The Children's Fund Plymouth Partnership is made up of members from voluntary and statutory organisations. The accountable body for the Children's Fund Plymouth Partnership is Plymouth City Council and the lead body is Routeways.

The Children's Fund aims to tackle disadvantage amongst children and young people at risk of social exclusion through voluntary organisations, local statutory agencies, community and faith groups and children, young people and their families who are encouraged to come together to design and deliver locally co-ordinated strategies of preventive services for 5 to 13 year olds.

The overarching objective is to provide additional resources over and above those provided through mainstream statutory funding. It should engage and support voluntary and community organisations in playing an active part and should enable the full range of services to work together to help children overcome poverty and disadvantage.

The focus of the fund is on early intervention before the stage where statutory services are required by law to intervene but where there are risks that make this a probability.

The Children's Fund will provide services to give young people extra support before crisis point is reached and the involvement of statutory services is needed.

The services focus on:
* To achieve overall improved educational performance among children and young people.
* To promote attendance in schools attended by the majority of the 5-13 year olds living in the area.
* To ensure that fewer young people aged between 10 and 13 commit crime and fewer children between 5 and 13 are the victims of crime.
* To reduce health inequalities among those children and young people aged 5-13 who live in the area.
* To ensure that children young people, their families and local people feel that the preventive services being developed through the partnership are accessible.
* To develop services which are experienced as effective by individual and clusters of children, young people and families commonly excluded from gaining the benefits of public services that are intended to support children and young people at risk of social exclusion form achieving their potential.
* To involve families in building the community's capacity to sustain the programme and thereby create pathways out of poverty.