Together for Children

Lone mother feels isolated since her father works night shifts, which gives her a lot of time with just herself and her baby – she feels that she needs outlets during the daytime. She is keen to use the children’s centre, but also mindful of the expense of activities and sourcing good quality low cost activity is important to her.

Project targeted at children who had either not attended pre-school or nursery or had not attended regularly in order to give both the children and parents the skills and confidence necessary to start reception positively.

Project where soldiers recorded bedtime stories onto a CD before deployment so that their children could hear their father’s voice and read the story while they are away. The project has won two Children and Young People’s Services Awards- The Early Years and the Integrated Working Awards.

A DVD guide to a healthy pregnancy and birth

Case study from the NE Child Poverty Coalition:Children’s centres have commissioned local voluntary sector and local credit union to support families with benefit advice, banking, saving and debt counselling.

Children’s centres' staff work alongside Jobcentre Plus staff to ensure enhanced links with adult learning services, CAB, Halton People into Jobs and increasing awareness of children centres services supporting the whole family.

The Halton Children’s Centre Fishing Club was formed with the aim to enable parents and children to use angling as an activity which engages those from disadvantaged backgrounds in combating social exclusion.

Case study from the NE Child Poverty Coalition: a jointly funded venture between Tyne Metropolitan College and North
Tyneside Council saw the introduction of two Training and Support Co-ordinator posts to
work in the children’s centres.

Case study from the NE Child Poverty Coalition: A partnership between Action for Children and Newcastle City Council’s Families Information Service where Information and Resource Worker role developed into a one stop shop for information in relation to a variety of employment / financial benefits advice.

Case study from the NE Child Poverty Coalition: Northumberland is one of the pilot Local Authorities working with the DCSF to develop the DCATCH project.

Working with children’s centres to support the needs of children with a parent in prison

This project in Oxfordshire was inspired by a presentation at a Conference (Every Parent Matters, Parenting UK October 2005) The course aimed to ”build parenting capacity and embed it in the local community by developing the ability to deliver group based and one-to-one parenting programmes and support to parents/carers in the locality.”

Case study from the NE Child Poverty Coalition: Work Focussed Services in children’s centres pilot aims to test how children’s centres can offer a more effective vehicle to engage parents to move them closer to employment.

Two centres in Tameside have developed some simple but effective ways to engage with local parents and encourage them to attend their centres.

The pathway to the Empowering Parents course begins with a Pamper Day followed on by a ten week Confidence Building course and then progresses onto the Empowering Parents.