THEMES | Children and Young People

Introduction

 "To work in partnership with parents, children and young people to enable them to improve their quality of life"

Children & young people matter in Derwentside. Our vision is that all of our children & young people in Derwentside have good health, are safe, enjoy, achieve and make a positive contribution to society. We want to ensure that children & young people and their families have a variety of opportunities to fully participate in the decision making process in order to allow them to shape services on offer to meet identified need.

Joint working around the area of children & young people has been well developed in Derwentside through inter-agency partnership working arrangements which are embedded into organisational culture and which can evidence long standing good practice. Completing this is a strong commitment from Local Community Partnerships to children & young people. Local community involvement through voluntary organisations and the participation of children & young people and parents in strategic development, service delivery and decision-making have all helped to shape the foundation for taking the emerging Every Child Matters Agenda forward.

We need to continue to build on this work because children & young people in Derwentside face particular challenge and there is a need to have structures and support in place to effectively help overcome these challenges and deliver improved quality of life.

The challenges facing children & young people in Derwentside are around childhood obesity, educational attainment, teenage pregnancy, substance misuse, behaviour, aspirations and self-esteem, access to health and mental health services.

In Derwentside the Children and Young People's Planning Group (CYPPG) are overseeing the Children & Young People's Agenda at a local level and have responsibility for delivery. The group believes the strategic aims and objectives detailed within the Community Strategy along with the actions that have been identified will achieve a real impact against these challenges by 2010, and result in a better life for every child and young person in Derwentside.