Youth Offending Teams will involve partnership between LEAs, social services, the police, probation services and health authorities. The Department of Health is pushing through improvements to children's services through the Quality Protects initiative - a key objective of which is to improve educational outcomes for children in public care. Our Healthier Nation includes provision for health visitors to deliver child health programmes and offer advice on parenting. In addition the DfEE is funding a telephone advice line at the Advisory Centre for Education for parents having difficulty managing their children's behaviour and the Home Office is supporting the new National Family and Parenting Institute. The Crime and Disorder Act makes provision for parenting orders on parents neglecting their duties.
Parents have a vital role.
That is why we have required schools from this term to invite parents to sign a home-school agreement. There is now enough evidence to show that we can beat exclusions and truancy. Some schools are achieving much lower levels than other comparable schools. Good support is vital. But in the end cutting truancy and exclusion at local levels needs local partnership of schools, authorities, parents and support agencies.