It takes a city to raise a child - UK Children's Charity takes a city... · It takes a city to raise a child Report of the Birmingham Commission for Children Supported by. Janet Grauberg

It takes a city to raise a childReport of the Birmingham Commission for Children

Supported by

Janet Grauberg is chair of the Birmingham Commission for Children. Janet was formerly Director of Strategy

for Barnardo’s, an Adviser at the Department for Education and Lead Cabinet Member for Children’s Services at Camden Council.

Christine Davies is the former Chief Executive of the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes and is currently a trustee for

the Early Intervention Foundation. She led the previous government’s ‘Narrowing the Gap’ national programme and was the Director of Children’s Services at Telford & Wrekin Council for 10 years.

David Hughes has taught at and led schools in Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and the

West Midlands. His interest in science and technology has seen him engage with the Learning and Skills Council and he has worked with many local authorities on school leadership.

Dr Angela Donkin is the Deputy Director of the Institute of Health Equity. Before joining the institute, Angela was the

senior civil servant responsible for overseeing the independent reviews on Early Intervention in the Cabinet Office.

Jehangir Malik obe is the UK Director of Islamic Relief. He has worked with local and diverse communities in the UK and

international charity sector for over 20 years. Jehangir also works with young people in black and minority ethnic communities on civic engagement and leadership across the UK.

Contents

Executive summary 4

Brilliant Birmingham 9

Foreword from the commissioners 10

Statistical snapshot 12

Section 1: Messages from children and young people 14

Section 2: Messages from families and communities 16

Section 3: Messages from organisations and professionals: 17 Fair Birmingham 17 Prosperous Birmingham 21 Democratic Birmingham 23 The role of Birmingham City Council and its partners in delivering a fair, prosperous and democratic Birmingham 25

Section 4: Vision for children and young people 27

Section 5: Conclusions and recommendations 28

Appendix 1: Terms of reference 33

Appendix 2: Methodology: Hearing the voices of the city 34

Appendix 3: Children’s District Profile 35

Appendix 4: A suggested ‘entitlement offer’ for Birmingham’s children 36

Appendix 5: Contributors 37

Appendix 6: Bibliography 38

Executive summary

The Birmingham Commission for Children was established in June 2014 to consider what systematic improvements should be put in place across the city to improve children’s lives and well-being in 10 years’ time. This included what aspiration and achievement would look like, how communities, organisations and services could work better together, and the role that the council should play in supporting children and young people to be happy and successful. It was commissioned and funded by Birmingham City Council.

The commissioners were drawn from health, education, children’s services and community backgrounds, and worked with a secretariat provided by The Children’s Society. The commissioners drew on four types of information:

• Outputs from focus groups and a city-wide survey of children and young people undertaken by The Children’s Society

• Detailed ethnographic work with families and communities in Longbridge and Sparkbrook by the Innovation Unit

• Seven public sessions with 41 representatives from statutory, voluntary and community organisations working with children and young people across the city

• Written submissions sent in response to an open call for views, and documents or publications provided by the contributors.

Throughout the commission’s work we were struck by the enthusiasm and commitment shown by the people of Birmingham to improving the lives of the city’s children and young people.

Key messages from children and young people

• Relationships are the most important thing in the lives of children and young people, especially relationships with their families.

• Children and young people from every group, and from every part of Birmingham, want to feel safer in the city. They feel they lack safe, affordable spaces and activities that allow them to be with friends and family.

• Children and young people want to have a say in the issues that matter to them, they want their voices to be heard and acted upon.

• Children were positive about school and valued the opportunities that education gave them.

• Young people wanted knowledge and skills that were useful for getting a job and being a good citizen. They valued their community and their sense of place.

• Children and young people wanted a positive story to be told about Birmingham and young people’s achievements.

Key messages from families and communities

• Families with young children were often in ‘survival mode’ and lacked the time, energy and resources for reflective parenting. Parenting skills and support need to be considered alongside improving the resources available to families.

• Families, in particular single parent families, were often socially isolated, and this tended to be driven by fear – of crime, of difference, and of judgment. Trusted and confidence-building relationships were the way out of this social isolation.

• All the families had aspirations, for some that meant work, while for others it meant focusing on bringing up their children. Effective services work both to understand where parents are, and where they want to be.

• As children got older, parents found it harder to help with schoolwork and many parents found it challenging to support teenage children with their education.

• Young people wanted more spaces in which to socialise outside school. Religious spaces and institutions were safe places and could be used more.

Key messages from organisations and professionals

Birmingham City Council’s Leader, Sir Albert Bore, has set out in his vision for Birmingham, a desire for the city to be fair, prosperous and democratic. The commission’s findings are structured under those headings in order to help the council, working with partners across the city, make this vision a reality for children and young people.

Fair Birmingham: A Birmingham that is fair for children and young people ensures access to universal services. At present, children’s access to parks, open spaces and activities is hindered by feeling unsafe and by the cost of travel across the city.

In relation to health, emotional health and well-being was an issue of concern, because the prevalence of poor emotional health is significantly higher than the national average and limited support is available. Childhood obesity is also a priority for the city’s public health services. Professionals were also concerned about the 16% of children who

Introduction Commission findings

The future is opportunities. Jobs, friends and family.’‘

Birmingham is brilliant; it is big, lots of things to do.’‘

4 | It takes a city to raise a child

started school without accessing early years’ services, about being stretched in response to growing numbers of 0-5s, and the difficulties of health and council services for 0-5s working together across boundaries.

A fair Birmingham also ensures access to reliable targeted services for those in need. Both voluntary and private sector organisations expressed concern about not being included in strategic or child-level discussions about safeguarding children, although we heard that GPs were now increasingly involved, for example in spotting the signs of child sexual exploitation. Services for children with special educational needs (SEN) were well thought of, although workers wanted children to have more say in discussions about the future of SEN services in the city.

Prosperous Birmingham: A prosperous Birmingham is one where children grow up in families with the resources they need and one where they are supported through education, extra-curricular activities and by employers to gain the qualifications and experience they need for success in the world of work. The statistics show that nearly one-third of children grow up in poverty, with much greater rates of child poverty in some parts of the city than others, and this hinders access to activities and services and children’s life chances across the board.

The proposed council-led Child Poverty Commission is therefore welcome but it needs energy and commitment to create a city-wide response to tackling child poverty. Schools in Birmingham perform well, and the new Birmingham Education Partnership is an opportunity for them to work more closely together. Education providers from early years to 16+ felt the curriculum was too narrow, and was not giving young people opportunities to learn new skills and work in different ways. There were great examples of schools working with outside organisations to enrich the curriculum, but no systematic approach.

The experience of schools working with employers was similar – some were offering great support through mentoring or work

experience, but the commitment of both schools and local employers to this agenda was variable. Organisations working to get vulnerable young people into work were finding it hard to find places that could offer the support they needed, and there was little discussion of the role of ‘enterprise’ as an avenue for young people to explore.

Democratic Birmingham: A democratic Birmingham is one where children and young people have a say in the issues that matter to them, and where communities can determine their priorities for improving services for children and families. Professionals working with children and young people, particularly those from the voluntary sector, supported the message we heard directly from children about their keenness to have a greater say in their local area.

Many also expressed a desire for more information about children’s health, achievement, well-being and priorities, consistently available at a district level, to help them in planning and targeting services. Statutory organisations wanted to work in consistent organisational structures, such as the 10 district model, while voluntary organisations wanted to be able to offer their expertise to the council in a more structured and strategic way.

There was a desire to make better use of untapped skills through community and business volunteering, including, for example, supporting parents to help their children learn, an area where the evidence of impact is strong, but service capacity is limited.

The role of Birmingham City Council in delivering a fair, prosperous and democratic city. During our conversations, four areas emerged where people saw the council as having a unique role to play:

• Firstly, in co-ordinating the development of an integrated early help strategy, so that professionals know how to access additional services, and services can work more effectively together

• Secondly, in convening arrangements to harness the resources of the city, from cultural institutions wanting to work with schools, to employers wanting to offer work experience

• Thirdly, in turning round the narrative about the City of Birmingham and its young people – and finding creative ways to celebrate them

• Finally, in sustaining priorities for change – resisting the temptation to launch new initiatives one after another, but picking some priorities and sticking with their talents and achievements.

Vision

As a result of our conversations, the commissioners have set out a vision statement which expresses the changes people want to see in the coming years. Our vision is that, in 10 years’ time, Birmingham will be:

• A city proud of its children, where they feel their voices are listened to and where parents feel able to give them the support they need

• A city that is safe for children and young people and where services work together to respond to need

• A city where its many leaders are united and committed to enabling children and young people to flourish

• A city where children can be confident that their school will get the best out of them, and prepare them for the world of work

• A city where employers invest in children and young people and their families, because they are their future workforce

• A city whose cultural and sporting and public institutions are fully utilised to benefit children and young people.

Recommendations

The vision sets out our hope for children and young people growing up in Birmingham in 10 years’ time. Our recommendations represent those changes that the commissioners believe are most important in making this vision a reality.

1. Embed children and young people’s voice into decision-making through the council’s 10 district structure. If Birmingham is to be a city where children and young people consistently flourish, then there needs to be a way to consistently hear their voices, and to allow organisations to respond. Action should include:

a) An annual children and young people’s engagement process, undertaken at district level

b) A children and young people’s District Profile, containing key indicators

c) A process, co-designed and co-chaired with young people in each district, to allow children and young people to debate the issues and set priorities for the year ahead, equivalent to the annual District Conventions for adults

d) Organising statutory services for children and young people on the 10 district basis as far as possible.

2. Bring people together at a neighbourhood level to improve children’s access to, and their perception of safety in, local parks and open spaces. Generally we believe that the district engagement processes should set priorities for action, but we heard enough consistent information for us to recommend that action should be taken now on the issue of safety, and perception of safety in parks and open spaces. This will require progress at a neighbourhood level. Action should include identifying, in each district,

We want to be heard by people who make decisions.’

‘Feeling safe is at the top of the scale, most important.’‘


a pilot neighbourhood park or open space and, alongside organisations already active in the area, work with young people to develop a sustainable solution to improve safety in that open space, using existing community resources.

3. Harness the city’s assets to give enriching experiences to children throughout their school curriculum, and genuine skills and experience to prepare for work. Birmingham is a city rich in cultural and sporting assets, and with thousands of successful businesses offering employment opportunities. Many of them want to support the city’s young people, yet they lack a framework in which to operate, which only the council has a mandate to lead. Action should include bringing together leaders from across the city to develop and guarantee an ‘entitlement offer’ for the city’s children and young people, comprising enriching opportunities aimed at increasing aspiration and preparing them for work. The offer would be available city-wide but implemented at district level.

