4. Local Context
Children’s Centres build on Sure Start
Local Programmes and the success that the Sure Start principles
have had in engaging parents and building strong early years,
universal and targeted services.
In Bath & North East Somerset there is one Sure Start
Local Programme in South West Bath. This programme
now covers the wards of Twerton, Southdown, Odd Down, West Moorland
(parts) and Oldfield (parts) and Odd Down. Within the
programme there are two Children’s Centres run by First Steps (60
places): one in Woodhouse Road, next to Twerton Junior School and
one developing on the Moorlands Infant school site (60
places). There is a third Centre being developed at St.
Martin’s Garden Primary School (who runs this centre is not yet
determined); it is hoped this centre will open in September 2006
with 34 places.
The First Step’s centres have teachers delivering the Birth to 3
Framework and the Foundation Stage curriculum. They offer all
year round childcare for children under 5’s as well as offering
family support. Other health and family support and outreach
services are funded by the bigger Sure Start Local Programme budget
through partner agencies. The budget for the local Sure Start
programme for 2005-06 and 2006-07 is £820,000 per year ring
fenced. Funding beyond this period for the local programme
will come to the local authority to support Children’s Centres and
the targeted services. The 2007-8 budget is due to be
announced shortly.
In Radstock and Peasedown St. John there is an emerging
Children’s Centre which is being developed on several sites but
with the core services delivered at Trinity Primary School, where
up to 44 children aged under 0-5 will be able to access early
year’s education and childcare all year round. Outreach
health and family support services are being developed across
Clandown, Peasedown St. John and Radstock with partner agencies,
including the Primary Health Trust; Barnardos and the Community
Bus.
Beyond these centres there is now funding for at least 3
new Centres in Bath & North East Somerset to be established by
2008. The authority has been allocated £1,050 capital
and £901,201 revenue (including Rural Uplift funding of £120,000
capital and £70,000 revenue. Currently there is one definite
site identified at the new school in Keynsham. Consultation
will take place, alongside indices of deprivation and population
statistics, to determine where else the authority will develop
Children’s Centres. These will be considered in light of the
Nursery Classes Review, which suggested that where possible the
authority will develop nursery classes to offer the early years
education and childcare offer of Children’s Centres, as these are
in areas of relative deprivation it makes sense to maximise
existing Council teaching resources. However space constraints and
capacity will need to be considered on a case by case basis.
Teacher Involvement in Children’s Centres
- First Steps Children’s Centres employ 5 teachers, 2 of whom
work directly with children in the early year’s education &
childcare service. They lead the curriculum and one post is
funded by the LEA.
- The teacher at Trinity will be part funded by the schools
budget and will work with the 3&4 year olds on a part-time
basis.
- The teacher already employed in the Nursery Class at St.
Martin’s Garden Children’s Centre will work in a similar way to
Trintiy.
- In the future the LEA will need to consider how best to use the
funding directed to schools for teachers in Nursery Classes, so
that we can build on the quality of what has been achieved in the
maintained sector to support local providers as well as offering
the basis of moving nursery classes towards Children’s Centres in
the future. i.e. in Keynsham the existing school has a
nursery class – the funding for this needs to be considered in the
light of the future Children’s Centre core offer.
- How we use teachers to support both Children’s Centres and
existing early years providers needs further consideration, so that
we are resourcing Qualified Teacher Status in a targeted way and to
achieve the best outcomes for all our young
children.
Childcare
Childcare will be offered 8a.m. to 6 p.m. for children
under 0-5, in all the Children’s Centres. In addition links
will be made to develop Childminder Networks across the Centres.
The Early Years Childcare & Play Team will offer support
through the Childminding Team to link childminders to their local
Children’s Centre, offering training and accreditation from
Centres. In particular we want to support the use of
childminders for our youngest children and for those children whose
needs may best be met in a small home environment i.e. referrals
from the Joint Early Years Allocation Panel will be directed to a
trained group of childminders who can offer specialist support.
As part of the Extended Schools Agenda, before and after school
services will be developed particularly in those schools that have
Children’s Centres attached (i.e. Trinity with links to St.
Nicholas and Peasedown St. John; St. Martin’s Garden and
Keynsham). Other childcare on the local school sites will be
developed in line with the 10 year strategy; including developing
wrap-around childcare in nursery classes where these are in areas
of Children’s Centre developments. This is already happening
at St. Nicholas, Radstock and Peasedown St. John Primary
School.
Family Support & Outreach to Parents
Current family support in the Sure Start Local Programme and in
the Radstock & Peasedown St. John area is offered through the
voluntary sector, some of which is funded through Social Services
grants and some through Sure Start funding. Social Services
also offer family support in the authority through the Waterside
Family Centre in Bath and outreach sessions in Peasedown St.
