Fourth Voluntary Sector Early Help Summit

Macc and Manchester City Council are facilitating a range of meetings with the Voluntary Sector to improve the way they collaborate to provide early help to children and families in the city.

This work programme developed due to a range of issues:
• The recent Ofsted Inspection - which found that Manchester’s Children’s Services and Safeguarding Children’s Board were inadequate and highlighted the need to strengthen the work around Early Help in the city
• The current social and economic context - the recession, public spending cuts, voluntary sector cuts and long-standing issues of social and economic deprivation in local communities
• The reduction in real wages and welfare benefits and the increasing use of sanctions impacting the communities that the volutnary sector work with
• Public sector and voluntary sector workers are all overstretched trying to tackle increasing demand and need to come together with children, young people and families, to think differently

Fundamentally, there is overwhelming evidence that the effects of austerity measures, including the welfare reforms, have increased the challenges that all agencies face in providing services to provide positive activities, fun and play, increase wellbeing and resilience, create strong communities and keep vulnerable children and families safe.
 

Find out about the last summit  event here

The event is for members of Manchester's Voluntary and Community Sector

The next event will be an important opportunity to shape the development of the new approach to Early Help in the City

including:

• Reviewing the Threshold of Need framework and Early Help Strategy - sense testing it from a voluntary sector perspective
• Exploring  the idea of Local Early Help Hubs
• Looking at the impact of budget cuts on the VCS Early Help Offer.