4. Tell a positive story about Birmingham’s children and young people. Birmingham’s young people achieve well, and want to contribute to the success of the city. Yet they feel they are judged and excluded, and are told they have no hope for the future. If the city’s young people are to believe they have a future in Birmingham, it is time to start turning the narrative round. Action could include:

a) Engaging local media in telling positive stories, week-in, week-out about young people’s achievements

b) A single day, celebrating ‘Birmingham’s Brilliant Children’.

5. Harness community resources to support the community’s children and families. There are many families who have overcome adversity, or people who want to contribute to their community, who would like to help children, young people and families in their community to succeed. Action should include

District Chairs, working with existing volunteer centres, faith groups and other community organisations to identify places to pilot and evaluate a ‘community volunteer’ programme, to focusing on an area identified by the District Convention equivalent process.

6. Support parents in supporting their children’s education. Every parent wants their child to succeed, yet many feel ill-equipped in supporting their children to learn. Action should include working with organisations such as the Education Endowment Fund to narrow the attainment gap and develop evidence-based interventions working with organisations such as the Early Intervention Foundation.

7. Lead services working with children to develop together an early help strategy, which shows how council, NHS and voluntary sector partners will work together to ensure vulnerable children, families and young people get the extra support they need. Organisations working with children and young people are anxious about how they are being kept safe, and whether they are being offered

the support they need. Professionals want to work better together to reduce duplication and ensure children are not being missed. Action should include the council, working with its NHS and other partners, developing and implementing an integrated strategy linking universal services, early help, targeted and specialist intervention together, supported by common assessment processes, joint training and the sharing of information.

Grades are important but it also depends on your character.’‘

Education is not just about school, it’s about learning from the people and things around you.’

‘

It takes a city to raise a child | 7

Making this vision a reality will require new ways of thinking, behaving and working. Children and young people, parents and communities will need to take responsibility for making their voices heard and contributing to their communities. Voluntary organisations and businesses will need to work in new and sometimes unfamiliar partnerships. Professions and statutory organisations will need to work hard to overcome professional and organisational barriers.

Making this vision a reality will also require Birmingham City Council to lead in a different way.

In the commissioners’ view, this means that:

• Districts must become the engines of change, within a city-wide framework, with leadership, authority and decision-making powers.

• Leadership must be shared – with all the leaders of the city who want to contribute to improving outcomes for the city’s children and young people. This will mean a renewed leadership role for the council.

• City council staff will need to work differently – challenging their own preconceptions that the council can solve all problems and deliver all services to the city’s children and young people.

• The voice of children and young people will need to be heard through listening and engagement mechanisms beyond the ballot box.

ConclusionThe city is ready and willing to respond to leadership of this sort. Children, young people and those who work with them are keen to be engaged. Birmingham’s cultural institutions, businesses and voluntary sector partners want to play their part.

It is parents and carers who raise the majority of Birmingham’s children but it is the city that will support them to flourish.

There would be a youth council so that the young people can have a voice.’

‘I like that there are museums and zoos.’‘


Brilliant Birmingham

Birmingham is a young city. 46% of the population is under 30 years old. The national figure is 37%.

46%

Birmingham’s schools have great outcomes for 16 year olds. Almost 60% of Key Stage Four students obtain 5 A*-C grades, including English and Maths. This is above the national average.

Birmingham has the most Michelin starred restaurants

in the UK outside London.

Birmingham has more parks than any other city in Europe, boasting 14 square miles of open space.

The Library of Birmingham is Europe’s largest public library and lends 8m books each year.

From 2007-2010, people moved to Birmingham from 187 different countries making it a super-diverse city. Children and young people in

Birmingham know the value of good relationships with friends and family. 57% of the young people we surveyed felt that their relationships were the best thing about their life.


Why Birmingham should be celebrated


Foreword from the commissioners

It has been a privilege to serve on the Birmingham Commission for Children. Considering what life should be like for children and young people growing up in Birmingham in 10 years’ time, what aspiration and achievement would look like, how communities, organisations and services could work better together, and the role that Birmingham City Council should play in the future in supporting children and young people to live the best possible life in the city, has been a challenging, yet inspiring, task.

In public sessions, in written contributions, and in the conversations we and others held with children and young people themselves, we have been struck by the enthusiasm and commitment of the people of Birmingham to improve the lives of children and young people. We are grateful to everyone who shared their views with us. We are also grateful to The Children’s Society team, particularly Lucy Capron and Richard Crellin who provided an excellent commission secretariat.

Children and young people were, in most cases, positive about growing up in Birmingham. We heard:

• How they want to be listened to, how they want to contribute to their community, and how they want their neighbourhood and city to prosper

• How they value the great resources of the city, such as its parks and open spaces. Yet how they often feel prevented from using them by the cost of travelling across the city, or feeling a lack of safety in their neighbourhood

• How much they enjoy school, how much education matters, and how they want it to equip them with genuine skills and experience for the future.

In our public sessions with organisations and services we heard from:

• Schools at the leading edge of educational practice, piloting innovations and building children’s capacity to learn

• Private, voluntary and statutory early years services going the extra mile to support families with young children, acting as hubs for their community

• Community organisations and volunteer groups working with council, NHS and police services to support their neighbours, and build safer communities

• World-class institutions based in Birmingham offering their expertise and resources to support talented young people and offer new opportunities

• Expert staff in Birmingham City Council using their years of experience to develop new responses to today’s challenges such as child poverty and youth unemployment.

We are human; we do have a right to explain how we feel’‘

This commitment and expertise also expressed itself in a desire for more to be done to ensure that every Birmingham child has the opportunity to flourish.

From this we, the commissioners, have set out a vision for children and young people in Birmingham – what we hope will be a reality for those growing up in this city in 10 years’ time. A city that is proud of its children, where they feel their voices are listened to and where parents feel able to give them the support they need. A city that is safe for children and young people, where services work together to respond to need, and where all the leaders are active, united and determined to build a city where children and young people can flourish. A city where children can be confident that their school will get the best out of them and prepare them for the world of work. A city where employers invest in the city’s children, and in supporting their parents, because they are their future workforce, and where the city’s great cultural and sporting institutions are fully utilised by Birmingham’s children and young people.

Making this vision a reality will require new ways of thinking, behaving and working:

• Children and young people, parents and communities will need to take responsibility for making their voices heard and contributing time and effort to changing the places where they live for the better

• Voluntary organisations and businesses will need to work in new and unfamiliar partnerships, contributing their skills and resources, whether in kind, in cash or in leverage, reach and influence

• Professions and statutory organisations in the city will need to work hard to overcome professional and organisational barriers to delivering services in ways which make sense to children and families, and are cost-efficient.

Making this vision a reality will also require Birmingham City Council to lead in a different way. This has already been recognised. The Leader’s Policy Statement of July 2014 says, ‘our vision for a Democratic City will require a fundamental rethink of how we deliver local public services and the role of our local civic institutions, including the City Council’.

In the commissioners’ view, this means that:

• Districts must become the engines of change, within a city-wide framework, with leadership, authority and decision-making. The Districts are the level at which the needs of the city’s children, young people and families can be identified, the resources of the city can be harnessed and services for children, families and young people can be effectively planned across multiple agencies. This will look different, proceed at different paces, and succeed differently from place to place, and will challenge the traditional cabinet and departmental model.

• Leadership must be shared – with all the leaders of the city who want to contribute to improving the outcomes of the city’s children and young people. Everyone who pledges their support for this vision must be allowed and encouraged to share in leading the task of making it a reality. This will mean a renewed leadership role for the council – one that utilises its unique democratic mandate to facilitate and convene the resources of the city, districts and neighbourhoods, while allowing others to take emerging leadership roles.

• City Council staff will need to work differently – challenging the values that they have held over many decades that the council will solve problems and deliver services to the city’s children and young people. The future role will be in facilitating and harnessing other people’s resources, as well as providing specialist and expert help when necessary.

• The voice of children and young people will need to be heard – and this means developing legitimate listening and engagement mechanisms beyond the ballot box.

I want people to see me as a normal person.’‘


But the city is ready and willing to respondto leadership of this sort. Children andyoung people are keen to be engaged indecisions that affect them, and to contributeto building a better future for today’s andtomorrow’s young people. Those who workwith them are keen to be part of makingthis happen.

Birmingham’s cultural institutions,businesses and voluntary sector partnersall want to be engaged in offering theirresources to support the city’s future. Theyare hungry to hear the voices of childrenand young people so they can shapetheir responses. They are tired of hearingnegative stories about Birmingham andits young people – they want to celebrateBrilliant Birmingham’s Children. It is parents and carers who raise the majority of Birmingham’s children but it is the city that will support them to flourish.

Statistical snapshot

There are an estimated 287,000 children and young people in Birmingham under the age of 19. This represents 28% of the city’s population.

The city is expected to grow; by 2020 there will be 314,000 children and young people, an increase of 9%.

Half of Birmingham’s children and young people are from an ethnic minority and over 50 languages are spoken in the city.

Child povertyIn 2013 there were 84,114 children in poverty in Birmingham – 31% of children in the city.

Only six of Birmingham’s 40 wards have a child poverty rate below the national average of 20%. In seven wards the child poverty rate is over 40%.

In 2013, one fifth of all enquiries at Birmingham’s Citizens Advice Bureaus concerned debt.

In 2013 child poverty had an estimated cost to the city of £914m in extra services such as education, healthcare and benefits, as well as lost tax receipts and earnings.

Skills and employment

In 2013, 3000 young people had been claiming jobseekers allowance for over a year and 7% of 16-19 year olds were not in employment, education or training.


Schools and educationThere are 427 schools in Birmingham.

72% of 7-11 year olds enjoy going to school every day compared to 50% of 12-18 year olds.

After school55% of Birmingham’s children take part in activities outside of school. This is compared to the national figure of 66% in England.

37% of 7-11 year olds and 42% of 12-18 years olds report that they feel safe in their neighbourhoods.

HealthBy the time they leave primary school 24% of Birmingham’s children are obese, compared to the national average of 19%.

Around 8-9% of Birmingham’s young people self-report that they experience significant emotional problems like anxiety and depression. The national average is 5%.

14% of Birmingham’s young people self-report conduct disorders compared to a national average of 11%.

Statistics show that A&Es across Birmingham have seen a rise of 40% in admissions of under-18s with symptoms of self-harm since 2009-10.


