CYP Now - Editorial: Reforms must not extend our schools too far

One of the key proposals of the Every Child Matters green paper was not just the joining up of children's services at a managerial level, but new points on the ground where services across health, education and social care would share premises to make access easier for families and their children. Schools, along with children's centres for families with pre-school children, were envisaged as being central to this.

But the Next Steps document that accompanies the Children Bill published this month talks about children's trusts being able to devolve the commissioning of joint services, including children's health and social services, to schools or clusters of schools.

Children's minister Margaret Hodge has also been promoting the idea, which is a significant step further than seeing extended schools simply as a physical point for delivering joint services.

Schools have traditionally been a focus of community life so it makes sense to exploit this. But there is a significant minority of children and young people, and parents, for whom school is or was a grisly experience. Hodge has already acknowledged in various statements that any school-based services will have to be augmented by services sited elsewhere and targeted at the socially excluded.

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