Key strategic documents and plans
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Family Services works with partners to help ensure that children and young people:
- are kept safe
- receive good quality education
- with any additional support needs are identified early and addressed
A number of partnership and Family Services plans support our work. These can be downloaded from the documents below.
Profile of Children and Young People in Barnet
The Children and Young People section of the Barnet Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) brings together information from different organisations about the needs of Barnet’s children and young people. It includes data on:
- demographics and deprivation
- health
- safeguarding
- education and attainment
It informs the Children and Young People Plan and underpins our service planning and commissioning.
Barnet Children and Young People Plan
The Barnet Children and Young People Plan is the key partnership document which sets out our ambitions and priorities for children and young people in Barnet. It identifies what all partners will do to deliver this and how we will measure our success.
All other plans and strategies in Barnet’s Family Services build on the Children and Young People Plan, which is consistent with Barnet Council’s Corporate Plan.
Early Intervention and Prevention
Barnet’s Children and Families Early Help Strategy 2023 to 2027 has been developed by the multi-agency partnership working in the borough in collaboration with children, families, local communities and Barnet’s political leaders.
Our strategy sets out our shared vision, values and ambition for every child, from pre-birth to adulthood and beyond, to be healthy, happy and to thrive.
Using our shared knowledge and experience and informed by research and evidence about child development and what works in early intervention, we have produced this strategy to provide a framework for delivery of Early Help Services in the borough.
The framework is in place to ensure Barnet’s Early Help services:
- Deliver our priorities and vision
- Achieve the outcomes identified for children and young people
- Continually drive the building of resilience with children and families
The children and families Early Help Strategy is overseen by the Children and Families Early Help Partnership Board and the group oversees the implementation of the strategy by setting out a work plan and KPIs based on priorities that have been developed by the local hub advisory groups.
This strategy was approved at the Children and Education Overview and Scrutiny Committee in March 2023.
Corporate Parenting Annual Report 2021 to 2022
The corporate parenting Annual Report 21-22 is about the progress and outcomes achieved over the last year. It is for:
- the children and young people in our care
- people who've experienced being in care
- our partner agencies
Never before have any of us experienced the challenges and changes that the last few year's has brought our way.
I am extremely proud of our children and young people who have showed great resilience.
Thank you to all the professionals that had to adapt to new ways of working with our children and young people and managed to maintain those important relationships under tough circumstances.
Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2022-2025
The Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2022 to 2025 sets out our vision for Barnet to be a borough where everyone can live free of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.
Education Strategy
The Education Strategy provides a framework for schools, education providers and others to work together to achieve the ambition set out in Barnet's Children and Young People Plan.
Cultural Education Strategy for Barnet
Extensive consultation took place over the course of a year to find out what was important to children and young people in Barnet as our society recovers from the pandemic. This was led by the Barnet Cultural Education Partnership Steering Committee.
Four key themes came out that go well with the Barnet Plan themes of Education & Learning, Health & Wellbeing and Life Chances.
The new Cultural Education Strategy is created for the children and young people of Barnet through consultation with schools, youth arts groups, arts organisations and professionals across the borough.
The strategy has themes of engagement, employability, wellbeing and advocacy. It emphasises priority groups to include those removed from mainstream education, young people with learning disabilities and those faith and home educated.
The ambitions that need to be met by 2027 are set out in the paper. These include:
- every school in Barnet welcomes an annual artist residency, enriching cultural life in the school
- every child and young person in Barnet has access to music lessons, dance classes, visual arts classes, theatre and museum trips
- the cultural economy of Barnet has expanded, the borough is rich with collaboration and innovation, diverse communities are engaged and centre-place
- young people are supported to consider creative careers and enabled to live a rich cultural life supporting self-expression, talent development, self-confidence and wellbeing
Other strategic documents
This protocol outlines how Barnet Homes, Family Services, Revenues and Benefits and other key agencies each play a full role in providing the resources and support to care leavers to support a successful transition to independent living.
Good housing underpins success in other areas of life. Secure, safe and stable accommodation is an essential building block for success and achievement in education, training and employment, and has a direct impact on emotional health and wellbeing. It is therefore essential that a multi-agency approach is adopted when securing accommodation for care leavers; agencies must work together to meet their statutory duties and corporate parenting responsibilities, in order to provide a safe and supportive pathway to independent living.
Care leavers need to be well prepared to live independently and their housing needs must be addressed before they leave care via pathway planning and joint assessment. We are therefore proud to publish this protocol and will ensure that Barnet Homes, Family Services, Revenues and Benefits and other key agencies each play a full role in providing the resources and support to care leavers.
This protocol will also ensure that every effort is made to avoid using the homeless route which is inappropriate when assessing and meeting the housing needs of care leavers.
