Stakeholder Update – Better Start Bradford
November 2013
Governance
Area Partnership
Now fully established with representatives from:
· Bradford Trident
· Bradford Council Children’s Services
· Bradford Council Public Health
· Bradford Council Early Years
· Clinical Commissioning Groups
· Midwifery Services
· Health Visitor Services
· Children’s Centres
· Neighbourhoods Service
· Born in Bradford
· Young Lives/CVS
· Families First
· Local Councillors
· Police
· In Communities
The Area Partnership is chaired by the Director of Children’s Services. It has agreed a structure and terms of reference for the group. Agenda items have included a presentation from Dartington SRU who are supporting the Better Start programme to explain their role and the methodology they use. The last meeting discussed preparation for the Strategy Workshop in December where the Better Start Partnerships and team will get together with the SRU to devise a core strategy for the bid.
Community Partnership
The Community Partnership held its first meeting on Nov 20th. Its members come from communities across the three wards and from a range of backgrounds. More than half the membership are residents in the Better Start area. The current membership includes the following.
· Local schools and Children’s Centres
· Parents
· Community Representatives
· Faith representatives
· Local VCS representatives
· Leisure – voluntary
· Ward officers
· Private Sector
We are working to fill some gaps, for example local Councillors and housing providers and we are happy to accept any further expressions of interest from parents and community reps. The Community Partnership will meet regularly until we find out whether the bid has been successful at which point it will adopt a more formal structure.
The first meeting covered an introduction to the Better Start Programme, agreement around the remit of the Partnership and a short discussion with Michael Little, Director of the SRU, about the Strategy Workshop
The Community Partnership members will attend the Strategy Workshop and will have a briefing session beforehand. The Better Start Team will work with the Community Partnership to identify any training or information needs and to make sure those are met.
Progress on preparing the Stage 2 bid
Community Engagement Programme
In our last update we referred to the focus in the Stage 1 bid on the Community of influence and the need to involve parents and the wider community in the governance and decision-making around the bid.
We therefore arranged several consultation meetings:
3 community consultation events which were attended by more than 60 local people. The key themes to emerge were:
· Relationships are crucial to influencing change – trust needs to be developed
· Provision needs to be very local – sometimes in the family’s home
· Key information and support needs to be easily accessed, widely known and effectively delivered
· The programme needs to be aware of and address cultural needs, in order to achieve widespread engagement
3 stakeholder events for the people who attended the scoping events which helped to draw up the Stage 1 bid. 2 were general and one was specifically for GPs. The events were well attended, many of the people who came were new stakeholders who have become involved as the word has spread about the Better Start Programme.
The purpose of this consultation was to check that the work we are doing is in the right direction and to look at some ideas around the content of the bid. The results of the consultation are being reviewed.
We will be holding a consultation event with VCS groups in early December to look at how they fit into the overall strategy and how we can make commissioning accessible to local VCS groups.
Funding Mapping: Several teams have been working on mapping all the funding for the target group in the target areas and also what the picture is for all young people (up to 17) and for the whole district. This exercise is almost complete with verification and sense checking between the different sources currently taking place. This will give us key information to use at the Strategy Workshop to identify how resources might be shifted into prevention over time.
Developing Project Proposals
We have amassed a huge library of evidence-based programmes and are working with academics from Born in Bradford and their colleagues to evaluate the programmes. We have also met with and spoken to staff across the area in Children’s Centres, Nurseries, Health Visitor teams, Midwives and community projects to find out what is currently being delivered. It is not our plan to change everything that is currently happening but we will be looking at reach, engagement, adherence and consistency. We are also already finding gaps which the Better Start Programme can help to address.
Joint training programme: Significant progress has been made on developing the joint training programme and the first sessions are booked for early 2014. They will specifically be looking at system /culture change.
Service user Journey Mapping: The exercise is complete with most of the Children’s Centres and other groups conducting the interviews. We also commissioned sessions with fathers to get a better understanding of their experience. This information is being compiled to give us a picture of the real experience of local families of support services and will help us to identify where interventions may be needed.
Information sharing: Our knowledge of information sharing systems is now greater as is our understanding of the weaknesses. The next step is to devise a way to improve it without massive costs and changes to the way the current systems work. We anticipate work on this area will take some time during the first years of the programme.
Contact with SRU and Big Lottery
We have been in regular contact with the SRU and Big Lottery throughout the last few weeks.
Big Lottery Staff have met with us to look at a Capital Programme and have clarified some of the questions around the application form.
SRU have continued to send guidance in preparation for the Strategy Days on how we should prepare, what our areas of focus should be and the key information we can prepare in advance
Some of the Better Start Project group attended a training day to explore that preparation in greater detail and to get the chance to ask some key questions.
December
Strategy Days: The Project team, Area Partnership and Community Partnership will meet with the Social Research Unit to work on the final development of the strategy underpinning the bid. This will form a key part of the Project Plan attached to the bid.
Draft final bid: Final bid will be drafted including detailed Project Plan, Financial Plan and all supporting documents.
Bid drafted by 20thDec 2013
Consultation on the bid during Jan 2014
Final version drafted during Feb 2014
Bid submitted by 28th Feb 2014
Better Start Team
The Better Start team includes (Office Phone Number 01274 309173):
· Michaela Howell – Bradford Trident Better Start Bradford Programme Manager
; 07909 875032
· Gill Thornton – Bradford Trident Better Start Bradford Project Manager
; 07805 154965
· Jo Howes – Better Start Bradford Health Visitor Lead – Seconded from Bradford District Care Trust
; 07805 157603
· Susanne Walshe – Better Start Bradford Midwife Lead – Seconded from Bradford Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust
; 07872 692401
· Katie Swinden – Bradford Trident Better Start Bradford Administrator
; 07805 143018
· Jo Barnes – Public Health Analyst Bradford Metropolitan District Council
; 01274 431529
· Early Years Specialist (tbc)
· The team is being supported by staff from partners with finance, data and research expertise.