Bracknell Forest Partnership

Associated Groups

Working groups

 

The BFP Board has agreed the establishment of two working groups to support its work.

 

The Communications Working Group meets quarterly. Effective communications are critical to the success of any initiative, particularly ones that seek to strategically integrate the delivery of services to improve the well-being of communities. Communications for BFP are managed by the BFP Communications Working Group, which includes communications professionals from each of the major partners. The group has a Communications Strategy and Action Plan to support the Sustainable Community Strategy and the associated work of Bracknell Forest Partnership and the Theme Partnerships.

 

The Community Cohesion and Engagement Working Group also meets quarterly. There is a need to undertake co-ordinated consultation and community involvement for the Partnership. This work programme is developed and delivered by the Community Cohesion and Engagement Working Group. During 2008/09 this group developed and published a new partnership-based Community Engagement Strategy. In March 2012, the group produced a Community Engagement Protocol and Toolkit.

 

The Community Engagement Toolkit provides best practice guidance on engaging communities in Bracknell Forest and gives practical information for practitioners of community engagement work. The Community Engagement Protocol, which forms part of the Toolkit, sets out principles of good community engement to which Bracknell Forest Partnership is committed.

 

The Toolkit is based around the community engagement processes of informing, consulting, involving, and developing communities. It sets out the core skills used in community engagement work such as planning, facilitation and commuunication and its principles. The Toolkit is for use by member organisations of Bracknell Forest Partnership and the staff who work for them. It is divided into sections for ease of use. 

 

CET - Protocol and overview

CET - Section 1 Getting started

CET - Section 2 Designing and planning an effective engagement activity

CET - Section 3 Capturing peoples views and action planning

CET - Section 4 Evaluation and feedback

CET - Section 5 Influencing decision makers

CET - Section 6 Community development

CET - Section 7 Who can help me

 

Associated bodies

 

A further two associated bodies exist to help with the delivery of the BFP agenda.

 

The Infrastructure Reference Group (IRG) exists to take forward the effective planning and delivery of future infrastructure needs in the Borough.  Consideration of the best methods of engagement with the bodies involved in infrastructure provision has led to the conclusion that a Theme Partnership is not be the best format for this.  The wide range of bodies involved and the potentially relatively narrow areas of their interest in Bracknell Forest would make regular partnership meetings unwieldy and would not be an attractive proposition for busy professionals to attend. Instead the IRG is a network consisting of a large group of organisations with an interest in infrastructure provision.  In addition to infrastructure providers it includes relevant user and regulatory groups such as the Environment Agency. The group does not have regular scheduled meetings as a body, rather it arranges events or discussions as they are required and tailored to the needs of the various organisations. This might include an infrastructure conference to which all member organisations are invited, meetings on specific topics such as water supply or sewerage treatment as necessary or consultation by e-mail where this is sufficient.

 

The Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) has responsibility for working together to oversee the safety and well-being of children and young people in Bracknell Forest. The LSCB is made up of representatives from a range of services that work with children and young people, or with their parents/carers. These partners include the Council (Children’s and Adults Services), Thames Valley Police, Probation, Health Services, Schools, Bracknell Forest Voluntary Action and Broadmoor Hospital. The LSCB’s responsibilities are broad. Some of the things they consider include developing Child Protection Procedures, accident prevention, reducing A&E admissions, reducing bullying, monitoring child protection concerns, reviewing child deaths and other serious cases (to learn from what goes wrong and how to try and prevent difficulties arising in the future) and producing information for parents/carers and children/young people.  The LSCB sits outside the formal BFP structure as it must be independent to scrutinise and challenge, and guidance says that it must not be subordinate to or subsumed in another partnership.