Section 1Messages from children and young people

Just Cannon Hill Park is nice.’‘

During June, July and August 2014 The Children’s Society worked with children and young people from across the city to hear their voices and gather their views on growing up in Birmingham. This was done in two ways: through targeted focus groups with identified hard to reach young people and a city-wide survey, ‘My Life, My Birmingham’, to gather a broader range of children’s voices.

These messages are drawn from this participation work. Over 750 completed surveys were analysed, 285 from primary school aged children and 483 from secondary aged children. The focus groups worked closely with over 180 young people, including newly arrived young people, children in a pupil referral unit, children with disabilities and children from targeted localities in Sparkbrook and Longbridge. This work is referenced in Appendix 6 and can be found on The Children’s Society website.

1. Relationships are the most important thing in the lives of children and young people, especially relationships with their families. Friends also matter, particularly to older children, who often said that their friends were more important to them than their families.

2. Children and young people from every group, and from every part of Birmingham, want to feel safer in the city. They feel they lack safe, affordable spaces and activities that would allow them to be with friends and family. They describe safe places as those where there are activities, but where it is also okay just to hang out. Often safety was linked to the presence of trusted adults in the area. Cannon Hill Park was frequently mentioned as an exemplary park where young people felt safe. Lack of safety on buses was also a barrier to accessing facilities across the city.

3. Children and young people want to have a say in the issues that matter to them. They want their voices to be heard and acted upon. School councils were not always achieving this – for example they might not include the views of children with special educational needs. The desire for a voice went wider than school however; it was also about wanting to influence decisions relating to their community, such as transport, and work opportunities. For those with special educational needs, there was particular concern about getting late decisions on funding to access 16+ courses. They wanted the same certainty about their next steps as their peers in mainstream education.

4. Having the freedom to take part in activities, hobbies and to try new things, mattered to children of all ages.

5. Children were positive about school, valuing the opportunities that education gave them, and the supportive relationships they had with teachers. They knew how important education was, but stressed the importance of education that was more rounded than a narrow focus on academic results. They felt this would help them reach their goals.

6. Children and young people felt they were often ‘judged’ and branded as troublemakers – by shops and supermarkets in particular. They wanted to be seen as individuals.

7. Young people wanted to gain the knowledge and skills that would be useful for getting a job and being a good citizen, including about good relationships, fundraising to help your community and trades such as barbering. They did not always feel that schools delivered this. Young people wanted work experience to be sustained and real, rather than just a two week project. Young people felt more advice was needed at an earlier age to support better long term career planning. They expressed a desire to feel both secure and confident as they transitioned from education to working life.

MessagesMethology

People don’t respect others in Birmingham.’‘


8. Children and young people valued their community and their public places. They wanted them to be greener, cleaner and easier for people without a car. They wanted to feel welcome in shared spaces such as local high streets, even if they did not have money to spend. They wanted their communities to be governed well, with people sticking to the rules, and they wanted to contribute to making them better.

9. Children and young people wanted a positive story to be told about Birmingham – about all the good things that were going on and what young people were achieving. This was in contrast to the negative stories which young people felt were prominent about both young people and their city.

There are good people in my area.’‘

Section 2Messages from families and communities in Longbridge & Sparkbrook

I am not sure what is possible for me.’‘

The Innovation Unit was commissioned by Birmingham City Council to work in Longbridge and Sparkbrook wards. So between April 2014 and July 2014 they undertook detailed ethnographic research with children, young people, families and professionals to get a deep understanding of the issues people are facing. This work is reference in Appendix 6 and can be accessed from The Children’s Society’s website.

1. Their work with parents of young children found that meeting the learning and development needs of children requires a significant investment of time, resources, skills and confidence, but that families in ‘survival mode’ often lacked the time, energy and resources for reflective parenting. Parenting advice given by services was not always realistic for parents in their home environment because services did not offer advice based on the context of a particular family’s daily life. For example, advising a parent to spend more time with their eldest child might not be easy to achieve for a single parent juggling two jobs, with three children.

2. The work with families, in particular single parent families, found that parents were often socially isolated. This was often driven by external threats such as fear of crime, fear of difference and/or fear of judgment. The way out of this social isolation was through trusted relationships – one or more quality relationships that built confidence and served as a catalyst for change in family life. Reflecting on the impact of services on these families, services were seen to underestimate the value of relationships, leading to a reliance on professionals, rather than introducing supportive connections which the families could rely on in future.

3. The researchers found that all the families had aspirations, but that aspiration was highly subjective – for example some parents were very keen to work, while others wanted to devote their energies to bringing up their children. Effective services need to work both to understand where parents are, and where they want to be. There were many examples of perverse incentives in the system that disempowered families and prevented them from making progress. For example, a mother who was keen to work had taken a short term job but when it finished there was a month’s delay in restarting benefits, during which time the family had no money for food. It also appeared that the moment families began to manage, all support was taken away, putting them at risk of further crises if their circumstances deteriorated even slightly.

4. As children got older, parents found it harder to help their children as the homework got more difficult, or required skills or resources they did not have. Many of these families would have valued more meaningful communication with schools about their child’s education and more specific parenting support for dealing with teenagers.

5. A consistent finding from the research was that young people wanted more informal and appropriate spaces in which to socialise outside school. Parents saw religious spaces and institutions as safe places to let their children attend, and these could be further utilised by young people to develop connections to their community in a safe environment.

Messages


Methology

Parents don’t want their kids to go too far.’‘

Section 3Messages from organisations and professionals

These messages have been drawn from the seven public sessions of the Birmingham Commission for Children held in venues across the city throughout June and July 2014. The commissioners met with 41 different individuals representing a range of different organisations. Presented here are the most pertinent messages the commissioners heard, that were addressed time and again, by different contributors. Full details of who attended these meetings and each conversation’s key findings can be found on The Children’s Society’s website. Reports referred to in text are listed in Appendix 6 (Bibliography).

We have presented the rich information we heard under three headings:

• What we heard about a fair Birmingham, and how fairness for children and young people could be improved

• What we heard about a prosperous Birmingham, and how children, young people and their families can be supported to ensure prosperity for themselves and the city

• What we heard about a democratic Birmingham, and how children and young people, and the people who work with them, can be involved in decisions on the things that matter to them in their neighbourhoods, districts and city-wide.

These headings reflect the vision that the Leader of Birmingham City Council, Sir Albert Bore, has set out for the city, most recently in his Leader’s Policy Statement in July 2014. Our intention is that our report and recommendations will help the council, working with its partners and many organisations across the city, make progress towards achieving this vision for children, young people and families.

We have interpreted fair as meaning that every child, young person and family can access universal services, and that there are robust and reliable, targeted and specialist services for those who need them.

Access to universal areas

1. Safety. Those working with children, families and young people confirmed the messages we had heard directly that young people’s perception of a lack of safety hindered their access to universally provided services such as youth centres and extra-curricular activities. The council’s child well-being report also reported that only one third (37%) of primary school children felt safe all of the time in their neighbourhood. A greater proportion (42%) of secondary school children felt safe in their neighbourhood all of the time, but fewer secondary school than primary school children (59% compared to 68%) felt safe at school all of the time.

Differing perceptions of safety were also an issue – young people sought safety in numbers, but adults could perceive groups of young people as threatening. This was seen in the use of formal ‘dispersal zones’ which allow police to break up groups of young people. In discussions we identified that

Fair Birmingham


Adults make me feel welcome and part of the community as they say hello’

‘Walking? Day time – safe, night time – never!.’‘

Street PastorsAn idea that is working elsewhere is Street Pastors. These are an inter-denominational church initiative to help make people feel safer on the streets of their communities. Street Pastors volunteer to help, listen and care for the people of their community, usually at night. Their presence on the streets has been welcomed by many communities and police forces and the idea is spreading worldwide. www.streetpastors.org.uk

organisations which broke through these safety issues were ‘trusted brands’, either well-known local or national groups such as Aston Villa Football Club or the Scouts, or local religious institutions which parents saw as safe places.

The role of ‘trusted adults’ was also important – young people identified Cannon Hill Park as a safe place for them because they knew that there were adults around. Both the young people we spoke to and many of the adults recognised the strong connection young people have with their local neighbourhoods and the difficulties young people often face when travelling to other neighbourhoods to take part in activities. This spoke of a need to ensure that activities were available to young people locally, but also to explore how to break down this territoriality and encourage young people to see the whole of the city, and all its opportunities, as available to them.

2. Transport. The cost of bus travel was an issue that organisations said hindered young people being involved in activities. This included schools as many children travel across the city to attend school, teachers felt that it would not be worthwhile putting on extra activities at weekends and during holidays because children would not be able to afford to travel to them. We heard this particularly from children with disabilities because those working with them as their carers needed to pay for travel too. Birmingham’s transport network, based on a hub and spoke model, is both expensive and time consuming as young people must travel into the town centre in order to get out to other neighbourhoods. Many organisations also commented on a lack of safety for young people on buses.

3. Health. The health professionals we spoke to were consistent in their message that services, particularly Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, were improving but also becoming increasingly targeted at the most serious cases. As such, universal provision was becoming stretched and gaps were appearing. There was concern that, for those children and young people unable to access services, their health issues may become entrenched, resulting in long term health implications. The big issues in public health for children and young people in Birmingham are much the same as the rest of the county, but often the incidence is much greater. Birmingham’s Joint

Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) identifies smoking prevalence, teenage pregnancy and gonorrhoea rates as significantly higher in Birmingham than nationally. We also heard from other professionals about problems like hyper-masculinity, poor body image and young people, especially men, struggling to have positive relationships with their partners.

4. Emotional health and well-being. Poor emotional health and well-being was the major health concern raised by organisations like schools, charities and support workers, ie those not within the public health system. The well-being survey which the council commissions each year also shows that the prevalence of emotional problems (like anxiety, depression, hyperactivity and poor concentration), poor peer relationships and poor pro-social skills among 11-15 year olds is significantly higher than the national average. It was felt that emotional health support should be available via schools both as a service and in lessons, but people also noted that some children would not want to access support through services based at their school. The Birmingham members of the UK Youth Parliament, however, felt that young people were unlikely to use clinics or drop-in centres for health advice, but would want it available at places where they were already regular attenders, such as schools or youth centres.

Although not a priority in the 2012-2015 Health and Wellbeing Strategy, a ‘Head Start’ programme to improve self-esteem and emotional resilience is currently being commissioned in schools and a full 0-19 mental health service with both universal and specialist services is under development. These initiatives are welcomed and should be strongly encouraged. The commissioners also noted a lack of public data about emotional well-being. If local schools and organisations are going to take this issue seriously they need to know where these problems are most prevalent. Emotional health did not feature significantly in the JSNA produced by the Health and Wellbeing Board and there was no district level data to assist in planning services.