Placements Sufficiency and Commissioning Strategy (PDF, 1.44 MB)
We have a statutory duty to ensure, as far as it is practical, that there is sufficient accommodation for children in care within the local area. We need to address gaps in provision through robust plans and commissioning strategies (Statutory Guidance on securing sufficient accommodation for Looked After Children 2010).
The Placement Sufficiency and Commissioning Strategy outlines how we intend to fulfil our duty.
Barnet council is required by law to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare. We must make this report available and accessible to parents. This report meets this duty.
This strategy provides the overriding objectives and frameworks of our approach in Barnet. It also shows how we collectively respond to child sexual exploitation, missing children, gangs and criminal exploitation.
This document focuses on the following priorities:
- strategic, operational and practice leadership
- engaging young people
- predict and prevent
- identify and intervene
- disrupting and stopping perpetrators.
- transitional safeguarding
- services and information
We are often asked as to what services and support are available for young people who may be at risk of exploitation.
The appendix lists local and national services that can be accessed by practitioners and parents/carers a full list of these can be found here:
This is no way an exhaustive list, services regularly change.
We have a new Serious Incident Response Protocol for our joint partnership response to incidents of serious young violence involving a young person (10 to 25 years) who is either a victim or perpetrator.
Local transformation plans across the country set out how local services will improve children and young people’s (CYP) mental health and emotional wellbeing across the “whole system”. These plans are ‘living documents’ and as such a number of the services and transformation ambitions are either currently underway or being co-produced, planned for or implemented at the time of writing this document.
Improving support for children and young people with emotional wellbeing and/or mental health concerns is a key priority for North Central London’s NHS and the five local authorities in the North Central London area, Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington. This document sets out what we’ve done so far and our plans to improve care and support further.
In the past, we published a plan for each borough, and in our last plans each borough included a NCL section setting out shared priorities. This year’s plan sets out priorities shared across boroughs, alongside priorities in each borough, as we increasingly work together to meet our population’s needs.
We have more information about accessing local children and young people’s mental health services in your area.
For more information email North Central London Integrated Care System, email enquiries.nclics@nhs.net
The SEND Strategy 2021 to 24 has been co-produced with all partners across the SEND community in Barnet, including parent-carers, children and young people with SEND and professionals in education, health and social care.
The strategy is for everyone involved with special educational needs and disabilities including families, headteachers, governors, SENCos in schools and settings, professionals across health, education and social care and the voluntary sector. It covers the Local Area of Barnet, and includes the local authority, schools, early years settings, further education, the clinical commissioning group (CCG), and specialist services in health.
Our vision for all the Looked After Children of Barnet is for them to be safe and healthy in a caring environment where every child and young person can have access to services that recognises and addresses their needs in terms of:
- gender
- religion
- ethnic origin
- language
- culture
- disability
- sexuality
This will enable them to realise their potential and enhance their life opportunities.
Foster carers make a hugely valuable contribution and are provided with preparation, training and support to carry out their role to maximum effect. Foster carers value, support and encourage children and young people to grow and develop as individuals as well as promoting their health and general well-being.
The Statement of Purpose has been written in accordance with the National Minimum Standards for Fostering and relevant statutory provisions. It details what services are provided, the governing principals and who manages and provides the services. Barnet’s Fostering Service aims to provide high standards of care in a family environment for all children and young people placed within the service.
The Statement of Purpose has been written in accordance with the National Minimum Standards for Adoption Services and relevant statutory provisions. It will detail what services are provided, the governing principals and who manages and provides the services.
We believe that children are entitled to grow up as part of a loving family who can meet their emotional, physical and developmental needs throughout their life. When children cannot achieve this within their own birth families, we are committed to finding them such a family.
Adopt London North (ALN) is a specialist Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) partnership between the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey and Islington and is hosted by the London Borough of Islington. It provides a shared adoption service to all six partner local authorities.
The London borough of Barnet is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children who are privately fostered.
Children who are in such arrangements are often particularly vulnerable. We endeavour to ensure that private fostering arrangements are safe and suitable for children, and children in such arrangements are protected from abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Raising awareness of private fostering across all communities within Barnet is our very important mission and through collaboration with our safeguarding partners we want to achieve a position where everyone in Barnet understands what private fostering is and why children in these arrangements can be vulnerable and need safeguarding.
In accordance with the National Minimum Standards for Private Fostering (Standard 1), which sets out its duties and functions in relation to private fostering and the ways in which they will be carried out, all local authorities have a duty to publish a written Statement in respect of its private fostering service.
This statement sets out the London Borough of Barnet’s Statement of Purpose on Private Fostering and aims to demonstrate that the requirements laid down in relevant legislation and regulations are complied with and the minimum standards met and to highlight the design to raise awareness about private fostering.