Family Hubs rolled out across Telford

Telford & Wrekin Council was one of 75 local authorities who received a share of the £300m of funding from central government as part of the Start for Life programme/Family Hubs programme

The borough council was awarded £3.1m over three years and has £1.09m left of grant funding to spend in the next financial year.

Money is being spent to create Family Hubs which bring organisations together in a ‘one stop shop’ for parents.

A Starting Well update is set to be shared at the Telford & Wrekin Council’s health and wellbeing board meeting on Thursday.

A report to councillors states that the Family Hubs transformation ‘is progressing’ across the borough with Oak Family Hub in Oakengates opening its doors in January.

The hub joined the Silver Birch Hub in Sutton Hill and Walnut Hub in Woodside, which opened in August.

Phase two of the implementation ‘continues’ with Hadley Children Centre based at Hadley Learning Community (HLC), and Dawley Children Centre based at Dawley Town Hall.

The final phase will focus on hubs in Wellington, Donnington and Newport.

“Sustainability of services is being embedded as the programme is rolled out as the grant is only known to be available until and including (financial year) 24/25,” says the report.

“Further consideration will need to be given to the delivery of services and their sustainability if the grant award does not continue beyond 24/25.”

Requirements for Family Hubs are defined by the Department of Education and include a range of in person and online support activities.

The hubs establish a partnership with the voluntary and community sector, along with early years and the NHS.

These include: parenting, perinatal mental heath, parent-infant relationships, home learning environment and infant feeding.

The report states that Family Hubs are a: “designated welcoming, safe and secure space where parents and carers can speak to practitioners, volunteers, or other peer supporters about their wellbeing and mental health.

“Information leaflets and brochures are available in the family hub to help destigmatise mental health and parent infant relationship difficulties, and to raise awareness of support available.”

Family Hubs also deliver also deliver a statutory duty to provide activities for young children aged zero to five.

There is also domestic abuse support available and the Hubs provide a clinical and non-clinical space to enable midwifery to offer appointments there and a connection to vaccination centres.

“Health Visitors are proactive in bringing families with highest needs/poorly served into Family Hubs for additional support, including group sessions and do this face to face where possible,” the report adds.

“There are integrated multi-agency referral pathways in place for access to peer-support and targeted community-outreach activities, as well as to targeted, evidence-based parenting programmes for new and expectant parents/carers.

“All families should have access to a key contact within the Family Hub who can help them to understand the parenting support that is available to them.

“Staff can have sensitive conversations, promote the universal open access parenting support offer and connect families to targeted evidence-based parenting interventions (prioritising those that would benefit most.”

The report adds that a data collection process for the Family Hubs implementation is being developed in line with the Department for Education requirements.

“The aim is to start demonstrating the impact of the Family Hub offer during 2024-2025,” the report adds.

“A data Family Hub dashboard will be created to run alongside the Early Help Strategy.

The Government’s Start for Life grant funding to develop family hubs comes to an end in March 2025.