I would put all my money on healthcare, definitely not the police.’

‘A cheap bus to the youth club would help.’‘


Young friends of parks Young people consistently reported that they often felt unsafe in outdoor spaces. This idea would encourage young people to take the lead. Like a traditional friends of parks association these groups would see young people working to improve facilities and put on activities in the parks that are most important to them.

Ideas we heard:

5. Physical well-being. The main concern of providers relating to physical health was the rate and impact of childhood obesity. This was a priority for the Health and Wellbeing Board, which had set up an Obesity Strategy Group with a plan to tackle obesity in the city, eg environmental issues such as the proliferation of fast food takeaways. Those working with children and young people said that children knew about healthy eating but found it hard. They wanted schools and others to make it easier for them. There were many barriers to engaging in outside activity – perception of safety, perception of risk, girls not wanting to be seen running or taking part in structured physical activity or sports. The public health staff reported a lack of evidence-based programmes to tackle childhood obesity, but noted that the University of Birmingham was piloting an ‘empowerment model’ in primary schools to encourage self-esteem rather than weight management approaches.

6. Early years – reach and capacity. We heard from a range of providers about some of the challenges of delivering early years services in the city but the point of most concern was the 16% of children arriving at school who had not accessed any early years’ services. These children arrived at school not able to make the most of it, particularly in terms of their speech and language development. There was stretch across the system in early years with 270 health visitors expected to visit 18,000 new births between them, while one of the children’s centre managers we spoke to was supporting 6,200 0-5s across two centres.

7. Early years – shared working between early years and health visitors. The responsibility for commissioning of health visiting services is due to transfer to the council in April 2015, and planning was just getting under way. Health visiting and early years staff said that they did not think fully integrated working would be in place by that time. They expressed frustration at the difficulties of working in constantly changing organisational structures.

However there was a real desire to work together to develop a robust city-wide early help and early intervention strategy, based on a model of integrated services, organised so that agency boundaries were coterminous, with children’s centres acting as multi-disciplinary ‘hubs’. This, they felt, would draw people together from across the statutory and the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) early years’ sectors and the NHS to deliver agreed and shared outcomes for children and families. Other key steps that would help are a shared view of information about children and families at local (district or neighbourhood) level to inform service planning, and at child-level to inform responses, and a consistent bank of accredited intervention programmes being used across the early years health and education sectors. It was felt that a shared understanding of good practice would help joint working as changes to the health visiting service were implemented.

Access to targeted and specialist services

8. Safeguarding and children’s social care were out of scope of the commission, but contributors made a number of points as part of their commentary on what it was like growing up in Birmingham. Some providers, for example in children’s centres, were aware of the changes being made to establish a MASH (multi-agency

More places to go outside that are free to go and people are respectful.’

‘

safeguarding hub) and local safeguarding hubs, but some, such as private and voluntary sector early years providers were not. These providers also said they had no regular point of contact within children’s services if they were worried about a child – just the main council switchboard number.

Voluntary organisations consistently reported to us that they felt excluded from safeguarding discussions. For example if they were working with a child and a ‘team around the family’ meeting or a meeting to develop a Common Assessment Framework (CAF) was organised, they would not be included in the discussion. Other organisations who were operating city-wide, and who were well respected, commented that they struggled to get a seat at the table where decisions were being made. The one area where it was felt some progress was being made was with GPs, for example in recognising and referring issues to do with child sexual exploitation.

9. Special educational needs (SEN). We heard a mixed picture about the support available for children and young people with special educational needs. Generally organisations were positive about the support and advice they received from the council. However, we also heard frustration from organisations which had engaged in a process of reviewing the SEN strategy, including consulting children and young people, where no information had yet been given to them about whether any changes were going to happen. Furthermore, one of the key findings from The Children’s Society’s participation work with children and young people with SEN and disabilities, was that they wanted more opportunity to say how they felt and what they thought, and to be better represented, for example on school councils. There was some uncertainty about future speech and language provision as the service looked to offer more support to fewer children, with the risk that children with low levels of need would not be able to access services.

I like the park, but don’t go there as there is nothing for me to do in my wheelchair.’

‘

10. Migration. Both schools and voluntary organisations mentioned to us the impact of immigration and migration. Some of this was about newly arrived children joining schools mid-term, but a number of schools spoke about the impact of migration within Birmingham as families were moved to new housing by the council. The impact on children’s education of moving schools did not appear to be taken into account in these housing decisions. These messages complimented those heard in The Children’s Society’s direct work with newly-arrived children, many of whom said that it had taken months to access education on arrival in this country.


We have interpreted prosperous as meaning that every child and young person has the opportunity to gain the skills they need to succeed as a working adult, and that the city is generating opportunities for these skills to be used. Schools, employers and the many world-class institutions of the city share the responsibility of building a prosperous city.

The backdrop to these discussions is the widely-known reality of child and family poverty in Birmingham, which hinders life chances across the city, and on every issue acts as an exacerbating factor when it comes to improving children’s lives.

• Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) figures show that in 2013 there were 84,114 children in poverty in Birmingham – 31% of children in the city

• However there is great disparity – in some wards child poverty hovers around 5% whereas in others it reaches 47%

• In 2013, child poverty had an estimated cost to the city of £914m in extra services such as education, healthcare and benefits, as well as lost tax receipts and earnings.

The messages from children and young people brought these facts to life – they felt they were prevented from accessing youth centres, parks and other facilities because of the cost of bus travel, and they felt that shared spaces such as high streets did not welcome them because they did not have much money to spend.

Some of the written submissions we received suggested that tackling child poverty, and understanding its impact on children’s lives was not yet a priority – for example, the JSNA identified the relationship between child poverty and health as one of the gaps in their knowledge. However in July 2014 a Labour Party Child Poverty Review, led by Liam Byrne MP and Cllr John Cotton reported, and Birmingham City Council responded by announcing the creation of a Birmingham Child Poverty Commission ‘that will work with the city’s schools, social care, health services and employers to tackle the poverty that blights the lives of a third of our children’.

Prosperous Birmingham

The commissioners welcome this step, but note that none of the people we spoke to during our conversations mentioned the existence of either the Labour Party Review or the council’s proposed commission. In order for the commission to be a success, it is vital that energy and commitment are put into making it a reality, and that it is set up in a way which builds momentum for change across the city and its partners.

The contribution of schools in creating a prosperous Birmingham

1. School organisation. School representatives we spoke to were positive about the establishment of the Birmingham Education Partnership (BEP), district school groups and the role the council will play in this new structure. It was agreed that the BEP needed to engage more with school governors as it established itself. The school representatives we spoke to were hoping that the BEP would engage all schools in the city – there was a perception that some schools were not contributing to the school system as a whole as much as others and there was concern that these schools might also be missing out, for example on learning and development opportunities for their staff and enrichment opportunities for pupils.

2. Curriculum and access to enriching activities. Education providers from early years to 16+ felt that the curriculum was too narrow. They felt there was a better balance to be struck between ensuring young people had the core qualifications they needed, for example in numeracy and literacy, and opportunities to learn new skills and work in different ways. It was felt that the focus on exam

targets made teachers and students risk averse – they could not afford to try new things in case they failed. Quotes from headteachers included ‘There’s more to an outstanding school than Ofsted inspections and grades’ and ‘we try to get across to children that they are valued, but sometimes they don’t feel that’. Despite complaints about the constraints of the curriculum, we heard many examples of innovation and new approaches that enriched the curriculum, stretched children and young people and built skills for the future. For instance, we heard from Brookfields Primary School in Hockley how they were using the Open Futures Curriculum, sponsored by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, to encourage an enquiry-based approach, in which children learnt to grow their own fruit and vegetables, cook food for themselves, work with new media, explore concepts and appreciate other people’s points of view. They felt this helped develop children’s ability to learn, and their love for learning. However, heads, teachers and providers of services offering opportunities beyond formal schooling all felt that their connections were essentially random, and that young people were missing out as a result. There was a call for an ‘intelligent broker’ function to link schools and groups to what is on offer across the city, to ensure all children, but especially those who are most vulnerable, have access to enriching activities.

I would like to meet Usain Bolt, David Tennant and go to Birmingham University.’

‘Places to go cost too much money.’‘


The contribution of employers and enterprise to creating a prosperous Birmingham

3. School/employer connections, including the provision of careers information. All those involved in supporting young people to make choices and secure the right training and employment felt the system of connecting employers with young people was patchy and inconsistent, reflecting the messages we heard from the young people themselves.

Some schools were using a whole school approach and had a dedicated member of staff with specialist skills, and some employers were doing great work in reaching out to local schools. The Birmingham Baccalaureate pilot had been well received by some schools, but was only one of a number of competing similar initiatives.

There was clearly a lot of council resource going into tackling unemployment, including youth unemployment, but this also appeared fragmented with staff from other parts of the council not aware of what others were doing, and labour market information held by the council not being used by other partners. The council’s formal response to the Youth Unemployment Commission, described the Birmingham Youth Partnership as just beginning its work. It was hoped that this would link together and evaluate existing programmes rather than generate new initiatives.

4. Employment support for vulnerable young people. There were examples of employers working with local voluntary organisations to support vulnerable young people into employment, but it was clear that there would be few willing to provide the amount of support and encouragement that some young people, for example those leaving care or young offenders, required. Those working with vulnerable young people reported challenges in delivering schemes such as access to employment because young people felt that it was unlikely there would be a job at the end of them. They

reported that lengthy benefit assessment periods also meant that if young people came off benefits to take a short-term role, or a job which did not work out, they would lose benefits for a month when the job came to an end. This was acting as a disincentive to taking on a new role.

5. Enterprise. On reflection, we noted that the debate about employment held by schools, colleges and those involved in the Youth Partnership was focused on getting a job in someone else’s company. There was little discussion about the opportunities for enterprise, self-employment or entrepreneurship, whereas many of the young people had expressed a wish to set up their own business. Collaboration between local start-ups and small enterprises could provide opportunities for both business and young people to gain skills, solve problems and raise aspiration. This could also be a good way of inserting ‘real life’ skills into the curriculum.

Hackney 100Hackney Council in London is launching a scheme that will see 100 disadvantaged young people aged 16 and 17 placed in part time, paid jobs, for four hours a week outside their school week. The young people will be paid the London Living Wage and be employed on a six month basis. The idea for the scheme came from the lack of paid, part time jobs for young people in the borough which was resulting in school leavers who had no work experience and lacked the basic skills employers need like punctuality and resilience. www.hackney.gov.uk/hackney100.htm#.VBGBznJdV-c

Fundraising for local charities in schoolsOften business studies lessons in school can seem far removed from the real world. Young people we spoke to had the idea of combining community fundraising activities with the curriculum. In this way learning about profit margins, supply and demand and cash flow, would also be complemented by the positive impact of their work on the community.

