What is a Children and Young People's Plan (CYPP)?

Children and young people are a vital part of Sunderland’s aspirations to be the UK’s most liveable city. The aim is to make Sunderland a city that children and young people want to invest their life in, a city that provides the lifestyle and the opportunities that they want for their future.

Part of that bigger picture is making sure that children and young people are given the skills and support that they need to take advantage of the opportunities that life in Sunderland can offer them. It means listening to what children and young people want and tailoring the services available to children and young people, in order to meet their needs.

These pages provide information about Children and Young People Plans and what is happening in Sunderland.

The purpose of the CYPP is:

• to set out a local vision of children’s services
• to identify outcomes which need to be improved
• to set out how improvements will be made

The plan covers:

• all children and young people aged 0-19
• those over 19 receiving services, including leaving care and
• those over 19 and under 25 with learning difficulties

Priorities

The CYPP Strategy 2010-2025 ( 1.30mb) – The Fifteen Year Strategy: Making Sunderland a child and young person friendly city, was published in April 2010. (An executive summary ( 187kb) is also available.) The CYPP Delivery Plan 2010-2013 ( 1.95mb) sets out the Children’s Trust’s priority outcome areas for the next three years. This is the first of five three year delivery plans that focus on specific outcomes and complement the strategy. The CYPP contains within it, six over-arching aims for the Trust to encourage all services to think about how they can help to reduce child poverty and safeguarding children and young people in Sunderland. The aims are:

• Child Poverty: children and young people live in a comfortable environment where families are not subject to poverty, poor housing and work-less-ness
• Be Healthy: children and young people are empowered to make health life choices – to improve resilience to help children and young people make informed and health/safe choices and to develop coping strategies as well as being able to access effective and high quality health and social care services when the need arises
• Stay Safe: children and young people feel, and are, safe and secure at home, at school and in their community
• Enjoy and Achieve: children and young people enjoy their time at school and fulfil their potential – where children and young people learn in a cohesive and inclusive environment, enjoy and achieve through learning and contribute towards the city’s thriving learning culture
• Make a Positive Contribution: children and young people contribute towards the development of services for all people in the city – where children and young people give their views and are listened to, and are able to help Sunderland become a clean, green city
• Achieve Economic Well-being: children and young people are able to fulfil their potential – where children and young people are skilled and motivated and have lots of opportunities to progress their careers, helping Sunderland be an enterprising and productive global city with a strong and diverse community.

The delivery plan (2010-2013) which is the first of five three year strategies, sets out the 17 priorities for which the Trust and its partners have responsibility to deliver and the following outcomes have been achieved so far:

2010/2011

• The unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment procedures was carried out in 2010. It was a positive inspection, with many areas highlighted as doing well
• The city exceeded its target to decrease the percentage of young children going into primary school who are obese. The target was 13% and we achieved 11.32%
• Year on year school meal uptake has increased, which means it is now above the national average by 10.5 percentage points in primary schools and 20.9 percentage points in secondary schools
• Through a partnership approach to tackling domestic violence, repeat incidents of domestic violence presented to the MARAC Board has fallen from 34% in 2008/09 to 20% in 2010/2011
• Anti-bullying agenda promoted and successful launch of reviewed Anti-Bullying Charter Mark is being well received in schools and settings
• Youth Offending Service reports that young people’s feelings of safety has improved. In 2010, 61.5% of children and young people said they felt safe in Sunderland. This is 17.6 percentage points higher than in 2008 (52.3%)
• Target exceeded in relation to the achievement of at least 78 points across the Early Years Foundation stage with at least 6 in each of the scales in Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication, Language and Literacy. The target was 50% with the outturn being 58.1%
• 2010 results for pupils making two levels of progress between Key Stages 1 and 2 in English increased by two percentage points to 85% and in mathematics remained at 82%. The result for progress in English was particularly pleasing because it was one percentage point above the national average
• The government’s gold standard measure requires 16 year olds to achieve at least five GCSEs or equivalent at grade A*-C including English and maths. Sunderland’s results this year are the highest achieved and also the highest year on year improvement since the measure was introduced
• Sunderland achieved its highest ever A-level results in 2010, with an average points score (APS) per candidate of 813.6, which is higher than the regional average of 717.7 and national 744.8. In terms of APS per entry Sunderland achieved 214.7, with regional figure at 209.9 and national 214.4
• The City Adventure Centre, including outdoor and indoor play provision at Silksworth has been a great success to date
• First time entrants to the youth justice system reduced by 34% at the end of 2010/11 against a national target of 1.9% for 2010/11
• The Youth Justice Plan 2011/12 reported 27% reduction in youth re-offending for 2010 against a three year (2008-2011) target of 10% reduction
• A low use of custody at just 1.7% brought praise from the Chair of the Youth Justice Board in early 2010 for performance against this indicator
• Excellent progress in NEET, with the figure dropping from 13.2% in 2009, to 8.5% in 2010
• The Sunderland Safeguarding Children Board, through its Independent Chair highlighted the rising number of children who were subject to a child protection plan and a joint Children’s Trust/SSCB task group was convened to consider the issues. From this group the following actions were implemented – the Police increased their resources, Children’s Services began a recruitment programme for overseas, experienced social workers and the permanent establishment of social workers was increased.

2011/2012 so far…

• Free School Meals assumed consent project from January 2012 provided 800 additional free school meals and brought an extra £450,000 of pupil premium funding into schools
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) have been successfully reviewed and service providers commissioned
• The target to narrow the gap for the lowest achieving 20% in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile was exceeded by 4 percentage points. The target was set at 37%, with the outturn being 32.9%
• Verified GCSE results are the highest achieved in Sunderland, continuing a strong upward trend over the last five years
• The Sunderland Safeguarding Children Board, has produced a new Business Plan for 2011-13 which is more outcomes based, will support the SSCB to be smarter in the way it works. It will also take into account recommendations from the  Munro Review.