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Presentation United Kingdom
Kate Morris, University of Birmingham
Marian Barnes, University of Brighton
Elaine Morrisson, Manchester Children’s
Fund
Programme “Children’s Fund” –
Reduction of the social
exclusion of children
v.l.:K.Morris E. Morrison M.Barnes
Political-institutional framework and aims of the Children’s Fund
programme
The Children’s Fund is a national British programme being implemented in local
authorities within the framework of the political agenda “Every Child Matters (ECM)“ and
on the basis of the British Government’s Children’s Act (1989/2004)
All 149 local authorities have been bound by law to set up a local Children’s Fund for
the duration of the programme. The authorities are free to choose the content of the
measures to be undertaken within the framework of the local Children’s Fund
management. Local fund managers have the opportunity of bringing together the resources
of various governmental programmes and combining these with local services.
National programmes in Great Britain such as the Children’s Fund are incorporated into
so-called Local Strategic Partnerships (LSP) which have the purpose of bringing together
all partners to tackle local problem complexes. Each of these LSPs has a Children and
Young People’s Group in which representatives of relevant policy areas can cooperate –
social, health and educational sectors, the police and local employment offices.
The Children’s Act of 1989 created the first perspectives for the protection of children
and young people to go beyond mere crisis intervention. In 2004, an integrated approach
was formulated in the new version of the Children’s Act for the implementation of the
Agenda ECM. During this process, policy-overlapping “Children’s” Trusts were set up:
collective local child welfare institutions in which actors from the areas of social work,
education, health and police could cooperate.
The Children’s Fund programme is embedded in several national initiatives which
implement the ECM agenda. The programme Sure Start is orientated towards children
from 0 to 5, the Children’s Fund towards children from 5 to 13 and the programme
Connexions towards older children and young people. “Connexions” is implemented
within the framework of the agenda “Youth Matters”. The various services offered within
local authorities are coordinated by the Children and Young People’s Groups in the LSP.
Partnership, participation and prevention are the fundamental principles underlying
local activities within the various Children’s Fund projects.
The overriding aim is to utilise the monetary resources of the Children’s Funds to
incorporate voluntary community organisations into activities to activate the entire
spectrum of local resources. Everything possible should be undertaken on a local level to
overcome poverty and inequality among children.
Activities are concentrated around the following targets:
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