Children's Trust Newsletter April 2007

Welcome to the first edition of Sunderland Children's Trust's quarterly e-newsletter. In each issue we will bring you news about the work going on in Sunderland to deliver better outcomes for children and young people.

Do you work with young people and children? They can enter our free online poll which offers them the chance to win an iPOD.

Sunderland Children's Trust is committed to ensuring that children, young people and their parents and carers have an opportunity to have a say on the Children and Young People's Plan. Click on the smiley face to enter.

To that end, there are two surveys available on this site. One for children and young people and the other for parents and carers Please encourage any children, young people, parents or carers that you are working with to complete the survey. The closing date for the on-line consultation is 21st May 2007.

' WE'LL ASK THE QUESTIONS! '
THE CHIEF CONSTABLE of Northumbria Police was questioned about policing plans by Sunderland school children in November. The city was given the rare honour of hosting the event which is usually held in Gateshead.

The morning session allowed members of the community, including children from English Martyrs' RC Primary and Castle View Secondary schools, to hear the region's policing plans outlined, ask questions and raise any concerns they might have.
Prior to the main event, the Chief Constable Mike Craik and Chair of the Police Authority, Councillor Mick Henry, faced a question and answer session from the primary schoolchildren whilst their older peers from secondary school gave a presentation to the meeting outlining young people's concerns about the police's role in the community.

Before the event, Margaret Connolly, teacher and school council co-ordinator at English Martyrs' RC Primary School said: "Our children are very excited about going along and finding out more about the work and history of the police force.
" The school council will ask some very interesting questions of the Chief Constable such as 'What is it like being in a police chase?' and 'Do the officers take the police dogs and horses home with them at night?'

" The meeting also provides us with the opportunity to build up closer links with the police and strengthen our existing ties. The children are keen to learn more about how the police keep us all safe."

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R U GETTIN' IT?

In October, the R U Gettin it? conference took place at Ushaw College in Durham. It was a conference completely designed and delivered by 60 children and young people for social work students from the North East of England.

The project was a partnership between several different agencies. These were DISC Young Carers, Barnardo's NE, Sunderland Children's Services and Investing in Children.

The children and young people got together during the spring and summer to develop six different workshops for social work students in their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years from Durham University, New College Durham and Sunderland University. In all 191 social workers in training attended the day which was funded by the social work programmes with additional funding from the Learning Resource Network.

The group looked at using interactive ways to get their messages across. A graffiti artist worked with the group over the summer to develop the themes for the day. Six young people from the group produced fantastic pieces of art during the conference. These graffiti boards were based upon evaluations of how the social work students felt the conference went.

The overall aim of this project is to influence the next generation of social workers. The conference will be followed up within the social work courses with young people led seminars to explore the topics further. The children and young people will also be involved in evaluating and assessing the students.

SUNDERLAND’S SUCCESS IN NATIONAL AWARDS

SUNDERLAND has beaten thousands of entries to feature in four national awards for giving children, young people and families the best start in life.

The Children and Young People’s Services Awards acknowledges the best practice taking place across the country working with children, young people and families to improve their lives.

Sunderland City Council was the only authority in the country to have a remarkable four projects in the final of the awards, held in London.

Tackle It

Wear Kids’ ‘Tackle It’ programme was announced as overall winner in the Preventative Work award.

This category looked at an initiative or project that has made the most effective targeted early intervention with children or young people at risk from problems such as homelessness, crime, substance abuse, poor health or dropping out of education.

Every Schoolday Counts

Every Schoolday Counts (ESC) was a finalist in two categories and received a Highly Commended award in both.

It was honoured in the Advice and Guidance award section which honours projects that have done the most to reach

and provide young people with information and support in making life choices.

ESC was also Highly Commended in the Preventative Work award for its early intervention and support in helping children to attend and enjoy school. www.everyschooldaycounts.com

On Track

On Track Community Development work in Sulgrave were also highly commended in the Play and Social Development Category. This looked at the project that has done the most to further opportunities for children or young people to play or socialise freely.

Sunderland Youth Offending Service

Sunderland Youth Offending in partnership with Children’s Services Looked After Children service, were short listed for the Justice award.The project was judged to have the biggest contribution to improving the life chances of children and young people who have offended, or who are at risk of offending or re-offending. www.sunderland.gov.uk/yos

SUNDERLAND PUBLIC PROTECTION UNIT

Each area command in Northumbria Police has a public protection unit, headed by a Detective Inspector whose role is to support, direct and co-ordinate public protection issues.

