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Children's Services

Hampshire's Children and Young People's Plan

Section 1 – Vision and priorities

The vision for children and young people in Hampshire

The vision of Hampshire’s Children’s Trust is to make Hampshire a better place for children and young people, where all of them, including those who are vulnerable or disadvantaged, have the best possible start in life and are supported by the whole community to reach their potential. In order to ensure that every child matters, the Children’s Trust will work in partnership to engage, support and challenge all children and young people in Hampshire, providing them with the opportunity to exceed expectations and enjoy life.

Hampshire’s Children’s Trust is also committed to upholding and promoting the rights of children and young people, as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Convention asserts that every child in the world has rights – to survival and development, to protection, to health and well being and to be active participants in all the things that happen to them including all decisions that affect them. Unless their needs are met, they will be denied a childhood and the opportunity to develop their full potential. Those needs will not be met unless adults take responsibility for providing the necessary conditions for their fulfilment.

The well-being of children and young people is fundamentally important – not only to their individual achievement and life chances, but also to the quality of life and future prosperity of everyone living in Hampshire. The Declaration on Child Well-being in the UK (addressing the outcomes of the 2007 UNICEF report An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries), sets out the Children’s Trust’s ambitions for children and young people in Hampshire.

The table below lists the key statements within the Declaration and shows links to the Every Child Matters outcomes.

Declaration on Child Well-being in the UK

Every Child Matters outcome

  • Children and young people, their families and carers have the support, skills and resources to help them explore their dreams.

Enjoy and achieve; Achieve economic well-being

  • Places of learning help children and young people to be confident and happy.

Enjoy and achieve

  • Children and young people feel safe and are free to explore their world and take risks.

Stay safe

  • We work together to make space for children and young people to enjoy childhood.

Enjoy and achieve

  • All children and young people have someone to talk to and somewhere to go when they need it.

Be healthy

  • All children are valued and have our help, support and love, including when they are in trouble.

All

  • All children and young people feel included and cherished, whatever their background or beliefs and wherever they come from.

Stay safe

  • Mental health services are there for children and young people when they need them.

Be healthy

  • Children and young people play an active role in shaping the services and activities for them.

Make a positive contribution

  • The good things that children and young people do are shown fairly in newspapers, on television and in other media.

All

  • We live up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

All

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Responsibilities

The Declaration on Child Well-being in the UK is a statement on the rights of children and young people.  However, rights come with responsibilities, both for children and their parents/carers. Hampshire’s Children’s Trust will work in partnership to ensure that, where necessary, individuals will be offered the right level of support and skills to fulfil their responsibilities for themselves, their families and their local communities.

Hampshire’s Rights, Respect and Responsibilities programme has been successfully delivered in schools since 2003. The programme seeks to help children become responsible citizens, achieve their potential and increase understanding of their rights and also their responsibility to respect the rights of others. Case studies of how the programme has positively impacted on the lives of children and young people can be found online at www.hants.gov.uk/education/childrensrights.

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Priorities for Hampshire’s Children’s Trust

The priorities for Hampshire’s Children’s Trust have been identified through a comprehensive needs assessment of outcomes for children and young people across Hampshire. The priorities are central to the delivery of the vision for Hampshire to be a better place for children and young people.  

The table below details the priorities, showing links to all five of the Every Child Matters outcomes and the 2020 goals in the national Children’s Plan.

Hampshire priorities

Every Child Matters outcome

Children’s Plan 2020 goal(s)

1. Reducing the incidence and impact of poverty on the achievement and life chances of children and young people.

Achieve economic well-being

  • Child poverty halved by 2010 and eradicated by 2020.

2. Securing children and young people’s physical, spiritual, social, emotional and mental health, promoting healthy lifestyles and reducing inequalities.

Be healthy

  • Enhance children and young people’s well-being.

  • Child health improved, with the proportion of obese and overweight children reduced.

3. Providing opportunities to learn that raise children and young people’s aspirations, encourage excellence and enable them to enjoy and achieve beyond their expectations.

Enjoy and achieve

  • At least 90% developing well across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile by age five.

  • At least 90% achieving at or above the expected level in both English and Maths by age 11.

  • At least 90% achieving the equivalent of five higher level GCSEs by age 19; and at least 70% achieving the equivalent of two A-levels by age 19.

4. Ensuring that children and young people are safe and feel safe, enabling them to build resilience and personal confidence.

Stay safe

  • Parents satisfied with the information and support they receive.

5. Providing vocational, leisure and recreational activities that provide opportunities for children and young people to experience success and make a positive contribution.

Make a positive contribution

  • All young people participating in positive activities to develop personal and social skills, promote well-being and reduce behaviour that puts them at risk.

  • Significantly reduce, by 2020, the number of young offenders receiving a conviction, reprimand or final warning for a recordable offence for the first time.

  • Employers satisfied with young people’s readiness for work.

6. Removing barriers to access, participation and achievement, and not tolerating discrimination and abuse.

Applies to all five outcomes.

The Improvement Plan (Appendix 1 Download Acrobat Reader to view this PDF 175kb) outlines the actions required to deliver the above priorities, with success measures and targets.

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Section 1 - Making the priorities a reality >