West Midlands
VCS Engage in the West Midlands is working through and steered
by the Growing up in the
West Midlands partnership (G:up) which was previously funded
through Change Up and Capacity Builders.
G:up has developed a range of resources and methodologies to
support development in the VCS, and specific information on these
can be found on the G:up
website.
The steering group are now moving to formalise the G:up
partnership through forming an Alliance involving a wide range of
VCS organisations, supported by a five year business plan.
They have also strengthened the relationships with the statutory
sector, especially the Government Office for the West Midlands
(GOWM) where the RDM represents the VCS during the two day stock
take meeting to review children and young people’s services for
each local authority.
Mapping of the key contacts for the children,
youth and families VCS in each Local Authority area can be found
here [pdf
21kb].
More information about Children’s Trusts and other locality
information can be found on the G:up
website.
Regional meetings
G:up host regular events for their wide membership. Local
infrastructure organisations are meeting as an extension of the
Momentum programme on 23rd January and 3rd March. In addition,
VCS Children’s Trust representatives are meeting on 10th January
and 13th March.
They also have developed a learning cluster in the region for
VCS staff working with vulnerable children and young people, which
focuses on practice developments and organisational collaboration.
The next meeting is on 31st January.
Details of all events can be found on the G:up
website.
Black and Minority Ethnic VCS
Past research looked at how G:up and other future regional work can
meet the needs of the diversity of the sector, and how to improve
access to information, support and engagement. Further work is
planned. The report can be found on the G:up website here.
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.
Worcestershire, Birmingham and Stoke on Trent have been chosen
because these authorities reflect something of the diversity of the
region. In addition, it was considered that further support to
Local Authorities that are already working with an established
local specialist infrastructure would mean that work could be
delivered quickly and is more likely to be sustained beyond the
life of the programme.
Good practice
Examples of good or emerging
practice will be added to this section:
Additional support to local generic
infrastructure
Through local training events, the RDM has brought together
specialist children and young people’s (CYP) infrastructure with
generic infrastructure, encouraging the sharing of learning about
the needs of the CYP VCS.