Plan for a 2^nd or subsequent time

PI 112 – Under 18 Conceptions

PI 117 – NEETS

PI 148 – Care Leavers in suitable accommodation

A full summary of the corrective actions was outline as reporting in  the supporting document.

David Armstrong noted that Emma Dodd has left Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service he thanked Emma for her work in the Children’s Trust.

Tuesday, 17^th July 2012

Tuesday, 25^th September 2012

Tuesday, 27^th November 2012 (Rearranged from 20^th November)

Tuesday, 22^nd January 2013

Tuesday, 26^th March 2013 (Rearranged from 19^th March)

Tuesday, 21^st May 2013

Tuesday, 16^th July 2013