Friday 11 October 2013

Surrey & Sussex?


This has been another really interesting, indeed exciting week. It began well with a meeting with Woking Borough Council’s Economic Development Manager about running our workshops for the borough’s  young people about How To get into self-employment/set up in business. Very positive discussion and great offer coming up for Woking’s young people – “Start-up Woking”.

This was followed by briefly attending the superb Careers Opportunities Fair at Epsom Racecourse prior to joining the Surrey CC 14-19 Workshop in the afternoon  about the changes under the Children and Families Bill to provision for those with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The concern is that the number of children and young people with autism is increasing rapidly – from 10,000 in 2009 to 11,300 in 2033, and since the cost of care for these young people (up to age 25) is substantial , this is a huge growth pressure against declining budgets.

This theme was continued at a workshop in Worthing (West Sussex) at which I was talking to about 15 disability groups about consortia working. Again the move to personalised budgets being held by families of c &yp with disabilities was the key theme. This was my first real exposure to West Sussex Council for Voluntary Youth Services (WSCVYS) members , of whom there are 80 in all – a bit like Surrey Youth Focus, and to whom we are offering free membership with us as WSCVYS is closing this week finally. All this is by prior arrangement so that the legacy of WSCVYS could be preserved, as we have been working closely together for some years, and have a Memorandum of Understanding about collaborative working.

SO on Monday we will be writing out to WSCVYS members offering free membership of Surrey Youth Focus (paid for by WSCVYS legacy funding) enabling them to access all our services if they wish, and with me running networking and consortium building workshops for them, and meeting up with West Sussex CC commissioners – also paid fro out of WSCVYS legacy funding. We genuinely do not know how this will be received ..as I have lived in West Sussex for 40 years I know that the two counties are very different…..so we are just tip-toing forward for now, but a Surrey – (West) Sussex link would be very exciting in the long run.

Interviewing next week to appoint a Workforce development and HR adviser…one of the big issues in SEND/SE7 /personalisation is about training personal assistants (carers) for families of disabled children and young people.

Press launch of CommUniLAB on Monday with Barclays Bank. Then interviewing on Wed to appoint a Workforce development and HR adviser…one of the big issues in SEND/SE7 /personalisation is about training personal assistants(carers) for families of disabled children and young people, and on we go….to Celebration of Youth on Saturday 19 Oct at 12.30 at Surrey Uni.  Free. All welcome….and it will be brilliant!

Out all day this Saturday at a conference at Sussex Uni. Walk on Sussex Downs on Sunday followed by pub lunch with friends to celebrate a birthday..all go!!
    Mike

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