NCVYS STRATEGIC INFORMATION SERVICE BULLETIN NO. 458
25 September 2009

APPG on Youth Affairs
As part of its overarching social mobility programme, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Youth Affairs will hold its next meeting on 28 October 2009, 18:00-19:00, House of Commons Committee Room 16. The meeting will chaired by Natascha Engel MP, with guest speaker Helen Goodman MP, Minister for Work and Pensions. Young people, practitioners and policymakers are invited to discuss issues around financial support and wellbeing. The meeting is free but please register your attendance via the link below.
http://appgonyouthaffairs.eventbrite.com/
http://www.ncvys.org.uk/index.php?page=277

Faiths, Spirituality and Young People
NCVYS will be holding a national faith conference on 19 November 2009 in Manchester exploring the impact of faith-based youth work on young people's personal and social development. This free event will bring together members, people of various faiths and community and voluntary organisations working with young people to share information from a national perspective; exchange good practice and establish links between youth workers and organisations. For further information and a booking form please contact Yokeu Kusnama at yokeu@ncvys.org.uk

Modernisation Fund
The second phase of the Government's Real Help for Communities Modernisation Fund grants programme has opened. It is open to organisations that received support under the first phase of the Fund and grants worth £10,000 are available to help them to collaborate or merge. The Modernisation Fund is being delivered by Capacitybuilders and deadline for applications is 9 November 2009. However, early applications are invited as some awards will be made in October 2009.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/090914_phase2modfund.aspx

Real help now
Government's Real help now programme aims to support individuals, families, charities and businesses through the recesssion. To help local authorities (LAs) carry out their roles as part of Real help now, info4local has brought together the key information they need from central Government on Real help now schemes. Although targeted at LAs, the information is useful for voluntary and community sector organisations to understand what is on offer and what LAs should be doing to help.
http://www.info4local.gov.uk/realhelpnow/

Social investment
The Office of the Third Sector (OTS) has announced new support for social investment, including an investment of £5 million into the Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund which will be matched by individuals, foundations and institutions. The OTS has also published three new Social return on Investment (SROI) guides and launched the UK's first Social Investment Almanack - a comprehensive guide to the world of social investment.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/090915_socialinvestmentannouncement.aspx

Charitable Incorporated Organisation
The Cabinet Office and Charity Commission have jointly published a response to the consultation on the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). The CIO is a new legal form for charities and will only be available to charities and will add to the existing range of forms that charities can use. The aim is for the CIO to become an option for charities starting from spring 2010.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/090917_cioresponse.aspx

Social Exclusion Task Force
Campbell Robb, current manager of the Office of the Third Sector, will take over responsibility for the Social Exclusion Task Force at the end of September when current Director Naomi Eisenstadt will retire.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/statements/090916-eisenstadt.aspx

Social Enterprise Coalition
Peter Holbrook is the new Chief Executive Officer of the Social Enterprise Coalition, the national representative body for social enterprise and one of the Office of the Third Sector's strategic partners.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/090923_peterholbrooksecceo.aspx

CLG Minister
Barbara Follett MP has joined Communities and Local Government's (CLG) Ministerial team as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State. Details of the Under Secretary's responsibilities will be published on the CLG website soon.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/corporate/about/who/ministers/

Adoption, children's homes and fostering
The Department for Children, Schools and Families has opened a consultation on the national minimum standards for adoption, children's home and fostering. The consultation seeks views on proposed revisions to the national minimum standards for adoption, children's homes and fostering and asks for comments on how to improve the standards further. Deadline for responses is 17 December 2009.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1662&external=no&menu=1

Children in care
Children's Minister Delyth Morgan has announced a package of measures to put the focus on the child in the care system. Measures include consulting on revisions of the national minimum standards against which Ofsted inspect care settings and providing research on how local authorities (LAs) might improve the stability of permanent placements and better structure their looked after children budgets. The Minister also wrote to LAs to look at ways to bolster support for foster carers.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/news/content.cfm?landing=childrens_minister_children_in_care_need_a_stable_environment_to_thrive_and_succeed&type=1  

Family support
The Department for Children, Schools and Families has announced the ten pilot areas that will look at how local services can be better co-ordinated for separating and separated parents. £4.75 million will be invested in the project which aims to improve the wellbeing of families caught up in diverse and separation with help from local services.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2009_0165

Intervention models
The Department for Children, Schools and Families has published an evaluation of children's services interventions in give local authority children's services - North East Lincolnshire, Swindon, Plymouth, Walsall, and Waltham Forest - following inadequate judgements from Ofsted. The aim was to compare the reasons for underperformance and establish the extent to which the intervention led to improvement in outcomes and council performance. The evaluation compared intervention models, how they operated and their impact.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/projectinformation.cfm?projectId=15523&type=5&resultspage=1

