What is the Big Plan?

The Big Plan is the name of Cambridgeshire’s Children and Young People’s Plan. It sets out how we’ll improve services for local children and young people. 

Lots of different organisations provide services for children and young people in Cambridgeshire – schools, the health services, councils, the police, voluntary groups and many more. We all get together to make the Big Plan so that everything is joined up.

The current Big Plan comes to an end this year so we need to make a new Big Plan for 2009-2010.  First of all, we need to decide what should be in it.

Who has decided what should be in the plan?

To decide what should be in the new plan we’ve:
· listened to what children and young people have told us is most important to them. 
· looked at information that tells us how children and young people are doing in Cambridgeshire
· looked at what Government says we have to do to help children and young people be happy, safe and achieve their potential. 

We’ve put all this information together and come up with a list of things that we’d like to make happen over the next 3 years. This list may not include everything that people have told us. This is because there is not always enough money to do all the things we we’d like to do, so we have to focus on the most important things to do now.

Have we got it right?

Please have a look at the list below and let us know what you think.

Priority 1: We want to make sure that all children and young people, no matter where they live or what their needs are, have the same opportunities to be healthy and achieve their potential.
We’ll do this by:
· supporting children and young people who are not doing so well at school to achieve their potential.
· making sure that all children and young people go to school and can go on to further education, training and jobs.
· helping children and young people have a healthy lifestyle and reduce the number of children with an unhealthy weight.
· Making sure that young people can visit sexual health services.
· Reducing drug and alcohol misuse

Priority 2: Improve services for children and young people with Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities and make sure that they are supported in a way that meets their needs.

Priority 3: Make sure that we meet the needs of children and young people in new communities.
· There are lots of new homes being built in Cambridgeshire, with more planned over the next 20 years. In some places new towns and communities are being developed. We want to make sure that the children and young people living in these places have the services they need or can easily use services near by.

Priority 4: To help children and young people feel and stay safe and happy in their communities.
We’ll do this by:
· Making sure that children and young people have things to do in their spare time that are safe and easy to get to.
· Making sure that children have safe places to play
· Reducing anti-social behaviour where it’s a problem. 
· Reducing the number of young people who get involved in criminal activity
· Tackling bullying and discrimination
· Making sure that the roads are safe and cutting down the number of children hurt in road traffic accidents   
· Promoting positive images of young people 

Do you think we are focusing on the right things?

We would like to know what you think about the above priorities. If you have any comments or questions please email Jodie at: Jodie.brooks@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

What next?

Our next step is to decide what we need to do to make all these things  happen.  We’ll do this by developing action plans for each of the priorities.

We would like to involve children and young people in doing this. If you would like to get involved please contact Jodie on 01223 699057, or email Jodie.brooks@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

You’ll be able to tell us what you think of the actions in the Big Plan in January and February 2009.

Who are the Young Inspectors? And what do they do?

We are a group of children who help out the County Council by inspecting their work

A couple of years ago, the County Council wrote a big long (sometimes boring) plan. They gave it a name, which was also big and long, and quite boring.  The plan was all about things they are going to do to make all kid's lives better.

Cos it was about children, they thought they would try and make it a bit more interesting for children to read... so they asked some of us to make it a bit better.

We thought it should be called THE BIG PLAN. So they listened to us, and called it that.

Then we thought it should be a bit more colourful and have lots of pretty arty stuff in it. So they listened, and we drew lots of pictures, and made it pretty colours.

Then... they asked us to read it. But we fell asleep. Zzzzzz

So, they asked us to help them write it again to make it a bit more interesting. So we did. We deleted all the long words like 'strategic development' and replaced them with nice, shorter words that we understood.

So... that's how THE BIG PLAN was born. The Young Inspectors job is to make sure they are doing all the stuff they said they were going to do. Like, they said they are going to cut down on bullying in schools... do you think they have? And they said they are going to make the roads safer for children to play near... do you think they have? We are going to ask them. And then we are going to keep checking up on them.

There are loads of things for Young Inspectors to do. If you want to become one, and meet all the important and grown up people in the Council, and help them make decisions... you can! It is really easy.

Just contact Poppy Webber on 01223 718086 or on kids.aloud@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

She will help arrange your training, your travelling, and the best bit... your vouchers! Cos, they don't expect you to do all that work for nothing! They give you vouchers for kool shops. But, first of all she needs to speak to you, and your parent or carer to check that you're allowed to do it.

So, give her a ring, or email. And hopefully we'll see you soon!

Come on, join in, get involved, and get heard!