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Children's Fund

The Coventry Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership Vision is:

'Working together to find out what children want to make their lives better and working to keep families together'

What is Coventry's Children's Fund?

In the last six years Coventry has been awarded over £6 million of grant funding from the Children's Fund.

To date over 75 projects have been funded and currently 15 projects are commissioned against five national Every Child Matters outcomes;

• Being Healthy
• Staying Safe
• Enjoying and Achieving
• Making a Positive Contribution
• Achieving Economic Well-Being

In addition, Coventry has chosen its own sixth outcome; Having Supportive Friends, Families and Communities'.

This equates to nearly £1m per year for the three years 2008-2011.

Why do we have a Children's Fund?

The money provides early intervention and prevention services for children, young people and families. The Coventry Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership uses the fund to narrow the gaps in life chances between the most disadvantaged and those who are better off.

Who allocated the Children's Fund?

The process for allocating the money has been steered through the Commissioning Board of the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership (CYPSP) www.coventrycypsp.org.uk

The basis for allocating the money was to encourage partner organisations to work together.  This needed to be done in a well thought-out manner so that the activities that they delivered would be the ones that are most important and seen as priorities and could be backed up with the proof that they have made a difference.

That is why Coventry's 2008 – 2011 Children's Fund Programme of 15 projects consists of a range of lead delivery organisations and service providers, nine of which are from the voluntary sector.

All partner agencies work together to make sure that the projects have a real, positive and long-term benefit and create positive changes in the lives of children and young people and their families.

The Coventry Children's Fund Programme Team (based within Children Learning and Young People's directorate / Strategic Services section) is responsible for managing and overseeing the funding to ensure that it is spent wisely and achieves real long-term lasting and important results for children, young people and their families within the city. The team also provides strong support and challenge to projects and partners to reflect, change and to measure and evaluate the difference we make.

How are children and young people involved?

Young people have been supporting Coventry's Children's Fund right from the start of this programme. Nine young people were involved in advising the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership about the allocations of the grant and giving their views about what projects they would like to see the Children's Fund spent on. This means that the Children's Fund has projects chosen by young people, for young people.  In addition to this, every project has a young people's user group. These groups look at how projects are being run and make suggestions about how they can be kept on course or where they can be improved. 

Progress Update

The beneficiary target figure that was set at the start of the programme was 8,647 (over the first two years).

That is to say that the CYPSP had anticipated that by 2010 those projects commissioned under Coventry’s Children’s Fund would have supported 8,647 children, young people and their families.

To date (May 2010) the programme has actually supported more than 10,000 children, young people and their families, far exceeding delivery and service user engagement expectations.
A number of best practice examples are starting to emerge particularly around the way that Coventry’s Children’s Fund projects are utilising organisational specialist areas of expertise to enhance delivery and the pooling of resources e.g. sharing venues, facilities and other delivery costs, in order to add value to mainstream provision.

In addition, we have good evidence of:

• Improving outcomes for young people
• Delivering integrated, multi-disciplinary, accessible services
• Focusing on early intervention and prevention
• Increased confidence and self-esteem
• New skills and knowledge
• Improved relations with peers and families
• Enhanced basic needs.

Please see the document attached for individual project contact details or for more information on Coventry’s Children’s Fund Programme, please contact Sharon Mace (Programme Manager) – contact details below.

“Young people are the next generation… soon to be the bosses and the colleagues of Coventry. However without the care and support needed in young people’s lives the future is bleak. Improving young people’s lives is about improving the future…” (Coventry Teenager)

Contact details

Sharon Mace
Children's Fund Programme Manager
Programmes and Projects Team
Civic Centre 1 Room 12
Earl Street
Coventry CV1 5RS
Telephone: 024 7683 2984 or 07985 202 099
E-mail: Sharon.mace@coventry.gov.uk 

Downloadable documents