Violence against girls and women
The Department of Health's Taskforce on Violence Against Women and Girls is seeking views on the role and response of health services in preventing, identifying and supporting women and girls who are victims of violence and abuse. Deadline for responses is 14 October 2009. The Taskforce final report is scheduled for publication in early 2010.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Lettersandcirculars/Dearcolleagueletters/DH_105557

Poverty and social exclusion
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published calls for proposals relating to the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (EY2010). Themes that proposals should be aligned to include child poverty and severe multiple deprivation and those who are most at risk of social exclusion. Deadline for submission of proposals is 5pm on 15 October 2009.
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/european-year-2010

Lib Dem party conference
Speeches from the Lib Dem party conference are available on the Lib Dem website, including highlights of party Leader Nick Clegg MP pledging to put children at the heart of the party's manifesto and recognising that young people ‘are bearing too much of the burden of this recession'. The Lib Dems have made a new promise that young people will not be unemployed for longer than 90 days and that the party would pay for 10,000 more university places and 50,000 college places this year. The party would also pay for 800,000 work placements for young people.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/

Local infrastructure
NAVCA has published Strong Independent Roots, its vision for the local third sector. The policy document demonstrates the value of local infrastructure and shows how NAVCA and its members can help politicians support local voluntary action. The document gives six specific requests of Government, matched by six pledges of action NAVCA will take. Recommendations to Government include committing all local public bodies to fund local infrastructure to support and empower voluntary action so that all communities have voice that can influence public decision-making.
http://www.navca.org.uk/publications/roots

Charity Forecast
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has published the results of its latest Charity Forecast survey which provides a snapshot of charity leaders' opinion of the sector. The findings suggest that charity leaders have increased confidence in the UK economy, but many expect economic conditions in the voluntary sector to worsen with cuts to Government funding expected. The report is free for NCVO members.
http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/research/index.asp?id=7720

Comprehensive Area Assessment
The Audit Commission has published an introductory guide to Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). The guide provides information on CAA including; what CAA is, how it is different to what has gone before, why it is important and who is involved. For the first time, six independent inspectorates will collectively assess services. The Audit commission will provide these assessments, online, in print and through other media. First results will be available on 10 December 2009.
http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/localgov/audit/CAA/caaresourcepack/Pages/caaintroductoryguide.aspx

Young Equals
Young Equals is a group of charities, including NCVYS, and children and young people who are campaigning to stop age discrimination. Young Equals is currently focusing on age discrimination protection in the Equality Bill and is looking for young people to get involved with its campaign by emailing their MP and completing the Young Equals survey. If you are, or know, a young person who has been unfairly treated because of age please get involved.
http://www.crae.org.uk/protecting/age-discrimination.html

Human rights
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published Young people: know your rights to fair treatment. This provides advice resources for young people experiencing discrimination around knowing their rights and getting help and advice.
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/your-rights/young-people-know-your-rights/  

Role models
The Children's Society has published results of a survey on children's role models. The charity's National Mentoring Initiative polled 2,006 adults and found 20% thought that children have appropriate adult role models to look up to. Almost 3 in 10 respondents (28%) said their most important influence when growing up was their father, but only 14% thought children felt the same way now. More than 3 in 10 (32%) said their most important influence was their mother, and around the same number said this was true of children today.
http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/whats_happening/media_office/latest_news/18270_pr.html

Play
Sustrans has launched Routes to play, a guide to ensure children and young people can get to play spaces actively and independently. Routes to play gives practical guidance on planning active access into play area development and will be of interest to parks managers, play lead officers, transport and planning officers and many others whose work impacts on children's play.
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/play

Funding communities
The Community Development Foundation has published Funding Communities, Adding Value, a guide to a community development (CD) approach to funding and how value can be added to funding programmes. The guide considers various aspects of CD-based funding including delivery and monitoring.
http://www.cdf.org.uk/web/guest/publication?id=79346

Teen LifeCheck
Teen LifeCheck is a free, easy to use and confidential interactive questionnaire that offers health and lifestyle information to 12-15 year olds. It asks about the things that concern young people most and points them in the right direction to find out more information and tells them where to go to get advice and support. To order some free materials, and help the young people you work with access and benefit from NHS Teen LifeCheck contact Jo Arden on 0207 654 7627 or jo.arden@iris-london.co.uk
http://www.teenlifecheck.co.uk

House of Commons debate
The UK Youth Parliament will enter the House of Commons in October to debate issues voted for by young people. Therefore, UK Youth Parliament would like young people to vote on the issues they want to be discussed, proposed themes include youth crime, things to do for young people and immigration in the UK. Voting closes on Sunday 30 September so please pass this on as soon as possible to make sure young people can contribute.
http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/252529.html

THIS WEEK IN PARLIAMENT

Parliament is currently in recess. The House will next sit on Monday 12 October 2009.