You can’t get anything in Birmingham… your dreams can’t start from here.’

‘


Ideas we heard:

We have interpreted a democratic Birmingham as one in which every person gets to have a say in the decisions that matter to them, and is helped to overcome the barriers to participating in society and the democratic process. We have also interpreted a democratic Birmingham as one where communities, neighbourhoods and districts determine their local priorities, and where the whole resources of the community, neighbourhood and districts are galvanised in support of these priorities. This involves making a reality of the model of leadership expressed in the Leader’s Policy Statement and the report from the Birmingham Social Inclusion Process ‘Transforming Place – working together for better neighbourhoods’.

1. Voice of children and young people. Reciprocating the view of the young people themselves, professionals from a range of organisations expressed a desire for structured information on the views of children and young people, presented at a district or neighbourhood level, to inform service planning. Professionals who worked directly with children and young people were strong supporters of their right to have a say, stressing that all children, including 0-5s could be engaged in questions about what they like and did not like about their lives.

Furthermore it was stressed that to hear the voice of children and young people, there was not necessarily the need to mimic adult democratic structures. It was suggested that engaging young people in having their say on what might be provided in local parks might encourage them to take part in physical activity, tackling childhood obesity challenges. Some people had been involved in one-off consultation exercises, for example in relation to the SEN strategy, but had felt these to be tokenistic as children and young people had been consulted but there had been no feedback on what had happened to that information.

Democratic Birmingham2. District level information. A number

of people, but by no means all, were aware of plans by the council to move to working at a district level. Most referred to this as an idea being discussed or plans being put in place, rather than being in existence and already engaging with residents or partners. Those who were aware, such as the police and schools, wanted to have information presented at district level to enable service planning – for example police crime maps and children’s views as collected by the annual school well-being survey. There was also a desire for more detailed information on children’s health to be available at this level; the JSNA had limited information about children and it was city-wide, and the District Health Profiles presented very limited child health data. It was noted that this would also provide a public evidence base for difficult decisions if scarce resources had to be focused on the neediest areas.

3. Effective joint working at a district level. Statutory and voluntary organisations reported that organisational restructuring was damaging relationships with the council, but also that different parts of the council being organised in different ways did not help partnership working. This appeared to be a particular challenge in the early years, where 14 safeguarding and family support hubs were being set up, while children’s centres were operating on a 16 locality model. There are also 19 health visiting teams, while other parts of the council appeared to be forming around a 10 district model.

Those who had restructured to follow the council’s district model, for example the police, were very enthusiastic about the difference it had made to working together. Voluntary sector organisations, in particular those working city-wide, also wanted to know how to engage effectively at district level.

4. Neighbourhood. The neighbourhood level is the one that makes sense to children and young people, and many of the voluntary organisations we spoke to were also operating at this scale. It was clear that there are many groups, such as housing associations, neighbourhood watch and school-based groups such as parent teacher associations which play a hugely important role. Making progress on some of the challenges raised by young people and their families, such as feeling safe outside the home, and making the most of existing local assets such as parks and open spaces, will require leadership and direction at this level, as well as at district level.

5. Working with the voluntary and community sector (VCS). The representatives of this sector that we spoke to were clear that they wanted a stronger and more strategic partnership with the council in delivering services to children and families. Many of them also reported great relationships with individuals within the council who were expert and supportive. A few were less positive about the council’s ability to work in partnership and consult the voluntary sector on changes before they were made. Most understood the financial challenges the council faced and thought that greater engagement by the council of the voluntary and community sector could help the council deliver their objectives. They felt that they had expertise and connections to offer, but often struggled to get a seat at the table.

Listen to young people for once instead of listening to other people trying to make more traffic jams.’

‘It takes a city to raise a child | 23

6. Role of volunteers in the community. Virtually every statutory and voluntary organisation reported to us examples of where volunteers were adding value to their services, and to the lives of children and young people. This included parent volunteers at children’s centres, ‘streetwatch’ groups which built on the neighbourhood watch model but added street patrols to their activities, volunteer health trainers providing information on local health and well-being facilities, and volunteer mentors from local businesses.

Some contributors suggested a city-wide accreditation and training programme for such volunteers or ‘auxiliaries’ to recognise their contribution. This reflected views that many families would prefer to be supported by their peers than professionals, and recognition by professionals that funding pressures were not going to abate and so expanding a service or reaching new people meant engaging communities and ‘neighbours’ in helping each other.

7. Parents’ role in their children’s education. We asked the early years and school representatives we spoke to about the messages we heard from parents. Particularly as children moved to primary school, parents were finding themselves unable to help with homework as it became more complex. Some contributors suggested an ‘accredited parent diploma’, normalising the expectation that parents would receive some training in bringing up their children. Others suggested that mosques, churches and other religious institutions could be places where volunteers worked with parents to support their children’s learning, as parents were likely to be comfortable attending those places with their children. Representatives from schools said they knew that parental engagement in their children’s education was one of the key success factors for children, but did not feel that they had capacity or training to support parents in that role. Children’s centre staff felt they were able to support parents who came to the centres, but there were issues about reaching fathers in particular, and they worried about the parents who did not engage with children’s centres.

8. Engagement by businesses and other employers in community activities. We heard many examples of commercial organisations engaged with schools and communities – for example legal firms, financial firms, and the big institutions such as the Birmingham Royal Ballet and Aston Villa Football Club. In response to questions about engagement, people mentioned that supermarkets and public health officials were groups that were not yet routinely round district, neighbourhood or school tables discussing how they might contribute. Business Improvement Districts were also mentioned because while they do much to improve high streets they do not necessarily consider young people in this work.

Volunteers supporting FamiliesLaunched in 2008, Volunteers supporting Families, a CSV project, works with social care teams to match a volunteer to a family currently referred by children’s services on a child protection or child in need plan. The volunteers work with the families for between six and nine months, crucially remaining a trusted contact once the planned social care intervention has come to an end. www.csv.org.uk/volunteering/mentoring-befriending/volunteers-supporting-families

Free driving lessons for young people who volunteer Driving lessons can be prohibitively expensive for many families but being able to drive has clear benefits for young people in terms of gaining employment and greater independence. Young people who volunteer in their community could receive a free lesson for a set number of hours volunteering.


I think ‘Benefits Street’ is a bit of a negative thing, it doesn’t just represent Birmingham.’

‘Ideas we heard:

The role of Birmingham City Council and its partners in delivering a fair, prosperous and democratic BirminghamDuring our conversations we also heard a number of general points made about the role that the council and its partners needed to play, in order to make delivering a fair, prosperous and democratic Birmingham a reality for the city’s children and young people.

Integrated early help strategy

1. A number of people, from a variety of different statutory and voluntary organisations said that they wanted to understand better how different parts of the system were working together to support children and families who needed more than universal services. Examples included children’s early years providers and health visiting managers wanting to share their perspectives on need in a locality so that they could make sure services were reaching people without duplicating scarce resources, or school nurses wanting to understand how children with low level speech and language challenges would be supported if they did not meet the criteria for the specialist NHS services.

2. The professionals and organisations we spoke to expressed a desire for an integrated strategy that linked universal services, early help and targeted intervention together, across different services, so that professionals knew how to respond to children’s needs. This would be organised on a consistent 10 district basis, with services and agencies, including all of the council’s services, organised on the same basis.

3. The Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) has early help as one of its strategic priorities, however:

• We did not obtain a clear picture of whether the LSCB consider themselves responsible for leading the development of a strategy, or scrutinising its development

• No one we spoke to had heard of the LSCB’s work in this area, so it may be that, if it is supposed to be leading work on developing an early help strategy, there is more work to be done to reach frontline practitioners.

Harnessing the resources of the city

4. Throughout our conversations we met and heard about organisations which were willing, able and keen to contribute to supporting the lives of Birmingham’s children. These varied from institutions within the city, such as the local press, who wanted to use their voice, to voluntary and community organisations who wanted to work in partnership, to businesses wanting to play their corporate social responsibility role, and great cultural institutions such as the Birmingham Royal Ballet wanting to support new talent. However, we also heard about how the connections that these organisations made with schools, youth clubs or other institutions were essentially random, and that young people were missing out as a result. There was a desire for a mechanism to ensure opportunities were available for all young people.

5. The message behind this conversation was a call for the council to use its convening role to harness these resources – or to authorise some other group to do so. This would require a new leadership role – not providing services itself – but facilitating the connections and networks of a wide range of organisations in order to support the city’s children and young people. It is something that the council could do itself – or it could support the establishment of a leadership group to drive the

agenda, and let them lead this work. Organisations are hungry to help but they need a framework in which to share their resources.

Narrative – celebrating Brilliant Birmingham

6. Birmingham is a fantastic city full of committed professionals and ambitious young people achieving great things, but many people, from young people to professionals who have worked in the city all their lives, talked to us about the need to ‘tell a different story’ about Birmingham and its young people. The recent ‘Trojan Horse’ inquiries have painted a picture of the city that is not recognised by the people we spoke to.

Similarly, talking about the challenges of youth unemployment needs to be carefully balanced to avoid painting all young people as unskilled and without a future. When talking to young people it is abundantly clear that these negative narratives are heard by them and have consequences for their thinking about their future and their city. Everyone in Birmingham has a responsibility to be positive about the city’s youth or these negative narratives risk becoming self-fulfilling prophecies where Birmingham’s young people assume it is pointless to work hard at school or college because there is no possibility of a brighter future.


I like the way the police look around in different streets.’

‘Young editor for local press Hearing directly from young people is one of easiest ways of understanding them, learning about their achievements and establishing a positive framework through which to view young people. Recruiting young editors for local press in Birmingham would allow young people a direct voice with which they can talk to their communities and city.

Ideas we heard:

7. In contrast, we heard many ideas for opportunities to celebrate what Birmingham’s children are achieving, to turn the narrative round. These included:

• A ‘Birmingham’s Brilliant Children’ day to celebrate the achievements of Birmingham’s young people

• A cultural celebration, such as the Welsh traditional Eisteddfod, where young people could perform at the city’s venues, and others could take part in new cultural events

• A ‘children’s day’ when high streets could encourage children into shops and parks could be given over to children’s activities.

8. We also heard many ideas of people who could help – in whose it interest it was to paint a positive and upbeat picture of Birmingham. This included the local press, and taxi drivers – the people who talk to most of the influential visitors to the city.