In Sunderland, heading up the PPU is DI Paul Foggin, whose role is to identify the best practice to enhance multi-agency working, providing a quality service within the public protection arena.
DI Paul Foggin, said: "The vision for the PPU is to safeguard and support children and families in need of protection from abuse and neglect. A key role in this is working together and sharing information with partner agencies to ensure that nothing slips through the net.

"There is a huge link between child protection and domestic violence so it seems only sensible that these two units be placed under the same umbrella and that we work very closely with organisations involved in the care and protection of children."

Child Protection Team

On average, uniformed officers refer 3000 of the incidents they attend each year to the child protection team (CPT), because they believe a child may be at risk.

On average there are 400 domestic violence incidents reported to Northumbria Police in Sunderland each month. In six out of ten of these incidents, children will have been present at the time.

In addition to this the CPT in Sunderland works with children's

services, the NHS, schools and any other organisation that is involved in the care and protection of children.

This is just some of the work done by the CPT whose main aim is to safeguard the safety of under 18's and is housed within the Public Protection Unit (PPU) based in Farringdon Police Station.

Within the CPT, Detective Sergeant Barbara Hutchinson leads a team of seven detective constables and two support staff whose role is to carry out risk assessments, implement strategy, carry out criminal investigations and where necessary make arrests to protect the safety of children.

YOU HEARD THEM HERE FIRST!
My name is Dave Murray and I run the Sunderland Music workshops, from where international and national bands such as the Futureheads, Bubble Project and Field Music started. We have many up and coming bands developing their music skills at the Saturday music workshop, which has now been running for 12 years.

Bands and the project have been written about in many top magazines like the NME, Crack, Sunday Sun, local rags and more. One of the much talked about bands The Bubble Project., have been coming to the project now for 8 years and have just undertaken a 6 date tour of England getting their music over to the masses, and they have just released their first CD and 72 single. You can have a listen to the new single and read many of their write ups, from magazines and radio DJs and more on the website at www.myspace.com/thebubbleproject

NME said in their magazine: “The Bubble Project play surf pop with a hint of Beach Boys harmonies and the drive of the B52s.” Don’t miss the chance to listen to possibly the biggest band of 2007.

ACHIEVEMENTS ARE ON TRACK!

On Track had a very successful week in November, with achievements in a number of National and local awards.

On Track is a multi-agency team offering services to children aged 4-12 and their families in the Washington area, to prevent and reduce risk.

Staying safe with -anti bullying
Jordan Robson is a young man who received intervention by On Track to help him stay safe and deal with his experiences of bullying. Through the course of this intervention Jordan identified that he wanted to design something to help other young people deal with similar experiences.

Prevention, Partnership and Participation are key themes that inform On Track’s work, and we were therefore very keen to support Jordan with this development. On Track commissioned a design company to professionally produce ‘Fire Within’, Jordan’s Anti-Bullying Cards, and were then successful with a SIB bid to purchase a large quantity to be distributed within Washington.

During National Anti-Bullying Week the ‘Fire Within’ Anti-Bullying Cards were officially launched with a fun packed event that also helped to raise awareness regarding bullying. Opened by Councillor Sleightholme the event was a great success, with no less than 8 Newcastle Eagles Basketball players in attendance, and an excellent heartfelt speech by Fabulous Flournoy (player/coach) had the whole audience mesmerised.

The Director of Children’s Services, Dr Helen Paterson reiterated the importance of the ‘3 P’s’, Prevention, Partnership and Participation and received a framed picture and pack of Anti-Bullying Cards from Jordan. All young people who attended also received a pack of cards.

The ‘Fire Within’ Cards are versatile and can be used to either simply play a game or to discuss issues of bullying with a child/young person, by a school mentor, a key worker or in any therapeutic environment.

Community regeneration

On Track were also successful in the National Children and Young People Now National Awards. The project was short listed in the category for ‘Play and Social Development’.

On Track has over the past two years worked closely with a particular community in the Sulgrave area of Washington. The project supported the re-establishment of the Residents Committee, which is now self-sustainable. There is a now a ‘Kids Committee’, which informs the adults committee. On Track provides sessional workers every week to engage children and young people in the community and this has proved extremely successful in the reduction of complaints regarding nuisance behaviour.
Working closely with On Track and the Community Beat Police Officer, the residents’ committee have been successful with bids for CCTV, and to build a community garden. Local children have designed the garden, and the community are busy building it!

