Local and national priorities

In Cornwall we work closely with partners on the Local Area Agreement, the Children and Young People's Plan and on the health agenda, the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. We also contribute to Joint Area Review.

Nationally, the over-arching strategic agenda is Every Child Matters, which seeks to ensure that all those providing children's services in education, culture, health, social care and justice work together for the benefit of the child.

Through the Children's Plan, the government seeks to make England the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up. Healthy lives, brighter futures explains how the government will work in partnership with local authorities, primary care trusts and those working across children's health services to improve the quality of support for families at key stages in children's lives. In December 2009 this progress report on the Children's Plan was published: Children's Plan: two years on.

On the strategic health agenda, the obesity strategy, Healthy weight, healthy lives is the cross-governmental plan which details the ways that the government will support people to maintain a healthy weight, while Change4Life is the government's campaign described as a society-wide movement that aims to prevent people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat more healthily and take more exercise.

Also on the strategic health agenda is the Teenage pregnancy strategy. Much of our work in PSHE and SRE links into this, and many schools doing Healthy Schools Plus or enhancement projects contribute towards reducing teenage pregnancy.