Sustaining priorities for change

9. Across our conversations we heard people talk about the initiatives that the council had introduced, which were launched with momentum, but then appeared to have drifted over time. Examples included the ‘Brighter Futures’ programme, which involved training many professionals in specific early intervention programmes that are no longer being pursued and the Birmingham Baccalaureate, which had been piloted in some schools but it remained unclear when it will be rolled out.

10. It is inevitable that political pressures drive a desire for new initiatives which can form part of speeches, strategies and election campaigns. It is also inevitable that senior management turnover drives changes in ways of working. However the call from professionals across the city was for new initiatives to be:

• Developed in consultation with organisations and professionals who were working with children and young people on the ground

• Introduced gradually so that improvements could be made

• Sustained for years so that new ways of working could be developed and new relationships built.

It’s not right to say that someone doesn’t have a future.’

‘ We want more things to do for teenagers like us.’‘


Section 4A vision for children and young people in Birmingham

From listening to children and young people, and the people who work with them, we have set out the following vision statement describing how the city should aspire to change so that in 10 years’ time, children, young people and their families are living the best possible life in the city.

Our vision is that, in 10 years’ time:

1. Pride: Children and young people are proud to grow up in Birmingham and adults are proud to relate the achievements of Birmingham’s children and young people.

2. Voice: Children and young people are able to have their voices heard consistently across the city whenever decisions are made about the issues that matter to them; and adults working with children and young people in statutory and voluntary services feel their views are listened to by decision-makers.

3. Parents and community: Parents feel better equipped to support their children’s education, and communities are strengthened by networks of community volunteers who give their time and offer support to children and families. It is the norm for adults to volunteer in their community.

4. Safe access to community assets: Children and young people are able to use the rich assets of the city. Locally, they feel safe using open spaces and parks to play and be with friends, increasing their ability to feel part of the city and their community.

5. Guaranteed access to the city’s assets: Birmingham’s rich and diverse resources, including football and sports clubs, dance, ballet, theatres, music venues and cultural opportunities are accessible to all children and young people, regardless of ethnicity, gender, ability or where they live, through a rich school curriculum and activities outside school.

6. Schools: Young people feel school gets the best out of every person, whether they are going to make the grades or not, and equips them for the world of work. Schools use their often extensive physical assets and resources beyond the school day as the norm, to support and encourage participation in sports, the arts, technology and life-long learning for all.

7. Employers: The city’s employers consistently offer expertise, information and opportunities because Birmingham’s young people are their future workforce. They commit to mentoring children and young people, particularly those who are vulnerable or most in need, as a key element of their Corporate Social Responsibility remit. All businesses recognise the wider role they have in shaping the resources of families in the areas where they do business and act responsibly to employees, with good work and decent wages.

8. Working together for children and young people: Professionals working with children and young people are confident that the council, other statutory partners and the voluntary and community sector have a shared understanding of need at a neighbourhood, district and city level. They have shared understanding of the universal, early help, targeted and specialist services on offer to increase their confidence that children are not falling through the net. Professionals from all agencies are working together in organisations with the same geographical boundaries, which is contributing to strong professional relationships and less duplication of resources.

9. The wider role of the council: The council, and its statutory partners, promote the needs of young people across all of their services, promoting learning and skills opportunities in their role as employers, builders, commissioners and drivers of economic growth.

10. Leadership: The council, in partnership with professional, religious, business and community leaders are demonstrating active, united and determined leadership in ensuring that Birmingham is a healthy, safe and achieving city in which children and young people can thrive and flourish.

I want to feel safe when I am out and about.’

‘


Section 5Conclusions and recommendations

The vision statement sets out our hopes for children and young people growing up in Birmingham in 10 years’ time. Our conclusions and recommendations represent those changes that the commissioners believe are most important in making this vision a reality.

Everyone who spoke to us had ideas for change - there are thousands of things which could be done to improve children’s lives in Birmingham. We have attempted to identify a small number of significant changes that will enable Birmingham City Council and its partners to put in place foundations for change that will last over the coming years and create the conditions in which children and young people can flourish in the future.

This commission has been a one-off piece of work, listening to organisations which work with children and families. However the most powerful calls for change have come from the strands of work listening to children and young people themselves, and their families and communities. If Birmingham is going to be a city where children and young people consistently flourish, and where they can benefit from fairness, prosperity and democracy, then there needs to be a way consistently to hear their views on the issues that matter to them. This needs to be in a way that allows statutory services, other organisations working with children and young people, and the city more widely, to engage, reflect and respond effectively.

We recommend that to achieve this:

• The council should introduce an annual children and young people’s engagement process, comprising a survey and small groups, to gain the views of children and young people. The survey should be done at a sample size that allows for the publication of data at the 10 district level, and the engagement with children and young people should be done on a district basis to inform decisions at this level. It should ensure that young children

and those with SEN and disabilities are enabled to offer their views too.

• A children and young people’s District Profile, bringing together the data that is available across the city on children’s lives should be published annually. Appendix 3 is a draft of what could be included in this profile, based on existing sources of information.

• The council should develop a process in each district to allow children and young people, and the voluntary and statutory organisations that work with them, including schools, to debate the issues and set priorities for the coming year. (The intention would be an equivalent to the annual District Convention, which is an opportunity for a wide group of adult residents to have their say.) The process should reach out to the many voluntary organisations already supporting and encouraging young people to have a voice in their area, and should be co-designed with children and young people. An annual ‘convention’ co-chaired by a young person and the District Chair could be one approach, but there may be other ways more likely to engage children and young people in the area.

Recommendation 1: Embed children and young people’s voice into decision-making through the council’s 10 district structure

Welsh Assembly’s petitions system Many nations use a petitions system to allow members of the public to raise issues in their democratically elected bodies. In Wales any resident can launch a petition and only 10 signatures are required for a petition to be considered by the Assembly’s Petitions Committee. Welsh Assembly outreach officers often work with children in schools to identify issues of concern to them and encourage them to set up a petition, giving children and young people a direct voice in their political system.www.assemblywales.org/en/gethome/e-petitions/Pages/e-petitions.aspx

We have to listen to them and so they should listen to us.’

‘Stop judging me, Morrisons’ Man.’‘


• The council, and its partners, should, to the greatest extent possible, move to organising services that affect children and young people on the 10 district model, to reduce duplication and allow professionals from all agencies to develop strong and stable working relationships. The steps already being taken, for example, by setting up district groups of schools as part of the Birmingham Education Partnership, can be capitalised on to build momentum.

Birmingham is a city rich in local assets – parks and open spaces are free and open to all to use. However, we heard a strong view from children, young people and their families, that they did not feel these places were always safe for them, or that they did not feel safe walking or travelling to them by bus. We also heard many suggestions for actions – trusted organisations running activities in the parks, local organisations such as housing associations or schools engaging young people in what they wanted to see in their local spaces, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) consulting with young people on how to make public spaces on high streets safer for young people and trusted volunteer adults being around at key times to help reassure young people.

Making progress on this issue will need Birmingham City Council’s People and Place Directorates to work together, but the solutions will be unable to be organised at city level. Progress needs to happen at a neighbourhood level, working with the young people who live there, and the neighbourhood communities, schools and businesses.

We recommend that:

• In each district, the District Committee should work with organisations already working with young people in that neighbourhood to identify a pilot park or open space. Once a space has been identified the District Committee and local organisations should engage with children and young people to develop sustainable solutions for increasing safety and accessibility in the park. We expect sustainable solutions to harness community resources, with the recognition that the solutions may be different in summer and winter. Once the pilot has been tested, the approach should be spread to other parks in the district.

Recommendation 2: Bring people together at a neighbourhood level to improve children’s access to, and their perception of safety in, local parks and open spaces

Community play rangers Community play rangers volunteer in local parks to provide a whole range of play opportunities for children aged 5-13. During the school holidays Community Play programmes encourage families to come out together and use local spaces for play. Activities are varied and can include den building, sports, fires and cooking and adventure walks. The scheme is not a form of childcare and children can come and go as they please. Often children go on to use the parks involved in the scheme more independently. www.bapp.org.uk/play-provision/community-play-rangers/

You’re safe if you know people.’‘



Birmingham is a city rich in cultural and sporting assets – the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Aston Villa and Birmingham City Football clubs to name but a few. It is also a successful and growing economic city home to 75,000 companies, 1190 of which are international1. The commission have heard a never-ending stream of examples where cultural or business organisations were looking to partner with schools and young people to offer them opportunities, support them in learning, or engage them in learning about the world of work. However, the commission also heard how hard they found it to connect well with schools and youth organisations. Schools in particular felt bombarded with offers, with no means of identifying which ones were high quality and would meet the needs of the young people they worked with. There is a huge opportunity here to add significant value to the lives of children and young people – but it needs a small amount of the city’s resources to facilitate it.

We recommend that:

• The council draws together leaders from across the city and charges them with developing and guaranteeing an ‘entitlement offer’ for the city’s children. This city-wide group should include representatives from politics, faith groups, business, charities and sporting and cultural institutions. An ‘entitlement offer’ would provide a framework for offering children and young people enrichment opportunities aimed at increasing confidence, resilience and aspiration and preparing them for employment.

The group should support the development of an ‘entitlement offer’ spelling out what experiences Birmingham’s children and young people could expect to have during their young lives.

The ‘entitlement offer’ should apply to all children and young people in the city, but we suggest it should be implemented locally through the district structure. Each district should encourage local businesses, charities, organisations and institutions to pledge an offer to local children. The enrichment aspects could be in the form of free access to cultural or sporting venues, opportunities to try

Recommendation 3: Harness the city’s assets to give enriching experiences to children through their school curriculum, and genuine skills and experience to prepare for work

new activities, learn new skills, or engage with diverse groups across the city. The preparation for employment aspects could be in the form of work experience, opportunities to help in fundraising, or mentoring.

The group should also work with the Youth Employment Partnership, and employer groups within the city, to support schools and colleges in building genuine careers information and work experience opportunities for every young person. The range of this provision should include both physical work experience opportunities as well as online curriculum materials where students are invited to problem solve, work in teams and present solutions which apply their school based learning to work based problems that businesses need to overcome.

While implementation should be at the district level it is clear that the ‘entitlement offer’, to be meaningful, needs to be guaranteed. The city council, as the city’s democratically mandated body, working with the city-wide group must ensure that it is delivered.

Illustrative content for the ‘entitlement offer’ is included as Appendix 4.

