In this essay it will show how a National government policy is taken and implemented into the area of the local authorities and how it affects the community in that area. The national government policy this essay will be looking at is Every Child Matters: Change for Children. It will show how this policy has influenced the Trafford Council in enhancing the local community in this area. The community this essay will focus on is children and young people.
Every Child Matters: Change for children (ECM) is a policy that was brought out in 2003 after the death of Victoria Climbié. She was badly treated by her aunt and because children services did not work together efficiently to prevent this from happening Victoria sadly died. (Bridgeman,2007 ). The government wanted to address several issues within this policy which would prevent any child from fulfilling his/her potential which include: education failure, ill health, substance misuse, teenage pregnancy, abuse and neglect, equality and crime and antisocial behaviour. The policy was brought out to influence all aspects of the lives of children up to the age of nineteen and their families. ( Simon and Ward, 2010 ) This policy’s main aims were to improve the communication between agencies to achieve the five main outcomes which are: Stay Safe, Be Healthy, Enjoy and Achieve, Economic Well-Being and Making a Positive Contribution. The Government enforced a law called The Children Act (2004) which stated that all children’s services had to implement ECM which is then monitored by Ofsted. (Cheminais, 2010 ). Safeguarding is the biggest aim of this policy, because of the Victoria Climbié case so this policy has insured that all local councils have a Children’s Trust and a Safeguarding Children’s Board.
Trafford Council is the local authority for an area in the north of England. It is responsible for the provision of 215,300 residents in which 53,000 are children between the ages of 0-19. Trafford council’s main outcomes of the government’s policy are that children are safe, healthy, receive good education and are prepared for adulthood. (http://www.trafford.gov.uk/about-your-council/children-families-and-wellbeing/docs/children-and-young-peoples-strategy-2011-2014.pdf)
Trafford Council Authority has enforced the ECM policy in the local community by having a Children’s Trust Partnership (CTP) which includes Trafford Children’s and Young People Service (CYPS). The Trafford’s CTP is a group of different organisations working together in a multi-agency approach to improve the lives of the children in the local area. (http://trafford.childrensservicedirectory.org.uk . The main aims of Trafford’s CTP are to promote the five outcomes of the ECM Government policy. This was achieved initially by focus groups with different organisations in the Trafford area to ensure these outcomes were met. This is beneficial to the children in this local area because the different organisations work together which improves communication. This ensures that vital information on the children’s welfare cannot be missed, ensuring they do not fall through the cracks. A theory that support this is the Reggio Emilio approach; he believes that children should the centre of everything and by having different organisation working together with effective communication in meeting all the child’s needs it will allow the child-centred approach to be achieved. (Gasper, 2010).
Trafford Council Authority is influenced by the ECM because it has set up training courses for professionals which link to the outcomes of this policy. The main aim is to ensure that professionals working with children meet required standards laid down in the ECM policy which will be monitored by Ofsted. It is also set up to improve career and professional development opportunities for practitioners. This will then improve the care of children in this local community because the professionals are keeping up to date
