Memorandum submitted by Kent Children's Trust

 

Summary

 

The key issues presented in this submission are broadly embedded in the wider Children's Services agenda, and include:

 

- the obstacles to the effective roll out of children's centres being short timescales and variable levels of funding, juxtaposed with the highly positive factors of a common ethos, shared resources and partnership working;

 

- the range and effectiveness of services sometimes being adversely affected by conflicting drives and priorities for the agencies involved needing to be overcome by the co location of staff, skills sharing and the most innovative practice;

 

- prohibitive issues concerning funding, including ringfencing, the inability to 'roll over' funding often leading to high levels of underspend and the burning question of long‑term sustainability;

 

- the challenge of closing the void (either perceived or real) between strategy and operational delivery;

 

- the well rehearsed challenges of multi‑agency working, ensuring consistency and the sharing of effective practice;

 

- how do we truly reach the children and families in greatest need (and what do we mean/understand by that?), what do we offer when we have 'reached' them and to what effect?

 

Issue One: How models of Children's Centres have developed as the programme spreads from the most deprived neighbourhoods.

 

1.1. There have been both positive and negative influences in force as Children's Centres in Kent have been rolled out, starting with "30% models" serving areas of higher deprivation and progressing to "70% models" serving areas of less deprivation. The key barriers and challenges have been:

 

· The often significantly lower level of funding available (both capital and revenue) for all centres other than those that were in Round One (and within that, most notably, those Children's Centres that were formerly SureStart Local Programmes);

 

· the timescale pressures involved in delivering Rounds Two and Three presented itself as an issue not only in delivering a relentless capital programme, but also in constraining the time available for sharing former, established effective practice;

 

· also affected by short timescales was the level of risk taking considered to be acceptable. Risk taking was a key feature in some of the earlier centres, from which significant learning emerged. Timescales prohibited this with later centres, particularly where there was no established presence from a Round One Centre.

 

1.2. Notwithstanding these challenges, positive features include:

 

· a shared ethos across centres and agendas that focussed on delivering services in an integrated way, ensuring parental influence and involvement in shaping the services, placing and keeping the child and family at the centre and aiming to ensure potential satisfaction;

 

· a sharing of resources, both human and monetary.

 

This nature and level of partnership working has generally remained strong, in spite of the challenges associated with resource availability and timescales.

 

1.3. An example of this in practice from a Children's Centre in Dartford is as follows (N.B. names are fictitious although the circumstances and scenarios are real):

 

Family Composition and ages

 

Mother, Jane 20 years

Stepfather, Paul 18 years

Daughter 3 years

Son 11 months

 

Jane was 17 when her daughter was born. She was living with her parents and found it hard to bond with her. Her health visitor diagnosed post‑natal depression and introduced her to the Children's Centre. She started attending a multi agency facilitated Young Mum's Group and a Children's Centre Community Involvement Worker (CIW) visited her at home to teach her baby massage. This helped Jane to bond with her daughter. Tragically, Jane's dad took his own life around this time. The Children's Centre arranged bereavement counselling for the whole family.

 

Jane became very depressed and started a relationship which became abusive. The CIW supported her to take‑up a place in a woman's refuge. Two years later, Jane is now a strong, confident young mother of two children with a young but reliable partner. She is attending college and her children attend the nursery part‑time. Jane says if it wasn't for the Children's Centre team her children would probably be 'in care' now.

 

 

 

Issue Two: The range and effectiveness of services provided by Children's Centres

 

2.1. As with the development of the Children's Centre programme, there has been a mixture of both positive influences alongside issues and challenges in relation to the range of services provided and (as a closely linked but in some way separate issue) the effectiveness of these services.

 

2.2.The most significant factor that has adversely affected the range of services able to be provided (although this has been variable across the county), is that the key driver(s) for the Children's Centres themselves has not always been compatible with those for Health and Children's Social Services. An example, however, of where this potential barrier has been overcome is Lydd Children's Centre, where the Children's Centre Manager is leading a multi agency Health Delivery Plan which has pulled together the recommendations of a number of strategic documents incorporating;

 

· The Shepway Children and Young Peoples Plan;

· Sure Start Practice Guidance;

· National Health Service Guidance.

 

Part of this plan demonstrates how multi‑agency partners have worked together through/with the Children's Centre to fill gaps in the range of services available. Where this has proved challenging, issues that are outstanding have been referred back to Shepway Local Children's Services Partnerships (the local 'arm' of Kent Children's Trust) so that persistent gaps in services have been closed.