Free Birmingham directory Children and young people do not have very much money to spend on their recreation and free time. A yellow pages type publication which details all the free things young people could do in Birmingham could be a helpful way of encouraging young people to try new things without having to spend a lot of money.

I want to own a shop… if you are a bit poor I will bring the price down so it is suitable for you to pay.’

‘1. Birmingham City Council, Inward Investment website

Ideas we heard:


Everywhere we went in Birmingham, we heard stories of how the city’s young people are achieving and how much they want to contribute to the success of their city. We heard organisations bursting with stories of success. And yet we also heard how young people feel they are judged, excluded, ‘tarred with the same brush’, and told they have no hope or future. If the city’s young people are to believe they have a future in Birmingham, it is time to start deliberately challenging negative perceptions and turning the narrative around.

We heard many ideas of how this could be done, and the council and its partners will want to consider how to develop this idea further. There may, for example be trade-offs between initiatives that might be highly-

visible but short-term, with those which would have impact over the longer term. Two ideas that could be built on further are:

• The council and its partners could engage the local media, and other local information sources such as the taxi companies, in telling positive stories, week-in, week-out about what the city’s children and young people are achieving.

• There could be a single day, to provide focus for year-round activity, to celebrate Birmingham’s children. This could take the form of a ‘free entry day’ or a ‘festival of activities’ building on initiatives such as ‘Playing Out’ when roads are turned into play spaces.

Recommendation 4: Tell a positive story about Birmingham’s children and young people

I would like people to stop thinking I’m weird and dumb.’

‘Clean up Birmingham.’‘

We heard from the Innovation Unit’s work with families that relationships are the key to giving vulnerable families confidence to break out from isolation, make new contacts, take new opportunities and access services in their local area. There was never a time when paid professionals could provide this level of quality support for families, and there certainly will not be in the future.

However, the city is full of people who have overcome their own challenges and want to volunteer to help others achieve too. The success of the ‘Places of Welcome’ approach pioneered through the Social Inclusion Process is just one example and these community volunteer assets should be supported to help others.

• We recommend that District Chairs, working with existing volunteer centres, faith groups and other community groups identify neighbourhoods in which to prototype a ‘community volunteer’

programme to provide different ways to support children and young people. The priority areas for community volunteering should flow from the priorities set by children and young people through their District Convention or equivalent process;

• There are plenty of examples across the country of successful community volunteering programmes. We recommend that, in taking this forward, the council considers:

a) The evidence base for the type of volunteering programme best suited to the outcomes sought (for example, whether adult mentoring, peer-to-peer support or other methods are shown to be effective)

b) Prototyping and evaluating the chosen models, so that approaches which work in each neighbourhood can be developed over time.

Recommendation 5: Harness community resources to support the community’s children and families

Parent ChampionsParent Champions is an initiative created by the Family and Childcare Trust. The scheme sees parents, who have used local services for their own children, providing advocacy and peer-support to other parents in the area signposting them to services and encouraging them to take an active role in their child’s development. www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/Pages/Category/parentchampions

We heard from families, early years’ settings and organisations working with young children about the critical importance of parents in helping their children to learn, both in the early years and during the school years. However, we also heard how many parents feel ill-equipped for this role.

We recommend that the council should:

• Identify good practice in this area, working with organisations such as the Education Endowment Fund and the Early Intervention Foundation. For example, an initiative that enabled staff in early years settings or schools to feel confident about having conversations on these issues with parents could help.

Recommendation 6: Help parents to support their children’s education

A range of organisations working with children and young people, were anxious about how children and young people are being kept safe, and whether they are being offered the support they need. We heard from stretched professionals struggling with the cuts and reorganisations that characterise public services today, who want to work better together and who feel both that families are being missed, and that services are being duplicated.

We recommend that:

• The council, working closely with the NHS and other statutory partners, and the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, and learning from other large, complex and diverse cities, should develop and then implement an integrated strategy linking universal services, early help, targeted and specialist intervention together. This should mean that professionals working with any child know how to access the support that is needed. This would involve developing and communicating clear arrangements for referring children who need additional help and the development of a common language and common assessment processes between professionals from different agencies. Joint training and the sharing of critical information and data will also be required.

Recommendation 7: Lead in the development of an early help strategy, which shows how council, NHS and voluntary sector partners will work together to ensure vulnerable children, families and young people get the extra support they need

I don’t know about other cities, but I know that in this city education is good.’‘

I don’t like that people have to pay for medication.’‘



Appendix 1Terms of reference

Birmingham Commission for Children – terms of reference

A commission to review, explore and compile a set of recommendations and findings which seek to answer the following:

• What does high aspiration and achievement look like for Birmingham’s children?

• What role should the council play in supporting children and young people to live the best possible life in the city?

• Over the next 10 years, what systematic improvements and principles would the commission like to see to improve children and young people’s well-being?

• How could the relationships be improved between organisations and institutions which provide services (with a particular focus on schools and early years’ providers) and the children, young people and communities that use them?

The commission’s inquiry will draw on and support the work of the Education Services Review and Early Years Review that are currently in progress within Birmingham City Council and will hear evidence from officers and organisations involved in these reviews. This coordination will support the following throughout the commission:

i. An examination of the evidence received and gathered from young people across the city to ensure the voice of the child is central to the commission’s findings

ii. An exploration of early years provision and how they align to the council’s objectives a) improve educational and health outcomes b) reduce child poverty and c) address inequalities in educational and health outcomes

iii. An exploration of the role of schools, and the council’s relationship with schools to support children’s well-being in Birmingham.

The commission will want to hear from all agencies, parents and children in Birmingham and will be seeking a broad range of evidence and witnesses to support its investigations, with young people’s voices being placed at the heart of the commission. The recommendations made will be relevant to a range of stakeholders beyond Birmingham City Council as the commission will adopt a citywide approach to the issues effecting children.

The commission will want to engage with many services, organisations and individuals with an interest in children and will set out clearly the ways in which this engagement can occur. These engagements will include, but are not limited to, public conversation sessions and a citywide call for views.

The commission will also seek to draw on examples of best practice in other areas of the country. The commission will ensure that it communicates clearly at all stages to ensure a transparent process. The commission will sit independently. It is entirely separate from the Department of Education investigation that has recommended the appointment of an independent commissioner, Lord Norman Warner to oversee Children’s Social Care, alongside a team of experts.

This commission will therefore not be considering the management and delivery of children’s social care and safeguarding in the city as this is beyond the scope of the commission. It will also not engage

with those schools implicated by the ‘Trojan Horse’ allegations. These allegations are being investigated through a review led by Ian Kershaw, who has been appointed as the independent advisor. Any information received regarding this investigation will be sent directly to the council’s dedicated email address: [email protected]

Timescales

The commission will sit for a minimum of seven evidence sessions taking place between May and July 2014 and will report on its findings and recommendations in September 2014. The findings will be presented to Birmingham City Council and used to inform future decision making.

The role of The Children’s Society

The Children’s Society has been commissioned by Birmingham City Council to provide the secretariat for the Birmingham Commission for Children. This role includes supporting commissioners to hear a wide range of evidence, organising evidence sessions, and coordinating a citywide call for evidence. The final report will be authored by the independent Chair of the Commission and will be independent of both Birmingham City Council and The Children’s Society.

Appendix 2Methodology: Hearing the voices of the city

7 public conversations were held throughout the city.

Through focus groups and written submissions a further 46 organisations took part in the commission’s call for views.

The commissioners heard the views of almost 1000 young people through written submissions and focus groups run by The Children’s Society. A group of young people spoke directly with the commissioners to share their views in our conversation dedicated to young people.

In total the commissioners met with representatives of 31 different organisations working with children and young people across Birmingham during these conversations.

The Innovation Unit worked in Sparkbrook and Longbridge to develop a rich understand of eight different Birmingham families: their daily lives, aspirations and the challenges they face. They also held neighbourhood pop-up events to learn more about these localities where they spoke to 170 people.

The commissioners examined 43 different documents, reports, and texts about childhood in Birmingham to further enhance their collective experience of over 100 years’ in improving children’s lives through health, local government, schools and community work.

The commissioners heard from 16 different officers from Birmingham City Council to gain a greater understanding of the council’s role.

The Innovation Unit also worked with over 60 local activists to help them design and prototype new, locally run projects to improve children and young people’s lives and well-being.


Appendix 3Children’s District Profile: To be at least available at 10 district level, if not neighbourhood level

• Child Poverty Profile (District Profile)

• Youth Unemployment (District Profile)

• Education and Skills (Early Years Foundation Stage Profile/ Key Stage Tables)

• Childhood obesity rates (Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, JSNA)

• Self-reported perceptions of safety (Well-being Survey)

• Self-reported emotional health (Well-being Survey)

• Prevalence of asthma (emergency admissions/GP records/school absence)

• Smoking prevalence 16-19 year olds (JSNA)

• Participation in activities outside school (JSNA)

• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender children reporting being bullied at school (JSNA)

• New entrants to the Criminal Justice System (JSNA)

• Teenage pregnancy rate (JSNA)

• Youth crime rates (police heat maps).


Appendix 4A suggested ‘entitlement offer’ for Birmingham’s children

The entitlement for Birmingham’s children is a mechanism to raise aspiration among the city’s children and prepare them for employment. It aims to do this for all children in a way that ensures that all children can benefit from the amazing opportunities the city has to offer.

The entitlement for Birmingham’s children is city wide. Every child and young person should get the chance to have the same kinds of experiences as their peers across the city. The entitlement is not however prescriptive. Each district is responsible for coordinating the entitlement for its children. The requirements of the entitlement will be met by the pledges of the city. These pledges could be made by faith groups, charities, schools, local councillors, businesses, cultural institutions, sports clubs and facilities.

The entitlement must be guaranteed. In order to do this we suggest that the city council convene a steering group to create the entitlement offer and to ensure it is delivered to every child and young person.

The entitlement could include, but may not be limited to:

• To be able to move safely around the city and spend time outdoors

• An opportunity to take part in exercise in a variety of ways, such as dance and sport

• To meet and socialise with other young people from different parts of the city

• An opportunity to learn about another culture or religion

• Experiencing world class music or performance

• The opportunity to receive extra, advanced tuition in an area in which a child excels

• The opportunity to learn a new skill and develop it after school hours

• To receive high quality mentoring

• Learning about different post-18 further and higher education opportunities

• To experience part time, paid work

• To have a meaningful work experience placement

• The chance to solve real world problems for businesses and other organisations as part of the school day

• To experience and take part in democratic processes and decision making

• To contribute to the local community through fundraising or volunteering for local organisations.

