Lesson 4 - Lesson objective To understand that health authorities and local authorities assess the care needs of the local populations in order to identify the services that will be needed. Success criteria - Build – you will discuss how and why services are developed and how policies are written up to meet the needs of local communities. Apply – you will work in your groups and analyse and write up notes surrounding the influences on the services in your local area. Secure – what have you found out? What priorities did your local authority need to make and why? Group presentation on the research you have found out from the data given.

What is a health care or educational policy? A policy is written up to help deal with social issues A policy deals with the needs and issues affecting the users of services, including poverty, old age, health, disability, and family policy.

Why are services developed? Key words – aims – policy- approach- goals – poverty - targets Services will not be appropriate if they do not meet the needs of the local people. Before making decisions about the services there is discussion between different members of the government. The government group make their decisions and then use these to form a policy that will guide them when they make other decisions. A policy will often provide ‘broad ideas’.

What goals do policies set? Key words – policy gateway- extended – seamless- holistic- personalized – integrated – former One of the government’s goals is to help reduce child poverty. They have provided help through Child Tax Credit schemes, after-school clubs and helping to pay for child care for low-paid, lone parents. An example is the ‘Every Child Matters’ policy. This has identified how young children and young people cannot learn unless they feel safe and healthy. Five outcomes are the focus of this policy. They are: Stay healthy Stay safe Enjoy and achieve Make positive contributions Achieve economic and social well-being Task 1 – write down this information as you will research this further if you are completing research on children’s day centres and nursery education.

Key words – policy gateway- extended – seamless- holistic- personalized – integrated – former ‘ Sure start children’s centres’ are to be available in every area by 2010 Centres open and provide seamless, holistic and personalized, integrated services for children under five years and their families. A second aim is to put in place ‘full-service Extended Schools and Extended Schools’. The former will have key professional health workers, psychologists and youth workers All of these provisions have come about because of a government policy. They all relate to early provisions for young children and people. Task 1 – write down this information as you will research this further if you are completing research on children’s day centres and nursery education.

What other polices are there? Other policies of the government are to reduce homelessness and drug misuse. To do this they set policy goals – targets they want to meet by a certain time. Once a policy has been made, consideration is given to the services that will be needed to make the policy successful. For example where drug misuse is the problem the policy needs to think about: Who will want to use the services? What type of services will be needed? Which type of health care workers will be required to run the services? Where in the country will the services be most needed? Task 2 – all need to write down this information as you will use this as a guide.

Task 3 – research policies for the local area In your groups using the information sheets - you now need to research what priorities your local authority needs to focus on, to meet the needs, of many groups in the local community. Look at the local authority plans and council tax information leaflets and annual reports. But together a presentation of your research.

AfL When you do this for real during your coursework you will be assessed as follows: If you have contributed a little to the team effort – 1-2-3 marks If you have made some effort to contribute to the team effort – 4-5-6- marks If you have made a significant contribution to the team effort 7-8 marks