Excluded children to be targeted by new government programme

The government is to issue a consultation paper on care services
available to children at risk of social exclusion, as part of a
wider programme to tackle deprivation and poverty,
writes Derren Hayes.

The initiative will encourage local authorities to develop
preventive strategies for young people to cross all departments of
local government.

Issued in the form of a green paper, it will focus on how best
to deliver services that can improve the life chances of young
people. It will aim to break down divisions between departments and
promote joined up working between health, social care and education
services.

Althea Efunshile, director of the government’s children
and young people’s unit, told the National Social Services
Conference that establishing new ways of working to also include
the police and voluntary sector was the “minimum” the government
expected councils to do when drawing up strategies.

She said children’s services needed to “shift forwards”
from being process driven to focusing on tested, outcome-based
evidence.

The government’s proposed new children’s trusts
would be one way of addressing this, she added.