It is clear that it will be easier to achieve this entitlement for some children than it is for others. Districts will therefore need to closely target the delivery to ensure that those children most likely to miss out are able to benefit.


Appendix 5Contributors

Contributers in the seven public conversation sessions

Birmingham members of the UK Youth Parliament Kelly Bagnall, Soho Children’s CentreJulie Berrow , Head Teacher, Brookfield’s Primary SchoolCraig Boardman, Deputy Head, Colmers SchoolDavid Brookes, Editor, Birmingham MailAngela Brown, Deputy Head, Clifton Primary SchoolSherita Browne, Reach Project Manager, SovaBrian Carr, Chief Executive, Birmingham Voluntary Service CouncilDenise Cutting, Governor, Brookfield’s Primary SchoolJim Davis, Head of Community Participation, The Children’s SocietyAlastair Falk, Chief Executive, Birmingham Education PartnershipGeraldine Goodall, Clinical Team Leader, Central Schools Nursing TeamHayley James, Lead for Access, Birmingham CAMHSMalikha McDonald, Heart of England NHS Sexual Health Promotion ServiceEmma McDonough, Strategic Lead, Early Help, Tameside Metropolitan Borough CouncilAlison Moore, Head of Children’s Services, St Paul’s Community TrustKasia Kraus, Community and Schools Engagement Officer, Birmingham Royal BalletGordon Lee, Chief Executive Officer, MalachiShelley Phelan, Equality, Diversity and Safeguarding Manager, Bournville CollegeSarah Presswood, Owner, George Perkins Day NurseryCarol Rogerson, Head of Universal Services 0-5 years, Birmingham Community Healthcare, NHS TrustAnne Snell, Access to Birmingham Officer, Birmingham UniversityFran Stevens, Chair, Birmingham Schools ForumJulie Stirrup, Education and Skills Lead Officer, Birmingham City CouncilPolice Sergeant Paul Street, West Midlands Police Sally Taylor, Director, Education and Commissioning, Birmingham City CouncilSarah Tomlinson, Head of Inclusion Services, Birmingham Community NHSLiz Tyler, Birmingham Central Baptist ChurchThe Right Reverend David Urquhart, The Lord Bishop of BirminghamFiona Wallace, Head Teacher, City of Birmingham SchoolMargaret Way, Member, Birmingham Employment and Skills Board Professor Christopher J Webb, Former Principal, City College Birmingham David Webb, Project and Performance Manager, Birmingham Youth Offending Team

Dr Dennis Wilkes, Public Health Lead for Children’s Health and Wellbeing, Birmingham City Council Michael Wynter, Aston Villa in the Community

Organisations who took part in our focus groups

Advocacy MattersBBC Children in NeedBID ServicesBirmingham and Solihull Women’s AidBirmingham SettlementCastle Vale Community Regeneration ServicesFree @ LastHome-Start NorthfieldHome-Start Stockland Green/ErdingtonOur CommunityPeople in PartnershipSport4LifeUrban Devotion

Schools and early years’ settings who supported our engagement with children and young people

MY-Place Youth ClubBrays Primary SchoolQueen Alexandra CollegeKings Norton Boys CollegeConcord Youth CentreAshbourne CentreMarywood CentreE R Mason Youth CentreSutton Children’s CentreCoppice Primary SchoolTwiglets NurseryChildminder - C UtleyHill West NurseryFour Oaks Children’s CentreNew Hall Primary School and Children’s CentrePress play – Stone Road InitialAccommodation CentreCastle Vale Nursery and SchoolGrove Community ProjectBillesley Primary SchoolBloomsbury Nursery SchoolOsborne Nursery SchoolNewtown Nursery SchoolGracelands Nursery SchoolStory Wood Children’s CentreColmer’s School

Project workers who led the participation work across the city

Alice Agbodo – The Children’s SocietyKerry Boffin – The Children’s SocietyLucy Boulton – The Children’s SocietySimon Cottingham – The Children’s SocietyKulvinder Dhillon – The Children’s SocietyElizabeth Horton – The Children’s SocietyHafsah Fitzgibbon – The Children’s SocietyYen Lea-Tang – The Children’s SocietyHelen Maitland – The Children’s SocietyZara McDonald – The Children’s SocietyEmma Suddle – The Children’s SocietyAngela Turton – The Children’s SocietyRob Willoughby – The Children’s SocietyRebecca Birch – The Innovation UnitJonny Mallinson – The Innovation UnitSydney Emery – IllustratorDave Webb – Illustrator

Experts who offered their views and support

Mashuq Ally, Head of Equalities and Social Cohesion, Birmingham City CouncilDerrick Anderson, Chief Executive, Lambeth CouncilGemma Bains, Project Manager, Birmingham City CouncilSuwinder Bains, Senior Policy Officer, Birmingham City CouncilRichard Browne, Partnership Manager, Birmingham City CouncilLisa Carter, Head of Rights and Participation Service, Birmingham City CouncilIram Choudry, Research and Policy Officer, Birmingham City CouncilPeter Hay, Director of People, Birmingham City CouncilJane Held, Chair, Birmingham Safeguarding Children BoardCouncillor Penny Holbrook, Cabinet Member for Skills, Learning and Culture, Birmingham City CouncilCouncillor Brigid Jones, Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services, Birmingham City CouncilKaren Pearson, Head of Early Years, Child Care and Children’s Centres, Birmingham City CouncilMark Rogers, Chief Executive, Birmingham City CouncilCouncillor Anita Ward, Chair, Education and Vulnerable Children Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Birmingham City CouncilWyn Williams, Capita ConsultingBenita Wishart, Overview and Scrutiny Manager, Birmingham City Council

Thank you to everyone who made the work of The Birmingham Commission for Children possible.

Appendix 6Bibliography

Birmingham City Council

‘16-18 NEET Update’ (2013)

‘Birmingham’s Early Help Pathway’ 2012 – 2015 (2012)

‘Delivering the Social Inclusion White Paper’ (2014)

‘Devolution: Making it Real Progress’ (2014Skills for Birmingham, ‘Young, Skilled and Ready: Educating an Employable Generation for Birmingham’ (2013)

‘Education Services Review – DRAFT’ (2014)

‘Green Paper: Education Services’ (2013)

‘Green Paper: Safeguarding, Supporting and Educating Young People’ (2013)

‘Integrated Transformation: Our Strategy for Improving Services for Children and Young People in Birmingham’ (2013)

‘Project Initiation Document – Review of Early Years, Children’s Centres and Family Support’ (2013)

‘Towards Excellence: Birmingham Children and Young People’s Plan 2012-2015’

‘Transforming Place: Working together for better neighbourhoods’ (2013)

Birmingham Commission on Youth Unemployment, ‘Final Report’, (2013)

Birmingham Education Partnership, ‘Manifesto’ (2014)

Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Board, ‘Childhood Obesity - Joint Strategic Needs Assessment’

Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Board, ‘Joint Strategic Needs Analysis’ (2012)

Birmingham UK Youth Parliament, ‘Making our Mark Election Results’ (2013)

Bore, A., ‘Leader’s Policy Statement 2014’ (2014)

Byrne, L., Cotton, J., and Evans, T., ‘Birmingham Labour Child Poverty Review 2014’ (2014)

The Children’s Society:

‘Call for Views Report’ (2014)

‘Listening to Young Children’ (2014)

‘My Life, My Birmingham Report’ (2014)

‘Participation Reports’ (2014)

‘Press Play’ (2014)

‘The Good Childhood Report’ (2013)

CREC, ‘Birmingham Early Years Literature Review’ (2014)

Davis, H., ‘Local Government Association, Children’s Services Peer Review’ (2014)

Home Office, ‘Birmingham – Ending Gang and Youth Violence Peer Review’ (2012)

The bibliography lists the key reports and publications that were submitted to the commissioners as part of their sessions with organisations and professionals across the city.


Innovation Unit:

‘Eight Ethnographies of Families with children’

‘Final Report from Family work’

Institute of Local Government Studies, ‘Partnerships working for Birmingham’s Children’ (2013)

Le Grand, J., ‘Report to the Secretary for State for Education and the Minister for Children and Families on ways forward for children’s social care services in Birmingham’ (2014)

Livingstone, M., Deegan, M., and Eeckelaers, M., ‘Early Years New Delivery Model – Manchester’ (2012)

Matrix Evidence, ‘Cost-benefit analysis and social impact bond feasibility for the Birmingham Be Active scheme’ (2011)

Ofsted, ‘Birmingham City Council – Inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers and Review of the effectiveness of the local safeguarding children board’ (2014)

Overview and scrutiny:

‘Strengthening the Birmingham Family of Schools-the role of the City Council’ (2013)

‘Devolution – Making it Real’ (2013)

‘Devolution in Birmingham – The Journey’ (2012)

Rees, G., Bradshaw, J., Goswami, H., and Keung , A., ‘Understanding children’s well-being: A national survey of young people’s well-being’ (2010)

Roberts, J., Donkin, A., and Pillas, D., ‘Measuring what matters: A guide for children’s centres’ (2014)

Saggu, N., and Wilkes, D., ‘Children with Disabilities and Special Educational Needs in Birmingham - An Assessment of Need for Services to Support Strategic Decision Making’ (2013)

Social Inclusion Process, ‘Making Birmingham an inclusive city’ (2013)

Syed, Z., ‘Child Well Being survey 2012-2013’ (2013)

Taylor, M., ‘Social Integration Commission’ (2014)

Wilkes, D., ‘Understanding the Service Needs of Under Five Year Olds’ (2013)

Statistical snapshot:

Birmingham City Council, ‘16-18 NEET Update’ (2013)

Birmingham Commission on Youth Unemployment, ‘Final Report’, (2013)

Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Board, ‘Childhood Obesity - Joint Strategic Needs Assessment’ (2013)

Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Board, ‘Joint Strategic Needs Analysis’ (2012)

Byrne, L., Cotton, J., and Evans, T., ‘Birmingham Labour Child Poverty Review 2014’ (2014)

Syed, Z., ‘Child Well Being survey 2012-2013’ (2013)

Local Safeguarding Children Board, ‘Getting to Great, Strategic Plan 2014-2017’ (2014)


To find out more about The Birmingham Commission for Children please contact:

Lucy CapronSenior Public Affairs OfficerThe Children’s [email protected]

All of the research done by The Children’s Society and the Innovation Unit to inform the Birmingham Commission for Children can be found at: childrenssociety.org.uk/birminghamcommission

8426/09/14

It takes a city to raise a child - UK Children's Charity takes a city... · It takes a city to raise a child Report of the Birmingham Commission for Children Supported by. Janet Grauberg

Documents