Plans for children’s centres approved
Tuesday April 19, 2011
- Council confirms its commitment to children’s centres
- All centres will remain open
- Parents able to access a wide range of services from across the borough
A new children’s centre is set to open after Hammersmith & Fulham Council last night (April 18) approved plans that will reshape how services are delivered in the borough.
The decision takes the total number of centres to 16 and was made following a major consultation on the future of the borough’s centres.
It means parents and carers will have more choice as they will be able to attend any of the centres across the borough, no matter where they live. The borough’s most vulnerable families will also benefit from the changes, and ensure residents have access to a full range of services across the borough.
Six of the centres will increase in size to become ‘hubs’, with each of them seeing their annual council funding rise..They will work with the other ten centres or ‘spokes’. All sixteen centres will be run by schools or specialist voluntary organisations and receive varying amounts of funding depending on a number of factors such as levels of local need, size and location.
Along with council funding of between £19,000 and £50,000 a year, the ‘satelitte’ centres will be supported to secure funding from new sources and to bring in new services requested by parents, such as the National Childbirth Trust or private yoga teachers.
Cllr Helen Binmore, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “We listened to feedback we received from the consultation, and from meeting parents and staff face-to-face at the centres, and we know that residents want all of them to stay open. Not only are they all staying open, but we are adding another.
“However, we have to be innovative and look thoroughly at how children’s centres run, to guarantee every penny is spent on frontline services. This new model is the most effective and efiicient way to keep the centres open, while still making sure we focus our services and support on our most vulnerable families.
As well as receiveing direct children’s centres funding, each centre will offer services funded from other sources, such as the NHS, adult education and Job Centre Plus. The host schools or voluntary groups will also be able to raise funds themselves by working with other local groups, combining with schools’ extended day provision; and expanding the centres’ activities into the evening and weekends, for example for use by parents who wish to hire out space for children’s parties; for use by supplementary schools or for family classes.
Cllr Binmore added: “After listening to parents, we altered the proposals to provide more funding than originally planned for the Cathnor Park, Wendell Park, New Kings and Shepherd’s Bush Families Project centres. This recognises the differing levels of need in the borough and the additional local need of these centres.”
The reconfiguration of children’s centres supports a wider reorganisation of Family Support Services which will result in a more coherent early intervention strategy for the borough’s most vulnerable families. Together the Family Support Localities Service, which includes outreach workers who visit families in their homes, and the Sure Start centres, will concentrate on bringing together parenting support and child development with education, housing, health and employment support, making it easier for vulnerable families to access the help available at the earliest opportunity.
By pooling all the funding for family support, which has been made possible by the Government removing the previous ‘ring-fencing’ of numerous grants, flexibility has increased, enabling us to better meet local needs.
“By bringing all our support services together, we will be able to better identify and support families before they require more intensive and expensive crisis intervention,” says Cllr Binmore. “That will help prevent children coming into care or being excluded from school later in life and will enable all the professionals working with vulnerable families to work more effectively together.”
The six hubs have been chosen to ensure an even geographical spread. The centres have been chosen on the basis of local needs, the size and quality of their existing buildings and on the willingness of those who currently run each centre to take on the extra responsibilities of running a hub.
The six proposed hubs are:
- Old Oak
- Randolph Beresford
- Masbro
- Flora Gardens
- Fulham Central
- Melcombe
The Cathnor Park centre is proposed as a ‘super spoke’, which the nearby Vanessa nursery school intend to run with council funding of £50,000, although a number of other specialist voluntary organisations and parent groups have also expressed interest. The Hut Pre-school group will continue to run services at Cathnor Park centre including three sessions per week and would receive a further £3,000 from the council.
Chair of Governors at Vanessa nursery, Sophie Saintly, said: “We are delighted to explore the possibility of running Cathnor Park Children’s Centre, to develop community and pre-school services for local families alongside our nursery school provision.”
Wendell Park and New Kings would receive £25,000 each and Shepherds Bush Families Project £20,000 with additional funding from the housing department. The other five spokes would receive £19,000 a year, including Ray’s Playhouse, a local parents’ group who have taken over the Sands End Playhouse with substantial extra funding from a private donor.
The requirement that parents have to use their local centre will be removed which will mean families can continue to benefit from the full range of services provided at any children’s centre of their choice in the borough.
