PLAY - IMPLEMENTING THE PLAY STRATEGY
Children's play could be about to take a seat at the top table in every local authority, after Play England revealed its recommendations at the show for the government document Implementing the Play Strategy, due out in June.
The strategy sets out the government's intention to have children's trusts leading the delivery of local play provision, with children's needs central to the planning of the wider Local Strategic Partnership.
The groups charged with implementing this are the play partnerships, composed of representatives from play organisations, training suppliers and service providers from various sectors in the council.
Leading one of the workshops, Adrian Voce, director of Play England, the organisation guiding the government's delivery of the strategy, said: "Our intention is that play partnerships are positioned much higher up in every local authority, reporting directly to children's trusts, in order that the public realm becomes more child-friendly."
A panel of play experts also stressed the importance of challenging Ofsted inspectors who question the benefits of risk in play. In the debate, The Art of Design: How to Make Play Areas Exciting Yet Safe, chaired by Play England's Issy Cole-Hamilton, play consultant and author Tim Gill busted the notion that children should not play with egg boxes and toilet rolls because of potential germs. "Some of the people who propagated these myths are inspectors," said Gill. "We must challenge everything."
In the workshop Working Hard to Play Hard, sector skills council SkillsActive revealed it will be developing new occupational standards in the coming year to underpin any playwork qualifications. The developments may include more standards for level one playworkers, plus specialist standards for play rangers and adventure playground workers.
Paul Bonel, SkillsActive's head of playwork, said the Children's Workforce Development Council's research into graduate leaders in playwork is raising similar concerns to that of the early years sector. Although there is support for a skilled workforce, concerns centre on lack of resources in the sector, including a shortage of staff cover for training, and money to pay salaries that match qualifications.
Ross Watson
HEALTH - THE FUTURE OF HEALTH VISITING
There is a general consensus about the urgent need for more health visitors. What is not so clear is exactly what they should be doing.
Growing caseload pressure combined with dramatic changes in the healthcare environment have led to conflicting opinions about how the role of a health visitor should develop in the coming years.
Heading an impressive line-up at The Future of Health Visiting panel debate, shadow minister for families Maria Miller said the issues facing parents of young children have changed dramatically in the past 20 years.
She identified the fact that many women are working for 10 to 15 years before deciding to start a family and noted that new parents are increasingly unlikely to have family living nearby to offer support in challenging times.
"This gives many women, and fathers too, real challenges which I feel health visitors have a real role in addressing," she said.
Miller added that Sure Start children's centres have a "pivotal role" to play in health visitor provision.
The Conservatives have pledged to introduce universal health visitor coverage in children's centres while at the same time recruiting a further 4,000 staff to boost the profession.
Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust agreed that more emphasis needs to be placed on the needs of parents, and not solely the baby.
She added there is a "patchwork quilt" of health visitor coverage across the country with some areas receiving a universal service while others don't.
"Parents can be quite confused about where to go and what to do for support," she said. "What is absolutely crucial and key are visits to home."
Cheryll Adams, lead professional officer for strategy and practice development at the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association (CPHVA) believes the key to health visitors delivering the best service is relationship building.
"Families go in and out of need due to things such as redundancy and bereavement," she said.
"All sorts of things can happen. Effective health visiting will only be in place if the health visitor has the time to build a relationship with a family.
"If you don't have a relationship with the family it won't know where to go for support."
Crucially, Fran Beck, managing director at Telford and Wrekin Community Health Services, said there is a question mark as to where health visitors fit in with social work and a need for clarity on their role. "There is a danger they are all things to all people," she said.
Neil Puffett
YOUTH WORK - WHAT IS A POSITIVE ACTIVITY?
With the onus on youth workers to prove they are delivering fun and educational provision to young people, a panel of experts debated the question: What is a positive activity?
Responding to a question about whether volunteering should be seen as a positive activity, David Whewell, chair of the Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services, referred to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's aspiration to make young people complete 50 hours of community service before they are 19.
"When I think about who is currently made to undertake compulsory community work, the one group I can think of is those that have committed crime," he said. "Maybe Gordon Brown thinks being a young person is a crime."
Dominique Mitchell, an 18-year-old member of the of the National Youth Agency's young researcher network, was also adamant that regardless of the range and intent of positive activities, young people should not be forced to participate.
"You can create as many positive activities as you want but you can't force young people to go," she explained. "We also don't want to be bogged down by doing evaluations at the end of every session."
For Dominique, an activity will be positive depending on what the young person wants. She said: "For me, positive activities are things I can go and have fun and don't have to pay for, but it might be different for someone else."
Graeme Tiffany, vice president of the Federation for Detached Youth Work said it is this input from individual young people that could be undermined by the drive to keep young people out of trouble and get them into work, through programmes of non-negotiable support and "aggressive" outreach.
He said a positive activity should be about discussion and consultation, empowering young people to set the agenda: "We have to respect them as people with power."
Simon Antrobus, chief executive of Clubs for Young People, urged that the term positive activity should not be used to overcome social problems.
He said: "I don't think it is about hoovering young people off the streets or reducing crime.
"It is about engagement with young people and creating opportunities for them to demonstrate that they want to make positive contributions."
Janaki Mahadevan
JOINT WORKING - LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION PLANNING
The demands placed upon directors of children's services (DCSs) are such that candidates have to be vastly experienced. It is little surprise therefore that the youngest DCS in England is 40 years old.
But with many directors nearing retirement, the sector needs a new generation of leaders.
This is why the Association of Directors of Children's Services Virtual Staff College and the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) are developing a training programme for middle managers.
Speaking at the Tomorrow's Leaders: Succession Planning and Retention workshop, Chris Berry, director of professional development at the Virtual Staff College, told delegates why the programme is essential.
"It's not unusual for DCS jobs to be advertised twice and we're not getting enough people coming in at assistant director level," she said.
The scheme will therefore focus on building the confidence and competence of future leaders.
She said: "Some people are unsure if they can do it. There is a big step between head of service and assistant director, and between assistant director and director."
Roger Bushell, who leads on the programme for CWDC, gave delegates a sneak preview of the programme.
He said: "The clear focus will be on how to be an effective manager and how to build high performing teams. It will be tailored to the needs of individuals and local areas."
There was also a master class on a scheme currently recruiting aspiring leaders who want to shape the future of third sector children's services.
Lauren Higgs
HEALTH - PRESSURES ON CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH
Pressures influencing the mental health of children and the ways in which they can be addressed was the area of debate in Mental Health: A Meeting of Minds.
Barbara Knowles, executive director at the Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Association, has concerns that behaviour in schools is still not being addressed as a possible mental health issue, but rather as a child being disruptive.
"Although the curriculum has changed in schools, the institution of school hasn't changed significantly in 25 years," she said.
Jan Leightley, strategic director of children's services at Action for Children, believes progress can be made if children with mental health issues are identified earlier and get the help they need.
"Those in tier three or four (advanced mental health problems) can be identified at tier one (the early stages)," she said.
She argued staff in "universal services" such as teachers, GPs, social workers and voluntary agencies, are key to early identification.
Sarah Brennan, chief executive at YoungMinds, said there is much that can be done to improve services but fears the way things are at the moment can contribute to the problem.
She said matters would improve if professionals focus on how children view the services they are using.
Barriers to accessing services include language issues, such as use of the word "mental", and the way children are referred to the service, she said.
She added that young people have indicated they would like the ability to self-refer although this is not possible at the moment.
Neil Puffett