 

Issues adversely affecting the effectiveness of services include:

 

· the need for the Common Assessment Framework to be fully established and embedded;

 

· the skills set available in the Children's Centre not always being aligned with the nature and level of need, particularly in relation to children with physical and/or learning difficulties/disabilities. To a certain extent, everyone working within a Children's Centre should be able to make a preliminary, basic assessment of a child's/families needs and issue(s), and ensure that they respond accordingly.

 

2.3. Positive influences however, which are (over time) serving to improve the skills set issue, include:

 

· the co location of services and staff, whereby staff from different agencies/disciplines are learning alongside each other on an ongoing basis;

 

· Services being delivered in innovative ways, examples of which include that at BlueBells Children's Centre in Hothfield, where parents have been trained as volunteers, and are now delivering some of the Centre's services. As an extension of this, some of the volunteers have progressed to undertake NVQ training.

 

Issue Three: Funding, sustainability and value for money

 

3.1.Ensuring that all relevant/possible sources of funding work together in an integrated and timely way has been, and continues to be challenging. The issues in relation to the SureStart, Early Years and Childcare Grant have been/are:

 

· the continued mandatory ringfencing of former Start Start Local Programming Children's Centres and the need to work to work hard to prevent the perception and/or reality of a "two tier" Children's Centre service;

 

· unless Kent has (ultimately) 102 Children's Centres established, ensuring that all of the Grant is appropriately targeted and fully spent each year has continued to be challenging. This is aggravated by the tight timescale for delivery.

 

3.2.Funding, linked in with sustainability, is a key challenge for health and Children's Social Services particularly, often requiring significant service redesign and mainstreaming in order to aim to ensure the delivery of the health and family support elements of the Children's Centre core offer. (In Kent, a costing exercise carried out in 2006 highlighted that the potential cost of delivering these was £18 million and £1.8 million respectively, across the county). A more significant question in relation to sustainability, however, is the absence of any information about the Grant post March 2011. Whilst it is recognised that this is in the context of a deep economic recession and major pressure on public funding, this does not alleviate in any way the Children's Centre sustainability issue from April 2011 and onwards.

 

3.3.Value for money is difficult to measure in the short to medium term, as if there are to be positive, life changing and life long benefits for children as a result of accessing children's centres, these will not be evidenced in a quantitative way for sometimes to come. There is, however, clear value for money implicit in the integrated working and skills sharing described earlier in this submission.

 

Issue Four: Staffing, governance, management and strategic planning

 

4.1. The key issue for these four related areas is that in Kent, they are all embedded in wider Children's Trust/Children's Services framework agendas.

 

Strategic Planning for Children's Centres was an integral part of Kent Early Years and Childcare Strategy, introduced for the purpose of locally driving the Government's Ten Year Childcare Strategy, and which states:

 

"The development of Children's Centres is a key priority for the local authority and is crucial for improving services for children and families. They will bring together a range of services being childcare, early education, health and family support in convenient community settings. Public, private and voluntary organisation will work together to provide services for all families but with particular emphasis on improving the life chances of the most disadvantaged children. Children's centres should be seen as belonging to and serving the needs of their communities. They are not intended to compete with any existing early education and childcare provision in the private voluntary and independent sectors. Indeed, for many centres, the early education and childcare provision is provided by these sectors. This is an opportunity for collaborative and integrated working as part of an overall package of services for children and families."

 

4.2.However, whilst this was agreed both at Kent Children's Trust and by Kent County Council's Cabinet (i.e. having the highest level, multi‑agency agreement), a gap (either perceived or real) has prevailed between this strategic commitment and operational delivery on the ground. This can be evidenced through some of the aforementioned conflicting priorities of different agencies, It does not mean, however, that in some areas, this vision is not a reality, though there is a need for further work to close the void between strategic and operational.

 

4.3. Governance of Children's Centres in Kent is part of the Children's Trust infrastructure. Twenty three Local Children's Services Partnerships (LCSPs), which are the local "arms" of the Kent Children's Trust, either have, or in those areas with later Children's Centres currently are establishing Advisory Boards which report to the relevant LCSP. Consultation to refresh and agree the framework of and detail for these Advisory Boards is currently drawing to a close. An existing example of good practice in this context is in the Gravesham LCSP, as follows:

 

The Gravesham Children's Centre governance model evolved from that of the original Gravesham SureStart Local Programme. It has a central Advisory Board covering all eight children's centres in the LSCP area, with one third membership from the statutory sector, one third voluntary sector and one third parent representatives. The Advisory Board has three sub‑groups to assist its work, being;

 

· Service delivery with overview of the Self Evaluation Form (SEF);

· Finance, Health and Safety and Governance;

· Inclusion and Diversity.

 

These groups meet bi‑monthly with each group having its own Terms of Reference and parent representation and reporting back to the Advisory Board as required.

