The Children, Young People and Families Plan 2015 to 2025 identifies 4 priority areas which the various partners that make up Wolverhampton Children's Trust must tackle over the next 10 years.
They include child poverty, health, family strength and finally education, training and employment.
It replaces the previous Wolverhampton Children, Young People's Plan, which was launched in 2011, and presents a mixture of short, medium and long term goals for partners to work towards.
The successes of its predecessor include driving forward the Families in Focus programme, which has seen more than 800 "troubled families" identified and given help and support to be turned around, cutting the number of young people not in education, employment or training, stabilising the number of children coming into care, reducing teenage pregnancy rates and improving educational attainment levels.
The new plan's chief aims include:
- improving the health, education, employment and living conditions of children and families living in poverty, including getting more parents into work
- increasing achievement and involvement in education, training and employment, including improving pupils' readiness for school, attendance, education provision and the delivery of the SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) reforms
- improving the resilience of families by increasing their skills, reducing neglect, domestic violence and substance misuse and supporting parents suffering from poor mental health
- improving the health of children, young people and families by ensuring that fewer children are obese, more children survive infancy, fewer parents have mental ill health and fewer children and young people misuse substances.
Councillor Val Gibson, Wolverhampton City Council's Cabinet Member for Children and Families, said: "The Children, Young People and Families Plan is a hugely important document as it sets out the steps that the council and its partners must take to help more children, young people and families in Wolverhampton live healthy, happy lives.
"We've seen some real successes over the last few years and this plan aims to build on those achievements as we set our targets even higher."
Around 170 people representing organisations across the city, including the council, emergency services, healthcare providers and charities, attended the launch of the Plan at Bilston Town Hall last week.
The Children's Trust comprises the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Wolverhampton City Council, Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group, Wolverhampton School Improvement Partnership Board, Black Country Partnership Foundation Trust, Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council, West Midlands Police, City of Wolverhampton College and Wolverhampton Safeguarding Children Board.
The Children's Trust Board will update partners regularly on progress, while the action plan will be reviewed on an annual basis.
- released: Tuesday 3 March, 2015