CHILDREN and young people are certainly at the heart of South Gloucestershire Children's Fund. And, when the scheme finally finishes, its manager wants this ethos to live on. The Gazette's Kirsty Ramsden met Rachel Robinson, manager of the fund, to find out more.

MORE than 2,000 children and young people were consulted in South Gloucestershire prior to the launch of a scheme, which puts them firmly at its heart.

This consultation included giving a questionnaire to every year seven pupil in South Gloucestershire.

And now, as the fund becomes firmly established, the thoughts of the children and young people are its focus.

Nationally the children's fund schemes started in 2001 as part of Government policy around social exclusion and child poverty.

The scheme was rolled out in three waves and South Gloucestershire came on stream in 2003.

The fund is aimed at five to 13-year-olds, a group, which tends to fall outside the remit of other organisations, explained South Gloucestershire Children's Fund manager Rachel Robinson.

The scheme centres around health, education and crime and a main objective is to improve attainment and attendance at school.

Ms Robinson explained there was a huge agenda around crime - the prevention of youngsters becoming perpetrators and victims of crime.

When she began work on the scheme in 2002 her main role was to write the Children's Fund plan explaining how South Gloucestershire would use its grant allocation.

"We worked with 2,000 children and young people in South Gloucestershire to find out what is important to them," said Ms Robinson.

The consultation with youngsters uncovered three main desires.

"They wanted to play and to have the opportunity to have fun," explained Ms Robinson.

She added play was in its broadest terms - from five-year-olds at a playground to 13-year-olds having access to leisure facilities.

Bullying, she explained, was also a huge issue for every age group - both in and out of school.

The other issue to come from the consultation was youngsters wanting chance to talk to an adult when they needed to - when they had a issue they wanted to talk through with an adult.

As well as consultation, initial stages included needs-mapping of the area to identify where more help was required.

This focused the fund on Patchway, Staple Hill, Filton, Kingswood and Yate.

It also focuses on pockets of need within seemingly comparatively affluent areas.

The fund also focuses on particular groups such as the disabled, young carers and black and ethnic minorities.

And, in its first year, the fund did some work with travelling families.

As well as needs mapping, there was mapping of services currently being provided to avoid duplication.

The information was submitted to the Government office of the South West in 2002.

In early 2003 the scheme received full fund approval which equated to £460,000 to set up services.

Meanwhile between October and December 2002 the fund had invited those interested in running services in South Gloucestershire to come forward.

Ms Robinson revealed the fund received a lot of interest.

Indeed there were more than 50 expressions of interest, which resulted in more than 30 applications and of those the organisation was able to fund 23.

She explained there was a huge variety of projects and more than half were in the voluntary sector.

Quite a lot were linked with education, some wanted to provide after school activities and others were concerned with provision of play activities, she added.

"They all have in common supporting children and young people to develop," said Ms Robinson.

And, she added, they enabled youngsters to be much better able to deal with whatever life threw at them.

The schemes, she said, were about building up resilience and self-esteem.

Some of the projects include elements of training for the adults involved.

Funding for the South Gloucestershire scheme runs from 2003 to 2006.

However there is now further cash available which could take the fund to 2008.

The fund is in the process of writing a further strategy for 2005 to 2008 in a bid for extra funding.

It should hear if the further bid has been successful at the end of January.

The fund is managed by a multi-agency partnership and involves the voluntary and community sectors as well as statutory players such as the youth service and education authority.

Ms Robinson described this as an "exciting way of working".

She believes the fund's projects are making a huge difference.

"You see it in so many different ways," she said.

Several weeks ago the Gazette highlighted the success of the Dads In Yate project which is a South Gloucestershire Children's Fund-backed scheme.

Dads In Yate was launched to support fathers in developing positive relationships with their children, which would then be reflected in their children's social and educational development.

Indeed, explained Ms Robinson, the fund was not just for children and young people but also for their parents and carers.

As well as playing a vital role in the consultation stages, children have also been involved in further aspects of the projects even, in some cases, their delivery, said Ms Robinson.

"Their ideas are listened to," she added.

And, she said, she hoped a lasting ethos from the scheme, when funding finally finishes, would be that children's views continued to be sort.