We aim to improve the lives of children,young people and families by achieving continual improvements in:
- Child Protection
- Education and Attainment
- Health and Wellbeing
- Participation in Society
About our themes
All the work of the Children’s Trust is underpinned by these key themes, which are inter-linked, as improvements in one theme area will produce improvements in others. We believe that our work will be based around these themes for the foreseeable future, as they define the purpose of the Children’s Trust.
We have also developed priorities for action. These are agreed each year, and will change as we review our successes and areas for development. Each year, we will consider if our priorities are still relevant and may decide to add new priorities or remove existing ones.
The importance of early intervention
We know from research evidence and from listening to the views of families, that it is best to intervene early to provide support as soon as possible to individuals or groups experiencing problems. This improves their lives quickly and prevents problems getting worse, which reduces the need for more intensive work from specialist services later on.
It is a cost-effective way of working and making best use of resources in challenging economic circumstances.
Early intervention work is therefore at the centre of all that we will do to achieve improvements across all our themes. It is one of our 2011-12 priorities for action and is an approach adopted in working towards all our priorities.
How we use joint commissioning to develop our themes
The joint commissioning of services and interventions is key to achieving our themes. This includes coordinated strategic planning and identifying where services can be jointly purchased or budgets aligned.
The Children’s Trust leads on joint commissioning for children’s services, with responsibility for specific work delegated to specialist groups. As the Children’s Trust reports to the Nottinghamshire Health and Wellbeing Board, its joint commissioning decisions relate to planning for health and wellbeing improvements across all public services.
We have established three joint commissioning groups, responsible for:
- Children and Young People with Disabilities and Special Needs
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
- Children and Young People’s Substance Use.
Nottinghamshire 14-19 Partnership has a role in jointly commissioning post-16 learning provision.
As the County Council moves from being a provider to a commissioner of services, it will work with partners on specific commissioning developments. These include:
- early years provision
- behaviour and educational support provision.
