CYSCP

The City of York Safeguarding Children Partnership (CYSCP) Business Plan sets out the strategic priorities that the partnership has identified for 2024 to 2025. This plan is underpinned by the Children and Young People’s Plan which provides a city-wide strategic framework for all partners on how we work together with children, young people, families and communities. At its heart the vision of the plan is that:

All Children and Young People get the best start in life, are happy and healthy and develop the skills and relationships they need to thrive into adulthood.

Since the inception of the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASA) in 2019, the CYSCP is the strategic partnership which is responsible for safeguarding children within the city of York. The CYSCP statutory partners along with other relevant agencies work together locally, to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children (Working Together 2023).

The CYSCP Executive is the strategic leadership group that sets the strategic direction for the CYSCP in line with national, regional and local objectives and priorities and to ensure that this correlates with the strategic direction and plans of partners. The Executive also maintains and develops links with all current and potential partnerships/boards who co-ordinate safeguarding activities, supports partners as system leaders as well as holding them to account. The CYSCP Executive is also responsible for implementing local and national learning, including from serious child safeguarding incidents (Working Together 2023).

The CYSCP believes in the need for continual improvement and strives towards making a positive difference for children within the city of York.

CYSCP Vision, Values and Principles

The CYSCP has a vision at it’s core which is underpinned by its values and principles; these set out how the 3 statutory safeguarding partners works together with relevant agencies. The overarching vision for the CYSCP is:

For all the children of York to grow up in safety and to always feel safe

Values

Our values are:

• safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Children are safeguarded by a whole system, agencies, stakeholders, families and communities
• the voice and lived experience of children and families is at the centre of everything that we do

Principles

Our principles are:

• empowerment - we'll support, respect and empower families to make their own informed decisions
• learning - we're a partnership that reflects, learns and are committed to continuous improvement
• prevention - we're committed to early help and early support, preventing harm from occurring
• relational practice - we'll work in a strength-based way, in collaboration with families and with each other, to achieve the best possible outcomes for children and young people

Priorities

The business plan sets out the strategic priorities for 2024 to 2025 that the partnership has identified through a stakeholder development session, feedback, research, and priorities identified within the CYSCP subgroups. The Executive has agreed to focus on the 5 priority areas:

1. prevention: early support and early help
2. child exploitation
3. children missing from education and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
4. working with fathers and male carers
5. mental health and wellbeing

The Business Plan will be updated annually to respond to local and national requirements and emerging themes identified through a process of learning and continuous improvement, with the detail being set out in the specific work plans of the partnership’s sub-groups and progress will be reported to the Executive and through the Annual Report.