Facts & figures about Herefordshire

Children and young people

More detailed topic pages about children and young people are available, which act as electronic updates of data included in the State of Herefordshire Report, the relevant chapter of which can be downloaded from the resource box below.

Research carried out with children and young people can be found on the CYP research page.

The Children and Young People's Directorate produce a quarterly and annual performance digest, which provides further detail on some of the topics contained below with a specific focus on service delivery. These digests can be accessed from the CYPD Performance Digest page.

For general enquiries, please see the Herefordshire Council's children, young people and families pages.

Key findings as identified in the 2011 State of Herefordshire Report and Joint Strategic Needs Assessment:

Strength

• Generally lower teenage pregnancy rates
• Stability of placements for looked after children in Herefordshire is good
• Increases in proportions of pupils volunteering
• The picture of offending in young people is good.  Large decreases seen in numbers of first time entrants to the Youth Justice system and decreases in reoffending of those already in the Youth Justice System

Weakness

• Dental health of children in the county is poor by regional and national standards: 2 in every 5 children have some experience of tooth decay by the age of 5 years and more than 2 in every 5 have experienced decay in one of their permanent teeth by the age of 12 years.
•  Decreasing proportions of mothers breastfeeding
• Large gap between academic achievement of all pupils and other identifiable groups of vulnerable children, including those with identified special educational needs, those receiving Free School Meals and pupils from minority ethnic groups, notably Gypsy and Roma Traveller children.
• Absenteeism rates - primary, secondary, Looked After Children primary
• Rates of alcohol-related hospital admissions continue to rise, which are of particular concern amongst young people, and those in the most deprived areas; admission rates due to alcohol-specific conditions are 12 times higher in under 18s from the most deprived areas than in those from the least deprived.

Opportunity

• A decrease in numbers of young people as victims of violence against the person offences
• Herefordshire’s young people generally get better qualifications than in England as a whole, with 74% achieving five or more A*-C grades at GCSE in 2009/10.
• Although Herefordshire performs relatively well compared with nationally for the educational achievement of looked after children they still do less well than their peers
• Secondary school persistent absence rates have improved

Threat and Challenge

• Although the overall number of children living in the county continues to fall, there have been more births than expected in the last few years as fertility rates appear to be rising more than anticipated both locally and nationally – this will have implications for the provision of services for children and families.
• Healthy lifestyle choices for teenage girls remain a concern, particularly as alcohol related hospital admissions have risen
• Bullying is still a concern in Herefordshire
• The gap in attainment between the best and worst performing areas at GCSE is still increasing; and in 2010 there were more areas amongst the most deprived in England in terms of achievement in education and skills
• We have a lower proportion of children achieving a good level of development at age 5 compared with nationally against the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP)
• Not as many young people, including young offenders and care leavers, engaged with education, employment and training as is wanted
• The percentage of 16-18year olds not in education, employment or training remains at the level it climbed to in 2008/09 (largely as a result of the economic downturn).
• The child poverty indicator demonstrates that the profile of child poverty is deteriorating , and has identified new pockets that appear to be linked to areas with a high density of social housing
• Although childhood obesity in reception and year 6 seem to have fallen slightly to below national averages, this fall is not statistically significant.  It also hides the fact that 8% of reception age children and 15% of year 6 children are obese.

Links to individual topic pages

 

Last updated: 30 January 2012