My Ministerial plan for Education and Young people I plan to deliver over the next four years.
To ensure all children and young people have the best education available to them, from early years through to adulthood.
To ensure Education is shaped around children, their needs and their human rights. Children and young people are listened to at every level of the Education system and where possible their views are taken into account and acted on.
To use the Council Of Ministers mission commitment to put schools at the heart of an inclusive community approach to innovate and establish the best leadership and partnership models for schools, which have children, their families and communities as their focus.
To continue to modernise and enrich the Jersey Curriculum to reflect the challenges of the modern-day world so that all children and young people are happy to learn and can go on to succeed and be the best that they can be, whatever their background or individual needs.
To offer evidence-based approaches that support families and children who need early help and support within an outward looking education and support system.
To provide new ways of including and supporting learners with particular needs, better supporting children and young people who are multi-lingual learners, further
To recruit more specialist staff to work with children to access the curriculum. We will also continue to develop our workforce to improve how we teach and support children and better target support where it is needed across inclusive schools.
To develop plans for legal reform of the Education Law to promote inclusion, autonomy of schools, and clear systems of governance and accountability, whilst continuing to promote inclusive communities and support for all children and families to access the highest quality education.
To Identify and implement a model of early years services that is child-centred, equitable, efficient, and affordable that can deliver very good outcomes for all children and families.
To engage with families to understand how parenting support services can be improved and better accessed, including designing, and piloting an integrated progress check at age 3 during 2022/3.
To review and deliver on the Capital programme, including the production of a roadmap or the re-development of schools in the Town area, and explore models of community integration for schools in Jersey.
To publish and deliver the next phase of delivery of the school meals programme to Government schools in Jersey.
To recognise that all children need regular and frequent access to green space and nature in order to flourish, and search for and act on opportunities to increase access to these wherever children and young people are accessing education
I aim to achieve the above goals by:
Implementing the Children and Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy 2022-25; Delivering improved Health and Wellbeing outcomes for children and young people.
Continuing to reduce CAMHS waiting times for ADHD neuro-developmental assessments. To maintain within target waiting times, post-Children and Family Hub triage, for initial assessments, therapy, and autism assessments.
Implement new data and recording systems to improve measurement, monitoring, and improvement to performance standards, towards an annual report from 2023.
Launching the Early Intervention Service, in September 2022, providing mental health support earlier, in the right environments including schools, and aligning and organising tier 2 support approaches.
Recruit to and launching our new Neuro-developmental Service in 2023.
Extending our Duty and Assessment Service in 2023 and providing an out of hours crisis support service for children, young people, and families.
Addressing and implementing forthcoming recommendations from the C&AG review report.
Continuing to update the CYPES estate ensuring disability accessibility and safeguarding requirements are addressed.
Improving our social care services for children and building on the Jersey Care Inquiry recommendations
Working across Government to deliver our Corporate Parenting responsibilities. This will mean Children in the Care of the Minister and Care leavers will be supported by the Government to thrive and prepare to move into adulthood.
Working with partners to improve continuity in care, early identification of need and better co-ordination of services.
Ensuring our services are safeguarding children and young people with targeted focus on the most vulnerable.
Delivering system change so that we better support and care for our children. This will include delivering programmes which aim to keep children safely with their families and where this is not possible to provide a loving home for them. Our promise will be to ensure we all thrive together.
Developing a Community Partnership Group, involving CYPES, Health & Community Services, Housing, States of Jersey Police, Customer and Local Services, the Parishes and Honorary Police. This would be a proportionate focussed evidence- based approach with partners to address issues of anti-social and offending behaviour.
Ensuring we have enough capacity to support our most vulnerable children and families, for those either in care or through preventative work. We will also continue to work with children and families to improve the quality of our services.
Delivering improvements in our Residential care services including developing and enhancing therapeutic support working closely with the range of services.
Delivering sustainable improvements within the Greenfields Secure Unit and develop long term strategic plans for the unit through engagement and participation with service users, the public and system partners.
Increasing support across Fostering and Adoption services to ensure our parents and carers are getting the right help when needed.
Working in partnership to deliver a range of services for Children and Young People.
Launching the new Integrated & Intensive Support service, which will provide targeted extra intensive support for young people to enable them to achieve and be safely cared for.in their families and as an alternative to care.
Developing relationships and support for multi-lingual young people in community-based provision.
Continuing to deliver on the Youth Service Improvement programme.
Delivering on the capital programme to provide young people with fit for purpose community-based provision in St Helier and Le Squez.
Establishing ways to meaningfully involve and engage children and young people in delivering improvements to services. We will do this by developing Participation Standards across CYPES and introducing accountability and governance structures.
Ensure all front facing CYPES services to children and young people are Rights Respecting.
Continuing to develop the work of the Youth Parliament and School Councils to ensure children and young people have an active voice in their schools, colleges and community.
Establishing a strong, engaged and valued workforce working on behalf of
children, young people and their families and ensure services are delivered
safely and effectively.
Addressing the acute recruitment challenges faced in nurseries, childcare settings, schools, Children’s Social Work, Residential Care and CAMHS. To develop bespoke campaigns and improve processes to attract future colleagues to work for our services.
Engaging with Early Years providers to understand and address the challenges of workforce pressures.
Address staff wellbeing by listening to the needs of the workforce, addressing day-to-day work challenges, for example workload, and providing opportunities for colleagues to grow with the organisation.
Ensuring robust governance, safeguarding and quality assurance frameworks are in place across CYPES and schools, ensuring children and young people are protected and service operate effectively.
Enhancing Jersey’s skills system to ensure it is responsive to the evolving needs of the economy and Islanders’ aspirations.
Continuing to build strong partnerships between Government, industry, and employers to ensure that local education and training fully prepares learners for the workplace.
Confirming an agreed approach to upgrading the teaching and learning facilities at Highlands College to ensure they mirror high-quality contemporary workplaces.
Ensuring Islanders of all ages can access training opportunities which support them to develop new and additional skills required by our changing economy.
Taking forward the actions recommended in the recent Further Education and Skills White Paper and proposed changes to Higher Education funding.
Working with Ministerial Colleagues and the People and Skills Ministerial Group to ensure skills policy and delivery is co-ordinated across Government.
Promoting individual and employer investment in lifelong learning by developing strong
and visible culture and raise awareness of the importance and benefits of lifelong
learning.
Education and Children Legislation amendments also needed to achieve the goals.
• Regulations for independent advocacy
• Amendment law Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2022
• Higher Education Order
• Education (Jersey) Law
• Day Care of Children (Jersey) Law
• Children and Civil Status (Amendment) Jersey Law 202