CYPSP representatives explore childrens services planning models with the Highland Council in Scotland – Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership (CYPSP)

Reflecting on the experiences of Highland Council in collaborative planning there were many common issues with CYPSP. There is a strong emphasis on outcomes, a commitment to collaborative working, a focussed shift to early intervention and a strong orientation to Early Years. The Highland Council, like CYPSP use the ‘Whole Child’ concept. The assessment model is known as the ‘My World Triangle’ with the three sides of the triangle known as my needs, my family’s needs and my need from the community I live in. There has been considerable investment in the interface between targeted early intervention and ‘children in need’ and Highland Council staff emphasised that evidence was clearly showing that increased early intervention investment was showing improvements in outcomes for majority of children. There was a lot of interest in CYPSP system of Locality Planning as this was identified as an area where Highland Council needed to do more work.