Children England

Speaking Out is a partnership between Children England and the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS), funded by the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office.

The project aims to develop closer links between a range of Government departments and the voluntary and community sector in delivering cross departmental plans such as Every Child Matters, focusing on the direct implementation of initiatives which affect children and young people.

The aims of the project are:

• To provide a credible voice for the children, young people and families voluntary and community sector.
• To work collaboratively with Government to ensure that the voice of members is included in policy making across departments who do not regularly engage with organisations working with children and young people.
• To influence national policy through particular experience or expertise, either directly or through the experience of members.

The project concentrates particularly on policy agendas emerging from the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, Communities and Local Government, the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.

The key policy priorities for 2009 to 2011 are health and well being, housing and homelessness, community empowerment, youth justice, employment, education and training and financial capability.

For more information about the Speaking Out project please contact
Sophie Griffiths, Policy and Information Officer
Tel: 020 7833 3319
E-mail: sophie@childrenengland.org.uk

Speaking Out Sector Challenge Response

Recently the Cabinet Office wrote a letter to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors asking them to contribute their ideas to help reduce the deficit.

Please click here for a joint response from Children England and the National Council of Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS) on delivering savings and reforms that can contribute to rebalancing public finances and improving efficiency.

Small Grants Programme

For the last three years, the Speaking Out project has held a Small Grants Programme. The funding is aimed at enabling voluntary and community organisations working with children and young people (aged 0 to 25) in England, who are part of the Children England or NCVYS networks, to apply for small grants of up to £1000 to deliver one-off projects or activities in their local communities. Any voluntary or community organisation working to support children and/or young people in England that is a member of either NCVYS or Children England can apply for a grant.

The funding round for 2009-10 has now closed, however we expect to run another round of funding in Autumn 2010.

Policy briefings

The project has produced a range of briefings to inform the children and young people's voluntary and community sector of issues which affect their work but which fall outside of the Department for Children, Schools and Families' direct remit.

Briefings have been produced on the following topics including:

• Knife, gun and gang crime
• The Government's social exclusion agenda
• Children and young people's access to services in rural areas
• Public service delivery
• Community cohesion
• Local government reform
• Placeshaping
• The comprehensive spending review
• Rural migrant children
• The Ministry of Justice's third sector strategy
• The Youth Crime Action Plan
• The Community and Local Government's empowerment White Paper
• 2012 Olympic Legacy
• The 2008 Drug Strategy
• Environment
• Children, young people and disability
• Small Grants Programme
• Child Health Strategy - Healthy lives, brighter futures
• Financial capability
• Education, Employment and Training
• Health and well-being
• Community Empowerment
• Housing and Homelessness

Click here to download the briefings.

E-bulletin

Speaking Out publishes a quarterly e-bulletin to provide updates on the project's progress and enable stakeholder groups to follow developments in the key interest areas of the project.

To subscribe to the bulletin please contact Rhiannon Jones, Information and Website Officer at NCVYS.
Tel: 020 7278 1041
Email: rhiannon@ncvys.org.uk

Research

In July 2008 the Speaking Out project published research mapping the size and scope of the children and young people's voluntary and community sector. The research was undertaken by a team from the University of Hull led by Professor Gary Craig and finds that the sector employs one in three of the total voluntary sector workforce and generates income in excess of �15billion a year.

The report calls on the Government to invest in further research to better understand the changing nature of the children and young people's voluntary and community sector, to prioritise support for smaller organisations who often work with those most in need and to provide sustained investment in workforce development.

Click here to download the report.

In Summer 2009 the Speaking Out project published scoping research on two of the project's policy priorities: community empowerment and health and well-being relating to children and young people. The research maps emerging challenges for the children and young people's voluntary and community sector (CYPVCS) on these two policy areas, highlighting existing good practice case studies and recommending areas for further development.

Click here to download the research.

Events

• On 19 January 2010, the Speaking Out project held a policy roundtable event exploring the issue of housing in relation to children and young people. The event included a range of speakers from organisations such as the Coalition for Rural Children and Young People, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and Planning Aid for London. A summary report of the event is available here and will feed into our ongoing work on housing and homelessness.
  
  The Speaking Out project has held several other events. For information on previous events click here

Speaking Out survey

The Speaking Out project has recently conducted a survey to help shape and prioritise the project's policy work and future activities for 2009-2011. Overall, respondents found the issues of social exclusion and community empowerment to be the most useful policy issues that the Speaking Out project has covered to date. The top five areas that respondents would like to see the Speaking Out project focus on in the future include:

• youth employment, education and training;
• community cohesion/citizenship;
• health;
• youth justice; and
• housing and homelessness

The full survey findings are available to download here