Walsall Children and Young People Strategic Alliance

Our Way of Working Pledge – ‘Putting Children First’

We have committed to one common moral purpose to create and maintain a strategic alliance which will regularly consider how the lived experience of children and young people in Walsall can be improved.

We are committed to working together driven by following guiding principles:

  • We will create a safe, creative space that is unique to all other partnership boards
  • We will put the needs of the individual child and family above that of organisational needs and processes
  • Our work is strategic and not operational – we will apply a system wide approach to our thinking and doing
  • Our work is guided by understanding the lived experience of our children, young people and their families.  We will listen and consider where we can take action.
  • Our work is framed by mutual trust, respect and care 
  • We will work with openness and willingness to change for the better 
  • We will keep each other true to our agreed common moral purpose 
  • We will act as a collective power -  work collaboratively to identify solutions, eliminate duplication of effort, mitigate risk and maximise our collective capacity 
  • We will Communicate with each other and all relevant staff in a clear, direct and timely manner to enable each partner to make effective decisions to achieve the alliance objectives
  • We will act as champion for children bringing their voice and needs into the Alliance and taking greater understanding of children need through the alliance back into individual organisations and partnership boards

How we will do it:

  • Partners working together and effectively towards understanding the needs of our families and communities
  • The voices of children and young people will drive our strategic thinking and doing
  • Aiming for our children, their families and communities to thrive not just cope
  • Focus on the lived experience of children, parents and communities
  • Live with some of the complexity and create a safe place to take risks and just do ‘good stuff’
  • Talk honestly about expectations with each other, chidlren and families
  • Once we decide on an action we all support it
  • Support each other to maximise our capacity and quality to achieve the best balance of support prevision for our children and young people
  • Any problem for children is a collective problem
  • Transcend people and personalities to archive a culture of ‘This is how we work round here’

The Alliance will provide an opportunity to develop a good understanding of the needs of children and young people in Walsall and system wide change which needs to take place to enable improved outcomes.  

As well as using this information to enable our own organisation change it will enable us to influence change for children and young people in other strategic spaces.

As a partnership we agreed to focus on making the right connections and maximising opportunities rather than focus on formal governance arrangements.  

In order to do this we will be joining the dots to ensure we maximise opportunities to advocate and influence the right issues/topics in the right place.