We want Barking and Dagenham to be a place where every child is valued, supported and challenged so that they develop the ambition, skills and resilience to succeed. We want to ensure that every child knows that they are a part of, and have a responsibility to contribute to building, a strong, empowered and cohesive community.
To achieve this we work closely with a range of partners across Barking and Dagenham who all share the same core values:
· We will be ambitious for our children, young people and their families.
· We will focus on our challenges with the determination to achieve excellence for our children, young people and families.
· We will work as a team sharing responsibility for achieving our priorities set out in this plan.
· We will listen to the voice of EVERY child placing children, young people and families at the heart of what we do.
· We will use resources efficiently and effectively to do even more in addressing our local priorities
· We will build on achievement, community cohesion and empowerment to make a bigger difference for our children, young people and their families.
The five top partnership priorities for the Children’s Trust are:
1. Ensure children and young people in our borough are safe
2. Narrowing the gap - raise attainment and realise aspiration for every child
3. Improve health and wellbeing, with a particular focus on tackling obesity and poor sexual health
4. Improve support and fully integrate services for vulnerable children, young people and families (particularly children in care and children with disabilities)
5. Challenging child poverty - preventing poor children becoming poor adults
I believe that taking radical action in these five key areas will have a significant impact on some of our most challenging inequalities.
Helen Jenner, Corporate Director of Children’s Services
Chair of the Children’s Trust