Enablers

Effective working of the Children’s Trust is underpinned by a number of commitments and processes which help us achieve the outcomes set out in our Children and Young People’s Plan. These include:

Integrated Frontline Services

In order to be responsive to local need Wirral has organised services in shared locations. Providing a range of services in one place produces benefits for service users and leads to greater efficiency of service delivery.  

Our co-located area teams provide locally based integrated preventative services to families which reflect local need. They have a core membership from across the partnership. The professionals include Social Workers, family support workers, Education Social Workers, youth workers, educational psychologists, health visitors, Connexions personal advisors, the Police and CAMHS workers. The area teams have strong links with community, voluntary and faith organisations. 

Our network of children’s centres ensures that all parents and carers with children under 5 years old can access services that are responsive to local need. ‘Wirral’s Children First’ Strategic Board ensures a consistent approach to early years priorities and outreach. 

Our Integrated Youth Support Service (IYSS) ensures the work of teams such as youth offending, teenage pregnancy, alcohol and substance misuse work together to provide co-ordinated locality youth provision.

Integrated Processes

We know that working together with a common approach is crucial to address unmet needs and help children access the right services earlier. In 2012-13 the development of our new Intensive Family Intervention Project will ensure that there is continuous development in this area. 

We have published guidance for all those working with children, young people and their families which includes information on key processes including the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and Team around the Child (TAC). Use of the integrated working framework and CAF and TAC processes effectively assists practitioners to understand and respond to the needs of the child and their family and allows a preventative approach through early identification of additional needs.  

Joint Commissioning of Services

Joint Commissioning is working in partnership to strategically identify need and then allocating available resources to meet it in the most effective way. Joint Commissioning is a tool for change which will help target the right resources on our priorities. It ensures that spending decisions are directly informed by the priorities and aspirations of the Children and Young People’s Plan and represent best value.  To find out more, view the Joint Commissioning Framework. 

Workforce Strategy

Through our workforce strategy we ensure our staff develop the right skills and that their individual professional specialisms are understood and respected. A common induction programme for all staff is delivered by the Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector ensuring specialist knowledge relevant to professional practice is in place. Our new Wirral Children’s Trust Workforce Development Strategy 2012-15 has been produced alongside our new Children and Young People’s Plan.

Equality and Diversity

Wirral Children’s Trust has a commitment to contributing to a fairer society by ensuring that unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation is eliminated, equality of opportunity is advanced and good relations are fostered between different groups. Each year we review and refresh the equality impact assessment that is published along side our Children and Young People’s Plan. This allows us to highlight the ongoing work that is undertaken as well as providing a focus on areas of equality that need addressing.

Documents available for download on this page include: