‘Halton Together Panel’

 

Themed meeting – Life Chances & Employment

 

Friday 11th June 2004

At Sefton House, Runcorn

 

Present

A Bowen – North West Division Girlguiding, Andy Guile – Halton YMCA, Glenice Bagley – Halton Carers Umbrella Group, Norman Paul Lloyd – Streets Ahead, Sharon Petersen – Halton Happy Hearts, Susan Ellison – Centre 8 Drama Group

 

In Attendance

D East – HVA,  K Marcroft – LSP, Matt Atherton – LSP, Mike Bellairs – Halton Learning Partnership

 

General background

 

Karen Marcroft did not repeat the general background as this had been done in the W&E meeting.

 

Life Chances and Employment

 

The overall aim is to enhance personal development, training and employment opportunities and overall life chances of people in the area.  Also encouraging everyone to reach their full potential in both their personal and working lives.

 

Good education, work skills and early development are closely linked to good health and success in employment.

 

The key objectives of life chances and employment can be found in the Community Strategy for Halton document which was submitted to the group.

 

The SSP for Life Chances and Employment has commissioned project for all the age groups in Halton.  Most of the projects build on successful initiatives operating in the Borough and others are implementing new ideas which have strong links to the national plans.

 

Questions

 

w         Not seen anything about children excluded from school.  It was explained that there are a number of projects at present that are currently looking at this problem.

 

w         Disability had not been mentioned.  There are a number of sports related projects for the disabled.  When they look at projects they do make sure that they can accommodate all sorts of disabilities eg. hearing, sight, wheelchairs and those with learning difficulties.  They also have contacts who make sure that these measures are in place.

 

w         How do they deal with past offenders from the Magistrates Court or prison when their life chances are not good (if they can’t get a job they might turn back to drugs and crime)?  These people are within their groups.  An example of this is a task group which are engaging employers.  The Health Service client group includes past offenders and drug users.  They have to declare any record they may have on their application forms.  The key wasn’t that these people were excluded but they would help them to progress by getting them into training and then into employment.

 

w         Job creation is alright in its description but when you get on a scheme lasting for 26 weeks the people who go on these schemes need to know that there is something at the end of it.  Mike said they need to make sure that there is an initiative to take this up and putting packages together to find something that suits everyone.

 

w         Looked at the Action Plan and struggled to find any links to the statutory youth service or voluntary youth service.  Mike explained that there was a project from the youth organisation called VYON which was supposed to do the communications between all the providers.  Mike is hoping that Connexions will now take the lead role in this.