VCS Engage is a 3m Government funded initiative led by the National Children's Bureau in partnership with a consortium of national voluntary sector organisations. The programme has a regional structure based around the nine Government regions.
Chair of VCS Engage, Sally Whitaker, who is also deputy chief executive of the NCB, said, 'The overall aim of the programme is to strengthen the engagement of the voluntary and community sector to deliver services for children and young people within Every Child Matters.' It hopes to increase involvement with 'smaller, local agencies who could feel within the structure of children's trusts and the new ECM framework that they might be losing out', she said, and to link 'bigger national charities working with smaller providers'.
Work has already started on the 18-month programme, which runs to March 2008, on issues such as a mapping baseline study of engaging the VCS through children and young people's plans and developing a protocol for local authorities to evaluate how good they are at working with the VCS.
The Social Enterprise Coalition and the Family and Parenting Institute are due to publish research on the role of social enterprises in delivering services for children and young people.
Ms Whitaker said that VCS Engage was 'a way for children's trusts, PCTs or schools to understand the value of the voluntary sector. We also see it as a way of building the confidence and capacity of the voluntary sector to respond to commissioning.'
The website will be a tool for resources and examples of good practice. For more information visit www.vcsengage.org.uk.
