Leicestershire Children's Trust Active Involvement Strategy 2009 - 2012

The Vision

Children, young people and services have agreed a vision for active involvement of children and young people.

Children and young people's services in Leicestershire are now working to embed involvement within practice so it isn't an ‘add-on' to current working practice but is an integral part of it and helps contribute to every child and young person being able to achieve their full potential. It also means that services are able to make best use of resources by centrally recording consultation and involvement to avoid duplication.

This strategy is for children and young people aged 0 - 19 years, and up to 25 years for those that are disabled or have learning difficulties.

The Action Plan

An action plan has been drawn up which details how active involvement will be supported in Leicestershire. The action plan has six key priorities:

1. Promoting and monitoring the use of the Hear By Right Standards Framework in Leicestershire
2. Ensuring all children and young people feel heard and involved, in particularly those that are traditionally more excluded (including younger children, younger children in care and disabled children and young people)
3. Systematically recording the outcomes of involvement and make them available to all partners and the public
4. Supporting and developing the "Pyramid of Participation" (see Appendix 2)
5. Providing multi agency active involvement training, support and development opportunities (for leaders, staff and children and young people), including developing supporting ‘communities of practice'
6. Agreeing, communicating and implementing the Active Involvement Strategy

Download the Active Involvement Strategy to find out more. and see also Involved: A collection of good practice case studies.

The Jitty

The Jitty is a website for young people in Leicestershire created by young people. It has information about Youth Councils across the county and allows young people to access issues relevant to them but presented in a young-person friendly way.

Youth4U young inspectors programme is currently funded in Leicestershire until March 2011. The programme aims to give young people the chance to look at services available in their area and tell the people in charge of them what they think. Details of how to get involved are on the site.