Enfield Children's Fund - About Enfield Children's Fund

About Enfield Children's Fund

Mission
Context
Objective
Aims
Partnership
Funding
Dialogue
Research
Themes
Evaluation

Mission:
The Children's Fund is intended to provide a flexible and responsive approach to meeting needs and developing good practice for services for children at risk of social exclusion, supporting them and their families in breaking the cycle of poverty and disadvantage.

Context:
The Children's Fund is one element of the Government's strategy to tackle child poverty and social exclusion. There are now three initiatives across the age ranges of children and young people.

Age Range of Children and Young People	0-4 Years	5-13 Years	13-19 Years
Name of Initiative	Sure Start	Children's Fund	Connexions

The Children's Fund is coordinated by the Children and Young People's Unit of the DfES. Enfield is just one of 59 Local Authority areas designated to be in the "third wave" of the Children's Fund.

The Enfield Children's Fund programme is overseen by Opportunity Links, who serve as Lead Agency and Accountable Body. For more information about Opportunity Links visit www.opp-links.org.uk or phone 01223 566 522.

Objective:
The objective of the fund is to provide additional resources over and above those provided through mainstream statutory, specific programmes, and through the specific earmarked funding streams. It should engage and support voluntary and community organisations in playing an active part and should enable the full range of services to work together to help children overcome poverty and disadvantage.

Aims:
The Enfield Children's Fund aims to:

Focus on those children, young people and families most at risk of social exclusion through poverty and disadvantage
Co-ordinate and add value to existing services as well as introduce new provision where this is likely to reduce the risks faced by children and young people at risk of social exclusion in the Children's Fund area, building on, and linking to, existing Government initiatives or local projects
Promote the participation of local families, children and young people in the design and working of the programme
Minimise local bureaucracy by building on suitable existing local partnerships
Be culturally appropriate and sensitive to particular needs.

Partnership:
The Enfield Children's Fund has set up a Partnership Steering Group (PSG) which includes representatives from Statutory and Voluntary Services. Additionally, a series of planning events have been conducted to offer children, young people, families, community groups and faith groups the opportunity of planning and shaping the services and initiatives of the Children's Fund.

Funding:
Enfield has received a funding allocation of Ł2.2 million for April 2005 - March 2008.

Dialogue:
Enfield Children's Fund has made dialogue with children, young people and families a priority by conducting two stages of consultation as well as a series of planning sessions. The Partnership Steering Group will continue to give children and young people the opportunity to play an active and meaningful role in the Enfield Children's Fund and to voice their views and influence decision-making. To ensure that this happens, a Participation Worker has been employed to work across the five Enfield Children's Fund themes, with the aim of making dialogue and involvement fundamental to service development and implementation.

Research:
The research conducted by Enfield Children's Fund highlighted a range of gaps in services for children aged 5-13 and their families:

Lack of informal support for families parenting in difficult circumstances, such as lone-parent families, parents of children with disabilities, asylum-seeking parents and parents with mental health issues;
Limited support for young carers experiencing life challenges;
Low income affecting opportunities for family togetherness;
Parents needing informal education around key topics such as challenging behaviours, teaching children about sex and relationships and the importance of play;
Limited play and leisure opportunities for children with disabilities, young carers and children from ethnic minorities;
Lack of services that address children's mental health issues in the very early stages, preventing poor health and negative social outcomes in early adult years;
Lack of preventive services to address the needs of vulnerable young people and improve support options so they are less likely to run away to resolve life difficulties;
Limited opportunities for children to have a say and make decisions that impact on their lives and communities - this is particularly the case for children with disabilities and children from minority ethnic communities.

Themes:
The Children's Fund will focus on five theme areas, extracted from the research, as follows:

Family Support	Strengthening families so that they are better able to provide a nurturing and supportive environment for children and remain intact during times of difficulty.
Play and Leisure	Making play, sport and leisure more accessible, inclusive and enjoyable for children, particularly those disadvantaged by disability, difference or poverty.
Mental Health	Working with children to tackle early signs of poor mental health such as low self-esteem, inappropriate social behaviour, stress, anger and aggression and limited coping skills.
Choices and Voices	Giving children more opportunities to participate, make choices and have their voices heard in matters that are important to them.
Crime Prevention	Utilising the Restorative Justice Model to: Work in schools to educate children about crime, antisocial behaviour, running away and the possible consequences of these actions Identify and work with young people exhibiting antisocial behaviours Support victims of crime Provide diversionary activities to young runaways

Please see our Themes section for more detailed information on our theme areas, and the projects and services within them.

Evaluation:
Local Evaluation is being conducted to enable the Enfield Children's Fund Partnership and Projects to better understand how they are performing and identify any deficits, with the purpose of facilitating relevant changes to the programme. The local evaluation will provide essential information about whether services provided are reaching young people, children and families showing early signs of difficulty and what effect, if any, the services are having on their lives. Cordis Bright, an established management consultancy has been commissioned to conduct evaluation of the Enfield Children's Fund. Cordis Bright will utilise 'empowerment evaluation' methodology which will measure the transforming effect that the ECF has on the Enfield community. This approach has a strong emphasis on involving children, young people and their parents/carers in the evaluation, including peer based surveying methodologies.