SUNDERLAND CITY COUNCIL'S CAMPAIGN SUCCESS IN URGING STUDENTS TO VOTE

An innovative scheme designed by Sunderland City Council to encourage voter registration and participation in the democratic process amongst students has proved a great success.

Council research showed, like the rest of England, there is significant under-registration of the students in the city so at the request of Scrutiny councillors a campaign was produced in conjunction with the University of Sunderland and the Student Union to increase voter registration.

The new scheme, delivered by the City Council’s Electoral Services, has seen voter registration forms increase from 20 to 500 across the city’s university accommodation.

Some of the initiatives tested by the campaign were messages left on electronic notice boards, on screen-savers in libraries, articles in the Union newspaper and the employment of the University’s Residential Services Assistants as door to door canvassers.

Electoral Services officers from the council also visited the two university campuses, Chester Road and St Peter’s, to speak to students about registering to vote.

Turnout nationally in the 2005 General Election amongst 18-to-24 year olds fell to an all time low of 37 per cent however Electoral Commission research shows that over two thirds of 18-to-24 year olds want to have a say in how the country is run and feel strongly about issues that affect their everyday lives.

CAREER-ING AHEAD TO SUCCESS Jamie Anderson receiving his prize from Pete Clough and Michelle Keeler from Sun FM
A MIXTURE OF IMAGINATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL EXPERTISE has combined to promote a new website and earned Castleview student, Jamie Anderson, a top of the range laptop.

A competition draw to help launch the new ' www.sun1419.net ' website which provides information, advice and guidance information for 14-19 year olds, asked those using it the very relevant question given its content ' What is your future career?‘ with a laptop as the top prize .

Jamie, 16, texted that he would like to be a script writer adding: “The laptop will certainly help me to aspire to my dream job!"

Jamie was presented with the laptop, donated by BEKO, County Durham, by local radio presenter Pete Clough, and treated to a selection of CDs and a tour of the Sun FM studios.

STAYING SAFE ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL...

Every Schoolday Counts is keen to encourage children to stay safe

en-route to school!

The Project, which is funded by the Children's Fund, will soon be adding to it's range of rewards and incentives with special 'Spike' reflectors for children to earn. The aim is to enable children to be seen on dark winter mornings and afternoons and be more safety aware.

In its most recent newsletter Every Schoolday Counts has also included an article which informs children about the new law on using a booster seat when under 135 centimetres tall.

Glenn Riddle, Team Leader of Every Schoolday Counts said, “We want children to be safe on the way to school and to feel safe whilst in school so that they can take full advantage of the school day.”

SUNDERLAND LOCAL SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN BOARD

The launch of the Sunderland LSCB Safeguarding Children Procedures took place on Thursday 1st March 2007.

The procedures are now available electronically and will be distributed by e-mail via your LSCB agency representative.

Additionally the procedures are on line at:
www.sunderlandchildrenstrust.org.uk/profs-safeguardboard-procedures.asp

GIVE IT 100%

Empty seats in the classroom are becoming a rarity this March as a result of the Every Schoolday Counts ‘Give it 100%’ drive.

The city’s primary and primary special schools were invited to take part in the drive to boost school attendance during a period when it was predicted to take a dip.

The Project aims to involve everyone in it’s campaigns and schools have been asked to be mindful of those children who are unable to attend due to circumstances beyond their control.

Children are being encouraged to be in school every day (excluding weekends and INSET days) and have been given a special postcard to keep track of their own attendance.

Thanks to Starlite Limousines the Project is able to offer a fantastic first prize – a limousine ride to school, second prize - an iPod shuffle and one runner up prize for one child from each school.

The drive has created conversation between friends from different schools, about winning the prizes on offer and schools have reported a great uptake of the challenge.

Linda Wilson, Teaching Assistant and Link Governor from Biddick Primary School says: “We are thrilled to be a part of the drive and the children are buzzing at the thought of winning one of the prizes. It’s all they are talking about and it’s really brought it home to them that if they are off school the odd day they miss out on all the fun.”

Similar strategic campaigns are planned throughout the year, with the next campaign stressing the importance of good attendance during SATs week.

The winners will be announced on the Project’s website www.everyschooldaycounts.com on 25th April 2007.

http://www.sunderlandchildrenstrust.org.uk/

If you would like to include an article in the next issue please contact Kathryn Rutherford on (0191) 566 1832 or e-mail sct@sunderland.gov.uk