Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House, Abbey Close,
Abingdon, OX14 3JE
Email: comments@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Telephone: 01235 520202

Vale of White Horse District Council

The Children’s Trust

Oxfordshire County Council has the responsibility for ensuring the Government Agenda for improving services for children and young people is delivered. The five outcomes identified in Every Child Matters (2003) are as follows:

• Be healthy
• Stay safe
• Enjoy and achieve
• Make a positive contribution
• Economic well-being  

How these outcomes should be delivered is set out in the two Government publications Youth Matters (2005) and Youth Matters, Next Steps (2006) - these can both be downloaded from the right of the page.

The County Council’s Children and Young Peoples’ Plan sets out its aims to improve services in Oxfordshire and has set up a Children’s Trust with partners to deliver these services in a more joined up way. A copy of the Plan is available on Oxfordshire County Council's website.

The Children’s Trust is comprised of:

• Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership and Board – which provides leadership to and oversight of the delivery of the Children & Young People's Plan
• Children and Young People’s Leads Group – which is responsible for implementing the plan
• Strategic Programme Board – responsible for overseeing service integration

For more details about the Children’s Trust please see this page of Oxfordshire County Council’s website.

There are a number of sub-groups as part of the Children’s Trust which the Vale participates in, including:

Children’s Rights Leads Group and Children’s Rights Action Group

This group looks at children’s rights issues in Oxfordshire. The aims and objectives of this group is to set out standards on Children’s rights, to be built into all policy documents, and to ensure everyone who plans and delivers services which affect children and young people thinks about children’s rights in relation to the service they are providing.

Participation Practitioners Group

This group aims to raise the strategic profile of good participative and consultative practice across all Children’s Trust partners by co-ordinating activities, resources and best practice across agencies.

Positive Activities Steering Group

Section 6 of the Education and Inspections Act 2007 places new duties on local authorities regarding positive leisure time activities for young people. This includes the duty to:

• Secure access for young people to sufficient positive activities for the improvement of their well-being
• Ascertain and take account of young people’s views on activities and facilities available to them
• Provide a comprehensive, accurate and accessible information service for young people regarding the local offer of positive activities

Introduced in 2007 it applies to young people aged 13-19 years – and up to 24 years for young people with learning disabilities.

Statutory guidance re-iterates the National Standards for positive activities as outlined in Youth Matters are:

• Access to two hours per week sporting activity
• Access to two hours per week of other constructive activities in clubs, youth groups and classes which contribute to their personal, social and spiritual development
• Opportunities to make a positive contribution to their community
• Recreational, cultural and sporting experiences
• A range of safe and enjoyable places in which to spend time.

Oxfordshire County Council has launched a new website for young people to let them know what positive activities are available across the county. To make this site successful we need organisations that run activities for young people to register their details at www.activitiesoxfordshire.info/. If you have any queries you can email them at activitiesoxfordshire@oxfordshire.gov.uk