Overview

Introduction

Children England is a member of three strategic partnerships funded by the Department for Education (DfE); one as the lead partner and two as junior partners. In each case, strategic partners have three key roles:

• Advise and inform the Department about key issues that impact on voluntary and community sector organisations working with children, young people and families

• Develop capability and capacity in the voluntary and community sector

• Provide robust and systematic dissemination methods for information, policy developments and key programmes enabling voluntary and community sector organisations to engage in the delivery of improved outcomes for children, young people and families.

To read the ministerial vision for the Strategic Partner Programme please click here.

Overarching Strategic Partnership

The overarching strategic partnership aims to support the evolving economy and infrastructure of the whole voluntary, community and social enterprise sector serving children, young people and families. It is also funded to share the best practice, expertise, learning and concerns of the sector with the DfE in developing policy.

Led by Children England, in partnership with Community Matters, NCVYS, NAVCA, The Race Equality Foundation and the Social Enterprise Coalition, the partnership will use its extensive combined member networks and stakeholder groups to shape and deliver its programme, and to gather the perspectives of thousands of organisations and community groups. This will include providing information, learning resources, events and peer networks, to support organisations to learn from each other, improve sustainability and explore the potential for growth from diverse funding mechanisms, public sector commissioning, building consortia and entrepreneurial ways of doing business.

To sign up to our communications please click here

Alternatively, if you’d like to find out more about the overarching strategic partnership please contact:
Kathy Evans, Kevin Garrod or Nick Davies – 020 7833 3319: kathy@childrenengland.org.uk; kevin@childrenengland.org.uk; nick@childrenengland.org.uk

Alternatively, you can contact one of the other partners:

NCVYS: Faiza Chaudary - 020 7278 1041 faiza@ncvys.org.uk

NAVCA: Angela Barnes - 0114 289 3978 angela.barnes@navca.org.uk

Community Matters: Nina Burich – 020 7837 7887
nina.burich@communitymatters.org.uk 

Race Equality Foundation: Tracey Bignall 020 7619 6225 tracey@racefound.org.uk

Social Enterprise Coalition: Olof Jonsdottir 020 7793 2321 olof.jonsdottir@socialenterprise.org.uk

Early Years and Childcare Strategic Partnership

4Children is the lead Strategic Partner for the Early Years and Childcare Sector, together with Children England; Contact a Family; Daycare Trust; the Fatherhood Institute; and the Social Investment Business. An integral part of the Foundations for the Future Partnership’s work will be to develop sector leadership and new models of sustainable, community owned delivery. This approach revolves around the principle of ‘co-production’, bringing together the expertise of the sector to inform policy and develop resources and support. The first steps for the Partnership will involve carrying out an insight survey of providers to better understand the needs of the sector; producing regular e-policy briefings; developing an online hub; and co-ordinating training and briefing events.

As part of the Early Years and Childcare Strategic Partnership a new website has been launched that provides parents in England an encyclopedic ‘one stop shop’ for all the information they might need for pregnancy and the first 5 years of their child’s life. To visit the site please click here

To find out more about the early years partnership please contact 4Children: Sue Robb - sue.robb@4Children.org.uk

Family Services Strategic Partnership

The strategic partner for families is led by Barnardo’s in partnership with Action for Prisoners Families, Children England, and the Family and Parenting Institute. The families strategic partnership will work with our member networks, stakeholder groups and the wider families voluntary and community sector to understand what already works well at a local level to develop a network of support across the country and provide a voice for the sector and families. It will ensure that frontline expertise and experience informs policy development and future government planning.

To find out more about the families strategic partnership please contact:

Barnardo’s: Sonya Chowdhury - sonya.chowdhury@barnardos.org.uk

Children England: Kathy Evans - kathy@childrenengland.org.uk

Action for Prisoners Families: Debbie Cowley - deborahcowley@actionpf.org.uk

Family and Parenting Institute: Peter Grigg - peter.grigg@familyandparenting.org and Celia Hannon - Hannon@familyandparenting.org

Themed Grants

The Department for Education has published details of the key delivery priorities/activities of its themed grant holders. The information has been published under each theme, with the overall list being available for download on each of the webpages below:

• Families: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/families
• Early Years: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/earlylearningandchildcare
• SEN: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/sen
• Safeguarding: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/safeguarding
• Young People: http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/youngpeople