Children and Young People's Plan and Needs Assessment

The Children and Young People's Plan sets out a picture of how we can ensure our youngest residents have the best possible outcomes in life. It is a guide for statutory, community and voluntary service providers to help them ensure they match local needs and offer the best advantages when planning the work they do with children and young people up to the age of 19, and up to the age of 25 for care leavers and young people with learning disabilities.

The plan is currently under final review and will be published here in Autumn 2023.

The themes within the plan

This plan encompasses themes that were identified from the Richmond Childrens and Young People’s Needs Assessment 2021. These themes include:

• Health and wellbeing: Mental health, substance misuse, popularity/fitting in, school/college pressure
• Climate and Transport: Protecting the environment, pollution, traffic congestion, saving energy, green travel
• Special Education Needs and Disabilities
• Safety: Feeling unsafe, crime, sexual harassment, safe travel, travelling at night
• Education and skills
• Families, Social and Cost of Living

How the plan was developed

In April 2022 a project team comprising of internal officers and external partners met to update the CYPP having received a clear steer from the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Chair of the Education Children’s Services Committee (ECSC) – they jointly agreed that the CYPP should be:

• Co-produced with children and young people (employing co-production methods and approaches where possible and appropriate);
• Take into consideration previous formal consultation and engagement exercises and activities to date, conducted by both the Council and partner organisations; and
• Take into consideration the relevant existing strategies and plans that Council services and partner organisations already have in place and/or are planning revisions

In July 2022 a Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) was formed comprising of officers from the Partnerships Team, Community Safety, Public Health, Culture, Achieving for Children and Richmond Community and Voluntary Sector. The SAG aimed to gain partner buy-in and contribution throughout the process, as well as assist with consultation and communications within and across local networks.

Referring to local intelligence

The content of this plan has been partially informed by reviewing consultation work dating back to 2019 to determine what children, young people and families have told us about their priorities for Richmond.  A total of 13 consultations, comprising of 19,263 respondents were reviewed.  A summary of activity and findings can be found below. The ages consulted range from 7 to 25 years old, with participants being compiled from primary, secondary, special schools, colleges, home education, adult education facilities, and those participating in programmes and doing voluntary work.

Consultation with children and young people

Engagement activity was led by the Richmond Community Engagement Team and the Richmond and Kingston Youth Council supported by Achieving for Children (AfC).  The information gleaned from the consultation above was explored further with engagement exercises undertaken by the Community Engagement Team from mid-July to mid-October 2022. The Team visited youth centres, community projects/groups and pupil referral units, engaging with 181 people. The key purpose of the engagement was to establish the ‘chances’ (good things) and ‘challenges’ of living in Richmond Borough. This was then developed into a board game to act as a discussion point for children and young people about what a ‘good life’ in the Borough of Richmond would look like.

The engagement activities culminated with a youth community event, which provided the opportunity to showcase the work done by the Community Engagement Team to reach underrepresented groups. The event allowed participants who were part of the original engagement activities to see how their feedback was captured and used to inform the priority areas. The children had the opportunity to test out the game board used to capture the insights, especially from those who find it difficult to participate in dialogue in a group setting or through surveys. It also allowed children and young people to ask questions of Council officers and members.

Read the Children and Young People's Plan consultation summary.

Further information

For further information on the Children and Young People’s Plan please contact partnerships@richmond.gov.uk.