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national observation authority. British colleagues presented the activities of the Children’s
Funds in Great Britain. The establishment of local Children’s Funds in British cities and
districts constitutes a programmatic element of the national agenda “Every Child Matters”.
The main points of discussion focussed on three levels:
1. Transversal strategies on a national level – How will it be possible to institutionalise
and implement a transversal perspective at the top level of political decisionmaking?
2. Governance structures on a local level – How can local authorities implement
transversal strategies? Which actors will cooperate with one another (state, social
and private sectors) and how will this cooperation be achieved? In which
institutional context will the projects and services offered be embedded? How will
these projects and services be developed and assigned?
3. Which of these planned concepts will be well received by children and youths and
what effects can be achieved?
Similarities
The political fields on which the programmes and individual programme elements are
based are largely similar in all countries presented: integration, security, health and
employment.
It should be underlined that in all three countries the main emphasis is on education
programmes.
The programmes presented have all been initiated centrally and at national level.
A particular common characteristic to be underlined is that in all three countries there is
or has been inter-ministerial cooperation in the development of the programmes.
A transversal perspective is also anchored at local levels in all three countries; the aim is
therefore cooperation between the appropriate state and social actors – youth welfare
offices, independent bodies, educational institutions, encouragement of employment,
police and health institutions.
All three programmes presented have a common social environmental orientation,
although it became clear that this principle did not lead to the desired results in the case of
target groups characterised by vagrancy (Sinti, Roma and travellers).
In all three cases, an integrated perspective targeting children and youths was
highlighted which is already expressed in the above-mentioned principle of social
environmental orientation; here the children’s complete social environment in which the
problems originate is taken into account in the efforts to solve these problems.
Finally, it can be attested that all approaches presented are strongly resource-orientated.
All programmes are based on the encouragement and mobilisation of already existing
structural and individual resources in disadvantaged urban districts and regions.
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