Martin Reeves, Colin Green, Steve Stewart, Mike Attwood and Dawn Ford were amongst the key figures at the annual Partnership Day held by the Children & Young People's Strategic Partnership on 26 March 2010. Coventry's performance is getting a better quality of life for its children and young people is strong in many areas, but there remain some areas where the city is falling well short of the targets set by the government. Teenage pregnancy is one of the biggest worries - Coventry's rates continues to rise compared to falls across the rest of the West Midlands. The rate for 15-17s is 50% over the national average, over half of the 359 such pregnancies in 2008 led to terminations. Other health-related hotspots include low breast-feeding rates and low chlamydia screening rates.

Care leavers are a major worry, with GCSE rates well below target and a much higher proportion of care leavers not in education, employment and training ("NEETs") at age 19.

Continuing to reduce all NEETs by re-engaging them in education, employment and training has achieved some successes but the Government's targets require yet more progress. VAC will be organising a networking event in early summer on this issue as part of our Children & Young People - Voluntary Sector Network (CYP-VSN): e-mail Rob Allison at r.allison@vacoventry.org.uk to join the e-mail list for this.