Agenda item

Report from the Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services.

Recommendations:

That Cabinet:

1.      Note the update and progress made in delivery of the Family Hubs programme.

2.      Agree the approach in relation to utilising existing Early Help sites for continued delivery of Family Hubs.

3.      Agree to hold a formal launch in the autumn of 2023.

4.      Agrees that the next update report should be submitted for consideration in October 2024, with an update to Improving Lives Select Commission in March 2024.

Consideration was given to the report which provided a progress update on the implementation and the spend associated with the Family Hubs and Start for Life grant since the previous update provided in February 2023. The grant was made available to Rotherham from the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) as one of 75 pre-selected Local Authorities. It provided additional investment of around £3.4m over three years to the Council (to March 2025). The funding was predominantly allocated for transformation, (with 5% ring fenced for capital adjustments & upgrades to existing buildings).

Family Hubs were a way of joining up the planning and delivery of family help and support services to improve access, connections between families, professionals, services, and providers, and to put relationships at the heart of family support. For families this meant that they could access support digitally through a self-serve option, by visiting their local Family Hub or a Family Hub Satellite site.

A family could typically expect a range of support, from learning parenting strategies to supporting family life, to information on infant feeding through the digital offer, through self-referral or self-serve. Families could also attend group provision through the Hubs, such as a 12-week parenting programme or a Baby Massage group. These programmes would be available on a regular basis in the hubs and other community venues across Rotherham.

The key funded strands were:

·       Family hubs transformation/ digital offer

·       Perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships

·       Parenting support

·       Infant feeding support

·       Home learning environment support

·       Publishing a start for life offer

·       Establishing a parent carer panel

Further information on each of these strands was set out in paragraph 2 of the report.

During the meeting it was confirmed that this work was being done in conjunction with Public Health. Officers confirmed that this was a good opportunity to have more funding to add value to what was already in place.

Consultation had taken place as outlined in Paragraph 4 of the report.

The Governance Arrangements for the Family Hubs were attached at Appendix 1 to the report with the Hub Locations outlined in Appendix 2.

Resolved:

1.    That Cabinet note the update and progress made in delivery of the Family Hubs programme.

2.    That Cabinet agree to the approach in relation to utilising existing Early Help sites for continued delivery of Family Hubs.

3.    That Cabinet agree to hold a formal launch in the Autumn of 2023.

4.    That Cabinet agree that the next update report should be submitted for consideration in October 2024, with an update to the Improving Lives Select Commission in March 2024.