Child friendly plan puts children at the heart of strategy for Leeds

Children from primary schools in Leeds have helped launch a new interactive version of the Leeds Children and Young People’s Plan 2015-2019.

Senior figures from Leeds City Council shared the new children’s version of the plan, with pupils at Castleton Primary School at an event earlier today.

The plan sets out how Leeds City Council and partners will put children and young people at the heart of the city’s growth strategy and realise its ambition to make Leeds the best city for children and young people to grow up in.

The council has produced a special child friendly version of the plan, using ideas and feedback from pupils from a number of primary and secondary schools in the city. The interactive plan, which includes puzzles, word searches and pictures to colour in, will be distributed around the city through primary schools, libraries, shopping centres and GP surgeries.

The overall aim of the plan is to help make things better for children and young people in Leeds and it sets out how all the people and organisations that live and work in Leeds are working together to make this happen, including: the council, the police, schools, volunteers, people who work in job centres, social workers who help keep children and young people safe, doctors and others who work in hospitals or medical centres, and many others including Leeds Rugby Foundation.

The plan sets out to make sure children and young people:

• are safe;

• do well in learning;

• are healthy;

• have fun;

• feel listened to and; feel that what they say matters.

  The plan also highlights what the council and its partners agree are the most important things for children and young people in Leeds, which are:

  to safely and appropriately reduce the number of children looked after;

• reducing the number of young people not in education, employment and training, and;
• improving school attendance.

Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, executive member for children and families said:

“Our ambition is to make Leeds a child friendly city and listening to our children and young people and taking account of their views is a big part of our work to achieve this.

“This version of the city’s Children and Young People’s Plan has been designed in consultation with pupils from primary and secondary schools to make sure that it is appealing to them. It’s also a really good way for us to share our vision directly with children and to raise their awareness of what we are doing to make Leeds the best city for them to live and grow up in.

“Children and young people are the future of our city, which is why we have put them at the heart of the growth strategy. We want Leeds to be a compassionate city with a strong economy, and it is really important that all our children and young people are supported to achieve their full potentials.”

Leeds is the only core city to have its children’s services rated as ‘Good’ overall with ‘Outstanding’ leadership, management and governance by Ofsted. Since the inspection, more than one third of all local authorities have visited Leeds to find out more about this successful journey of improvement. Leeds is now one of just three local authorities chosen by the Department for Education’s ‘improvement framework’, and has begun working with other local authorities to support their own journeys to better outcomes. In December 2015, the government acknowledged Leeds as an ‘exemplar’ children’s services, and has indicated it is keen for Leeds to work with more local authorities as a ‘partner in practice’.

The full Children and Young People’s Plan 2015 to 2019 can be found here: http://www.leeds.gov.uk/docs/CYPP.pdf