South East

RDM: Jean Watkins Email: jean.watkins@cfnf.org.uk

In the South East region there was little regional infrastructure to build upon, with both NCVCCO regional group and the South East Youth Partnership currently re-developing or being established. However, the generic regional VCS infrastructure organisation (RAISE) and Government Office for the South East (GOSE) have been very supportive and involved in all stages of VCS Engage. The steering group has been established but will continue to review its membership to ensure it is truly representative.

Mapping of the key contacts for the children, youth and families VCS in each Local Authority area can be found here [pdf 47kb].

Partnership meetings
Regional network meetings for VCS leads or representatives from local alliances and groups take place bi-monthly in order to share information and best practice and identify gaps where additional work may be needed.

Black and Minority Ethnic VCS
Mapping of the BME VCS has been carried out and can be found here: download

Further consultation about how best to support the needs of the BME VCS in engaging with the children’s agenda is ongoing.

Additional support
As in other regions, focused support is going to three areas, where Local Authorities will complete a Self Evaluation Tool (SET) to establish how effective their engagement with the VCS is, in order to develop an action plan for development. The areas involved are:

  • Wokingham
  • West Sussex
  • Hampshire

These authorities have been selected as they are already working effectively with the voluntary sector but are eager to further improve their engagement with them.

Good practice
Examples of good or emerging practice will be added to this section:

Hampshire [pdf 18kb]

Additional support to CVS’s

In January, the RDM will be providing additional support to a small number of CVS’s, to inform and help develop the skills of development workers to support the children, youth and family VCS more effectively. One of the aims of this work is for each district CVS to set up a CYP VCS alliance to support the sector in their district, which can feed into the wider county alliance.