John.
In the Sure Start South West Bath local programme area,
Southside Family Project offers family support and outreach to
parents as well as First Steps Children’s Centre, which offers
family support through work with the parent/s and the child is a
very child centred way. This takes place through group and
individual work.
In Radstock and Peasedown St. John Bardardos offer outreach
services through family Link Workers to the Children’s Centre as
well as having a Service Level Agreement with Social Services to
offer family support services to families in the whole area for
children 0-8 years.
The Social Services Early Years Team currently offer family
support services from their two bases at Waterside and Hazelwood,
through an attachment model that incorporates task centred;
psychodynamic work which is evidenced based and uses researched
methodologies. Using a combination of group and individual
plans the team put the child at the centre.
Social Services Early Years Team and the Education Early Years
Team have begun discussions to see how best to support the outreach
and family support work within Children’s Centres. A full
assessment of resources currently based at Hazelwood and Waterside
Family Centre is being undertaken to see how best staff with
extensive experience of working with families under stress can be
deployed to support the work of Children’s Centres and used in some
cases as part of the core team. Children’s Centres offer
Social Services the benefit of working with families in a non
stigmatising setting, close to the child and family home.
Child & Family Heath Services
The Sure Start Local Programme in South West Bath has a
dedicated Health Visitor and Speech and Language Therapist and
Assistant as well as Counselling services through CAMHS with three
part time staff and maternity services. This is a large
portion of a generous budget which it would be difficult to
replicate across Children’s Centres. However it is hoped that
when the new Children’s Centre in St. Martin’s Garden Primary
School is complete that these services can be accessed by families
living in the Fox Hill areas. Services like Link Workers and
the Community Parents won’t stretch across another community (Fox
Hill). They have already spread across Odd Down as an extra
area, supported by Sure Start South West Bath budget. Some
Children’s Centre revenue will be needed for Fox Hill.
In Radstock and Peasedown St. John there are 2 part-time
Children’s Nurses offering outreach services to families. As
funding is relatively low it has not been possible to extend health
services but it is seen as a high priority that more health
services are delivered in this area.
The Early Years Childcare & Play Team has a Service Level
Agreement with the Speech and Language Therapy Team to cover all
early years’ settings. This is a very small budget and there will
be a need to see how best to develop SALT services across
Children’s Centres in a more intensive way.
Health Visitors are based around GP surgeries in Bath &
North East Somerset. An evaluation of the most effective way
of offering Health Visiting Services to families in Children’s
Centre areas will be needed before extending either of the 2 models
mentioned above.
In addition Injury Prevention, increasing rates of breast
feeding, health eating, nutrition and food hygiene is a key target
for Health as is Smoking Cessation. These will need attention
through a partnership arrangement.
The Early Years, Childcare & Play Team need further
discussions with Health Promotion to establish the most effective
way of supporting these targets.
Access to services for children with special needs
Each Children’s Centre will have a link Area SENCO, funded by
the LEA, who will work with Centres to model best practice in
integration, offering training and advise to the Centre, linked
childminders and local childcare providers.
It is proposed that Bath Opportunity Pre-School will provide a
resource library to early year’s settings – further discussions are
currently under way.
Information and Advice to Support Parents into Training
&Work
The Family Information Service will run regular outreach
sessions through the newly established Outreach Worker. The
Family Information Service will link whenever possible with Job
Centre Plus to offer jobs advice, as well as providing up-to-date
information on colleges and training programmes in the area.
The Family Information Service will also offer opportunities to
parents to take up childcare training and employment, linking
potential recruits to job vacancies in the early years and
childcare sector. The Sure Start South West Bath local
programme also has an Employment and Training Development Worker
for that area.
Links to other relevant services
This strategy needs to further link with Adult & Community
Learning, particularly on Family Learning and how we can best
support parents who need additional confidence building to progress
with their own and their child’s learning. Funding from the
Learning & Skills Council requires training providers to target
areas where needs is considered most significant. This could
well focus on Children’s Centres and Extended Schools.
The Libraries have a very important role to play both in linking
to adult learning and engagement as well as in particular providing
a route to deliver the governments target to roll out Book Start
and Book Start Plus. Libraries in Bath & North East
Somerset also offer a mobile service which would be one route
forward to delivering services in the rural areas.
Community Bus currently offer an outreach service to
Peasedown and Radstock Trinity Children’s Centre as well as to the
Sure Start South West Bath area. The potential to develop
this type of outreach service particularly to rural areas and to
those communities hardest to reach is significant.
