States have chance to make sure kids really are all right
IT HAS some laudable and far-reaching goals. If approved and fully followed through it will end up costing more than £2.5m. every year and improve the health and well-being of some 13,000 people in the island who at the moment have a limited voice.
IT HAS some laudable and far-reaching goals. If approved and fully followed through it will end up costing more than £2.5m. every year and improve the health and well-being of some 13,000 people in the island who at the moment have a limited voice.
Yet it has barely managed to raise a whimper of interest since it was published six weeks ago as the marathon that was the States Strategic Plan debate dominated the political landscape.
Tomorrow, if all goes to schedule, the snappily titled Children & Young People's Operational Plan 2011 to 2013 will be debated and approved.
Leaving aside the opportunities for cringe-inducing cliches and the patronising air that inevitably arises every time the States talks about young people, it aims to plot a course and set targets towards making their lives better.
In the report's foreword, Health and Social Services minister Hunter Adam said there was a commitment to giving every child and young person in Guernsey and Alderney the best possible start in life.
'Helping our children to realise their potential is the key to giving them a sense of self-fulfilment and equipping them well for their future,' he said.
The plan is a legal requirement of the 2008 Children's Law.
'All of the services that support children, families and young people, play a vital part in unlocking the potential of the next generation.'
Deputy Adam said that the three-year plan builds on success.
'It builds on a model of increasingly collaborative services. The aim is that front-line service delivery will become better integrated, which will result in improved services for our more vulnerable children and families.'
It is the first time that the different bodies regularly dealing with young people have come together to create a plan about things they will do for children and families.
Steeped in grey civil service speak, and even greyer diagrams, you might be forgiven for asking if the people it is aimed at will ever find it accessible enough to contribute themselves.
But that is common to all States reports - they are like a world apart.
Dissect its pages further and laid bare are 14 priorities to be achieved between 2011 and 2013.
These include improving the physical health of all children, protecting them from abuse, making sure their views are considered in decisions about themselves and supporting them to help overcome inequalities.
Targets are set for each of these priorities, but typically of the States they shy away from putting hard and fast numbers in place.
So when you look at how the success of improving physical health is measured, it talks of increasing the breastfeeding rate, decreasing the smoking in pregnancy rates and increasing healthy eating - but not a percentage in sight.
Indeed you have to hunt elsewhere to find the current figures, if you can get access to them at all.
An annual report to the Policy Council's Social Policy Group will update the progress made.
This will be published on the States website and the Children's Law website for the public to analyse.
While the costs appear pretty minimal for its first three years, much of the funding is already in place or it is building on work already under way, there are hints that more money may be necessary for the 2014 to 2017 plan.
'For the next plan the Children and Young People Plan Group will know more about the needs and hopes of children in Guernsey and Alderney,' the report said.
'The group will also know more about the services that are required and about what can and cannot be done with the resources that are available now.
'This careful planning will ensure that these existing resources are fully utilised, but also identify where further funding may be necessary.'
The lack of hard and fast targets aside for the plan's first three years, there are some wide-ranging challenges included within the more mundane reviews and fact-finding tasks.
They include reducing the number of reported eating disorders, reducing how many children attend casualty because of accidents and increasing the number of young people volunteering.
