Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services to provide a progress update regarding the Family Hubs Start for Life Programme in County Durham following a briefing note in October 2023 (for copy of report, see file of Minutes).

Karen Davison, Strategic Manager, One Point and Think Family Services and Helen Edwards, Parent Carer Panel Member were in attendance to deliver a presentation that provided details of the DHSC and DfE Led Programme – 3 year Transformation Programme; Aims; Delivery – Expectations, Minimum and Go Further; the Outcomes they were Working to Achieve; Vison for Family Hubs; Principles of the Family Hub Model; Parent Carer Panel Journey so far; Challenges and Mitigations and details of where to find more information (for copy of presentation, see file of Minutes).

The Chair thanked the Officer and the Panel Member for their presentation and indicated that herself and Mrs Gunn had the opportunity to meet the team during a recent site visit who were clearly extremely enthusiastic.

The Chair wished to place on record her sincere thanks to Karen Davison and the very skilled and welcoming staff at the Family Hub Sites at Horden and Durham where they visited last Wednesday. They learnt a lot from the visit and saw first-hand how the Family Hubs helped families.

Councillor Varty thanked officers for the presentation and stated that it would be wonderful to have 43 hubs again.

Councillor Townsend congratulated the team on the engagement with the parents and stated that she liked people engaging with parents. She then referred to speech and language and stated that there was a Parent and Carer Panel but there was also a Parent Carer Forum which was different.

The Strategic Manager indicated that they would be refreshing the Parent Carer Panel in the New Year ready for April 2024 which was refreshed on an annual basis.

Councillor Walton referred to engagement with families and indicated that if they did not live in the village where the Family Hub was located it was difficult to know about the Hub but they did use their local community centre. She suggested that they engage with alternative community venues, organisations and groups who may not be connected to the Family Hub but to make the information available.

The Strategic Manager indicted that she would take the comments on board.

Mrs Gunn referred to the visit to the Family Hubs and thanked the Officer for showing them around. She commented that it was amazing to see the team and parents and you could see all the staff were passionate about what they were doing. She stated that they had nailed getting the Family Hubs to be a warm and welcoming place to be. It would be great to hear more about how they were building up the number of people coming through the door and stated that she had done a quick search on the internet and could not find the ‘What’s On’ very easily.

The Strategic Manager responded that if you googled ‘Family Hubs in Durham’ it would take you to the website or ‘Help for Families’. She continued that they had paid for addition support from communications and marketing as they realised that social media was important especially for younger parents.

Professor Ciesielska referred to domestic abuse and asked what support they offered mostly for women.

The Strategic Manager responded that domestic abuse was a significant issue and they know was the highest reason for referring into social care. She continued that wrapping around the Family Hubs they had seven intensive family support teams that work in the early help space. They have a range of programmes that they work collaboratively with Harbour the domestic abuse commissioned service. They did not advertise the domestic abuse groups but had an inspire programme for victims of domestic abuse and recently launched a Barnardo’s programme called ‘Domestic Abuse Recovery Together’ that was for primary aged children and for the child and parent to come together and they were starting to see some amazing outcomes. They worked very closely with domestic abuse colleagues and if they required specialist support Harbour colleagues would deliver this. They also have a Child Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse (CAPVA) programme and Respect Young People programme that was carried out with the child and parent in their home.

Professor Ciesielska referred to reaching out and asked if Health Visitors and people in contact with parents had been briefed in what to look out for and offer support.

The Strategic Manager responded that all the Family Hub workforce including Health Visitors etc. all understand the risks of domestic abuse and had undertaken domestic abuse training to ensure that they recognised and had the language to talk to parents about. They were going to ensure that their front of house staff also have those skills.

The Chair commented that when they were on the visit to the Family Hubs last week, they met some parents who lived quite away from the Family Hub and one parent in particular visited two Family Hubs as she had made friends through the Hub. She stated that if you go onto the Council’s website and type in Family Hubs it would come up and show the location of the Family Hubs and the wide range of services and support on offer.

Resolved: That the report and presentation be noted.