Workshop Details ONSITE Housing and Community Capacity Building The NOW and YES Workshop – Connie Jennings NOW IS THE TIME !!! Walsall Housing Group and NHS Walsall believe that NOW is the time to build on communities strengths rather than focus on their difficulties. The NOW Programme demonstrates this commitment by employing local residents as Community Champions providing them with pathways into employment and training and routes out of poverty and health inequalities. NOW Community Champions live and work in their own neighbourhoods and are supported to develop creative solutions to long term issues that they and their neighbours can face in their day to day lives. The NOW Programme recognises it is NOW time to listen to residents and learn from them if we are to bring about long term changes. Come and meet local residents Sara and Julie Community Champions from Darlaston who have secured long term employment as part of the NOW team. Saying YES to young people Engaging young people in activities or discussion about their community is always a challenge but one that Walsall Housing Group is continually seeking new ways to meet. WHG recognise the importance of young people as future customers and that by developing an early understanding of their needs this will lead to a more effective needs led housing service. The YES Programme was developed by colleagues within whg who acted a volunteer youth mentors. Young people are offered a variety of challenges and activities which develop their skills and confidence including Tall Ship Sailing and our own YES Youth Oscars. Participation in the programme has increased participants personal resilience developed self esteem and raised their aspirations in particular in respect of future employment training or education opportunities. Eradicating child poverty, a Government Office Perspective – Carol Cumino Carole Cumino has worked in a variety of Government Departments, including the Department Of Health, the Department for Education and Skills and the Sure Start Unit, and has been on secondments to a special health authority and the National Institute for Social Work. She moved to the Midlands in 2005 to work in the Sure Start and Children's Fund Team in Government Office for the West Midlands, and currently works in the Children and Learner's Directorate as the Senior Policy Manager for Health and Well Being (including Child Poverty). The workshop will focus on: raising the profile of child poverty as a regional issue: implementation of Government Policy at a regional level : delivering on Local Area Agreements: working with partners

Workshop Details ONSITE Childcare and Protection – Professor Norma Baldwin Professor Norma Baldwins research interests are in the links between disadvantage and harm to children and in population wide and individualised assessments of need and risk. She has been involved in policy and practice developments in Scotland and England concerned with the promotion of family support and preventive services and community safety. Her work is committed to partnership models, working across disciplines and services, with families and local groups, to draw on the resources within communities. She has been engaged in research with local and national government and voluntary organisations in England and Scotland, working to develop the conditions in which children and families can thrive and risks of harm can be reduced. The workshop will provide delegates with opportunities to: explore more fully the practical implications of Professor Baldwin's paper on " Converting policy to practice: a community led approach." share their varied experience of work with projects which aim to respond to child poverty. consider barriers to strategic, integrated responses and measures which can remove or reduce these barriers. The aim will be that delegates will come prepared to draw constructively on their own experience to increase their own and other delegates' understanding of what can be done to respond to the needs of children and families and increase confidence that a wide range of projects and methods can make a difference. Children’s Area Partnership – Andria Simms An important element of Children’s Trust arrangements is integrated service delivery at local level. The needs of children and their families in a local area met by services that work together to ensure the best outcomes for the children and young people. In Walsall this role is overseen by Children’s Area Partnerships (CAPs) in each locality. These partnerships complement the work of the Local Neighbourhood Partnerships by focusing specifically on ECM outcomes in meeting the needs of children and young people. This workshop will focus on the work and composition of Bentley Children’s Area Partnership, highlighting the work undertaken around money management, a priority issue identified by the Partnership

Workshop Details ONSITE Achieving health and well being through warmer homes – Stephen Rowley The Councils energy efficiency team, based in the housing standards and improvement section of the Social Care and Inclusion directorate work exclusively to provide Affordable Warmth to residents of Walsall. This is achieved by delivering the Councils Affordable Warmth Strategy through a partnership arrangement involving a myriad of private sector companies and statutory and voluntary sector organisations. One of the schemes provided as part of the strategy deliverables is the Health Through Warmth Scheme. This scheme, developed and franchised by Npower provides a range of energy efficiency measures from simple advice through to complete efficient central heating installation. Walsall Council for the financial year 2008/09 has established a £1 million budget for the scheme and has put the emphasis on targeting households with children specifically those in the private residential sector. The installation of energy efficiency measures are designed to take such households out of fuel poverty thereby aiding the closely linked issues of child poverty. Key workers are trained to recognise the links between poor, energy inefficient housing and ill health. They are then tasked with referring the case to the Energy Efficiency Team at the Council who then devise an appropriate solution by looking at every case on an individual basis. The links between poor health and poor housing are well documented as are the positive outcome for children following intervention to improve living conditions. Affordable Warmth ensures less sickness being recorded in children of school age and educational attainment is known to improve by the provision of “quiet space” heating allowing a child to study unobtrusively.