Hillingdon Children and Families Trust

A Children and Families Trust brings together all services for children and young people in an area underpinned by the Children Act 2004, section 10 duty to co-operate, to improve the well-being of all children and young people.

Our vision is to...

• Ensure all children, young people and their families in Hillingdon reach their full potential through co-ordinated services

Our principles ensures that the partnership is...

• focused on the wellbeing of children, young people and families
• reflective of what children, young people and families are telling us
• promoting equalities/address inequalities
• addressing issues where we have sustained poor/low performance
• addressing early intervention
• cross-cutting across the partnership
• reflective of the willingness of partners to commit resources and do things differently
• to improve access to services

Our purpose as a partnership is...

• to ensure that children, young people and their families in Hillingdon experience improved services; and
• to support practitioners working in their constituent agencies to see themselves (and also act) as part of a community of Hillingdon children's workers, interconnected with others, and able to see their role in the wide range of provision and services.

Our priorities for 2011-14 is to...

1. Keep all children and young people safe
2. Ensure all children have the best start in life
3. Improve the health and well-being of young people, focusing on risky behaviour groups
4. Improve the outcomes of Looked After Children
5. Improve the outcomes of Disabled Children
6. Continue to strengthen multi-professional integrated working

Features of the partnership include...

• Integrated working – services which are mutually supportive, but have discreet responsibilities and accountabilities: services organised around the child, young person or family rather than professional boundaries or existing agencies – for example, locality working, multi-agency teams, co-located staff in extended schools or children's centres,
• Timely services that are centred around the child - a compelling outcome-led vision for all children and young people, clearly informed by their views and those of their families;
• Access to information relevant to need (integrated processes) - effective joint working sustained by a shared language and shared processes. These include a common assessment framework, effective information sharing arrangements, and the re-engineering of other local processes and procedures to support, joint working;
• Confident, skilled workforce - Common induction and joint training where appropriate, and established arrangements for identifying a lead professional wherever a child is known to more than one targeted or specialist agency and a co-ordinated response is required;
• Joint planning and commissioning (integrated strategy) - joint assessment of local needs; integrated planning to prioritise action and a move towards preventative services; and joint commissioning of services from a range of providers, supported appropriately by shared resources and pooled budgets. Voluntary and community organisations, and other providers, able to contribute to planning and commissioning services on an equal footing with other partners;

These web pages have been set up in order to share as much information as possible on the progress of the Children and Families Trust. If you wish to see other information, please do not hesitate to contact us at smehmi@hillingdon.gov.uk.