 

Additionally, each individual Children's Centre in Gravesham now has a steering group meeting termly which facilitates input into the SEF and planning for that Centres. Linked child care providers, schools, parents and community partners are included in membership.

 

4.4. Regarding Workforce Development, this is integrated and co‑ordinated centrally, whilst being locally managed in relation to individual Children's Centre staff from Managers through to (and including), for example, receptionists, administrators etc

 

Issue Five: How well Children's Centres work with other partners and services, especially schools and health services.

 

5.1. Connectivity between Children's Centres and Extended Services starts with the Children's Centres and Extended Services Working Group, which reports to the Early Years Childcare and Extended Services Board, which is a core sub‑group of Kent Children's Trust. Collaboration at this level is strong, as is joint‑working at LCSP level in many areas. In order to ensure that this becomes consistent across the County, three 'Children's Centres and Extended Schools Connectivity Pathfinders' have been recently introduced in order to identify and disseminate effective practice in the way that Children's Centres and Extended Schools work together. The characteristics that are reflected in these pathfinders include:

 

· East, Mid and West Kent locations;

· urban and rural locations;

· different models of children's centre delivery, i.e., on a school's site, not on a school site and 'virtual'.

 

5.2. Each Pathfinder is considering:

 

· How the Children's Centre(s) and related Extended School's Services currently work together in a joined up way across the five Every Child Matters outcomes;

 

· How they work together to ensure access for the most excluded groups of children, young people and families;

 

· What is their combined approach to parental and community engagement and involvement;

 

· Their combined overall effectiveness.

 

5.3. Based on and initial self‑evaluation across these areas, they are action planning to address any issues that have been identified, implementing as appropriate and necessary and will ultimately report on:

 

· Key issues identified;

· Summary of action planned and implemented;

· What worked and what didn't work and why?

· What was the identified impact?

· Lessons learnt;

· Recommendations.

 

The Pathfinders will be relatively short and focussed pieces of work with estimated completion dates of April 2010. A report and the dissemination of identified effective practice is anticipated in May/June 2010.

 

Issue Six: Whether services are being accessed by the most in need and how effective they are for the most vulnerable

 

6.1. This is arguably the most poignant issue for children's centres:

 

· how do we as a very minimum actually know about the families who present as having a want/need of children's centres services?

 

· how do we effectively reach out to and connect with them in a meaningful way that will actually make a difference?

 

· if/when we do reach them, it is crucial to be able to respond directly and appropriately, rather than needing to refer the child/family on elsewhere, which current structures/'ways of doing things' may not always facilitate. This is vital not only for Children's Centres but also for the wider Children's Services agenda.

 

6.2. Looking at this in practice, Lydd Children's Centre is conscious of its purpose being to reach the most vulnerable families, and equally aware that you cannot make any assumptions about who has the greatest levels of need, because whilst some vulnerabilities can be very obvious, many issues, such as domestic abuse and depression, can affect families from all walks of life and may be very well hidden. The best way to reach out to all those families is to market services as universal, but then be very pro‑active about ensuring that where a need is identified, we work closely with other agencies to ensure that families are given the support that they need. Marketing services in this way, is particularly important, because many other children's centres' evaluations into barriers to participation have identified that some families do not access services because of a perception that children's centres are for families experiencing problems. By representing them as a universal service, but pro‑actively providing additional support behind the scenes, means that there is no stigma in accessing services and this helps us to reach a broader range of families.

 

6.3. In working with these children and families, Lydd Children's Centre uses an outcome based home‑visiting model. As part of the informal conversations that the CIWs have with families, if particular issues are identified e.g. housing, financial difficulties, emotional well‑being, the CIW will agree with each family which of these areas they would like specific support on. Then the CIW works with the family to find out what their desired outcomes are and actions are identified that the integrated Children's Centre team can provide support with. In subsequent visits, the CIW will review with the family whether they are happy with outcomes and/or whether they need continued and/or different support. Finally, the family is asked to rate how closely the outcomes they achieved meet with the desired outcomes they identified at the beginning.

6.4. Delivery is monitored and evaluated by:

 

· using an "evaluation toolkit" designed and tested by the Children's Centre Network Manager, which aims to identify barriers to participation experienced by families. The findings of this are used to encourage families to participate not just in services but also in the decision‑making processes within the centre;

 

· Looking at the outcome based home‑visiting model and adjusting this as appropriate and necessary;

 

· Reviewing the evaluations that families complete at groups, events and courses run by the children's centre;

 

· Acting on the comments made by families either verbally, or in the comments and suggestions books and boxes;

 

· Through an Annual Satisfaction Survey.

 

October 2009