Buckinghamshire Children and Young People's Trust

The Children and Young People's Trust was set up in 2006 to co-ordinate all the services that deal with children and young people in Buckinghamshire. Services include Health, Police, Voluntary Organisations, Councils and many other organisations which come together under the trust.

Why was the Children and Young People's Trust set up?

Because of some high profile cases of child abuse the Government said that every local authority should lead on ensuring that all the partners who provide services for children and young people cooperate with each other and recommend that this be done through a Children and Young People's Trust. This then brought all the agencies together so that they could communicate better and improve services for children and young people in Buckinghamshire.

Children and Young People's Trust Arrangements in Buckinghamshire

In July 2010, the Government recognised the essential role strong multi agency partnerships and joint planning have to play and is very much focused on the local Reform of Children’s Trusts rather than their abolition.  The key change being that schools will no longer have a duty to co-operate; it does not however remove the duty on other partners.

The Buckinghamshire Children and Young People’s Trust Board considered this announcement at its meeting on 26th August 2010 and decided:

• To have a Trust Board and encourage all relevant partners, including schools, to actively participate in this.
• To maintain and develop the Buckinghamshire Trust Model, recognising in particular the role that the Local Trust Partnership Boards have to play.
• To continue to develop a Children and Young People’s Plan for 2011/14. This will be a more targeted plan focusing on the most vulnerable.

 See full Buckinghamshire Response

What drives the work of the Trust?

The Children and Young People’s Trust is governed by central and local legislations, Strategies and policies. If you would like to have more information about these, please visit the Policy Section.

How do we know that the Trust is making a difference?

In order to make sure that the work of the Trust is making a real difference to the lives of Children and Young people, meeting its targets and goals as identified in the Children and Young People’s Plan, all organisations involved in the Trust gather evidence of change resulting from their work. These are gathered and reported through the monthly ‘Outcomes’ reports which can be viewed here.

Is there more than one Children and Young People's Trust?

Every local authority around the country has a Children and Young People's Trust, although they are not always called that.

How do Trust members get selected?

Mostly it's the senior members of an organisation that are chosen to be representatives on the Trust board because they can make decisions on behalf of their organisations.

How do organisations get involved with the Children and Young People's Trust?

The organisations that are on the Trust all work with children and young people. All the members of the trust represent organisations that were invited to join the Trust, some being required by the Government to be involved.

How do trust members carry out decisions?

The decisions made at meetings are owned by different members of the trust. They report those decisions back to their individual organisations where they take action.

Is there a young person or child representative on the Trust?

There is currently no young person or child representative on the Trust. This has been discussed by children, young people and the Trust members who felt that one child or young person could not represent all of the others. There are a lot of ways that children or young people can get involved, however. You can sign up to the Participation Network and receive emails on issues and give your views and ideas. There are local County and District Youth Cabinets which you can join, there are drama, debating and many other ways which allow you to express your opinions.