A Call for Views

A new Approach to services for families of children aged 0-19 years

(or25 if the child or young person has a disability)

We want to hear your views about the future of Children’s Centre Area’s in Sheffield. We want to hear from everyone, whether you use a children’s centre or not.

Please read the information before answering the questions.

About Children’s Centre areas:

There are currently 16 Children’s Centre areas covering the whole of Sheffield. We know how much Children’s Centre area services mean to families and we also know that we do not work with some families who need this support.

Our proposal – what are we consulting on?

We want your views on a new model for delivering services for families. There will be a hub in each of seven areas and services will be delivered through link sites and outreach, with a continued focus on the early years of childhood, building on our current strengths and expertiseas well as extending services

to Young People and Families

Currently:

  • Children’s Centre services are for families with children pre-birth to five years old

We want to:

  • Rename Children’s Centre areas to become to Family Centres and widen the age range from pre-birth to 19 years old.
  • There will be one Family Centre hub in each of the 7 locality areas, i.e. Parson Cross/Ecclesfield; Shiregreen/Burngreave; Arbourthorne/Manor/Darnall; Mosborough/Handsworth; Greenhill/Gleadless Valley; Rivelin to Sheaf & Hillsborough/Upper Don but services will be delivered through link sites and outreach.

(Outreach means delivering services where people live, in the locality)

  • Widen the offer for children, young people and families and deliver more services in the areas where the families who need them live.
  • Deliver more services and make sure that the hub and links delivering services are in the areas where they are most needed.

Currently:

  • Families who need a lot of different services to meet their needs have to travel to lots of different places to access them

We want to:

  • Make sure our family centres meet the needs of allfamilies, offering a wide range of services for example:

Physical and Emotional Health & Wellbeing / Support with parenting
Housing / Home, money, work, training and volunteering
Education / Midwifery Clinics
Training & employment advice / Health Visitor Clinics
Practical advice for keeping children safe / Infant feeding support
Support with education and learning / Stay and Play Groups
Adult and Family Learning

Why do we want todo this?

We want every child, young person and family in Sheffield to be encouraged to recognise their strengths and be supported to become stronger, healthier and gainindependence that enables them to reach their full potential now and in the future despiteany disadvantages they may face.

Early help has a focus on identifying needs and providing information, advice and guidance when the needs first appear at any point in a child’s, young person’s or family’s journey.

Family Centres will be the gateway to services for all families in their local community. Building on the work undertaken by Children’s Centre areas over the last 10 years we intend to further develop and refocus the range of services families can access so that support is available for the whole family, including families with older children.

Through the Family Centre cluster we will increasingly help those children, young people and families most in need at the earliest opportunity with services that respond to a breadth of family needs.

This does not mean a loss of services but it could mean that those services will be provided at a different venue or a different time as it does mean services will be available when and where children, young people and families need them.

Who are we consulting?

We are seeking the views of people who are affected most by our proposals. This includes:

  • Parents and carers/expectant parents and carers
  • Local Communities
  • Local Area Partnerships
  • Children’s Centre Staff and stakeholder forum members
  • Voluntary and community sector organisations
  • Early Years providers
  • Local Councillors, MP’s and MEPs
  • Partners who share the site of Children’s Centre areas e.g. Schools
  • Statutory partners and stakeholders
  • Building Successful Families Team

After the consultation:

We will use a range of information to further develop the proposal into a new way of working:

  • We will listen to your views to understand what you need.
  • We will use local knowledge and data to tell us how and where Children’s Centre area services are currently used.
  • Look at children, young people’s and families’ needs in each locality
  • We will share the results with you.

We welcome your views and strongly encourage you to take part in the consultation.