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Memorandum submitted by Birmingham City Council
1. Birmingham's vision for Children's Centres 1.1 The vision for Children's Centre services in Birmingham is to provide effective early education and care, family support, community learning, and health services that are built around the child to improve outcomes for Birmingham's children. Children's Centres will be locally accessible with an emphasis on early intervention through the provision of vibrant, accessible and inclusive services and activities in every neighbourhood. Each will be integral to their unique community with fully integrated partnerships in place that successfully work together to identify and satisfy individual and community need.
2. Background information of Submitter 2.1. This evidence has been compiled and submitted by the Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) team part of Integrated Services, Birmingham City Council (BCC). 2.2. The M&E team's responsibilities are for the project management, guidance and quality assurance of Children's Centres (CCs) across Birmingham. The team monitors and evaluates services to evidence impact and achievement of outcomes through the delivery of the Core Offer. 3. Synopsis 3.1. The Birmingham's Children's Centre Programme has successfully enhanced existing Children's Services through the development of 75 CCs that provide accessible services across the whole city, currently reaching almost 50% of the under 5 population through direct and indirect contact. At least 7 - 8 thousand[1] people attend CC activities across Birmingham every month. This figure does not include parents who use CCs for non-sessional activities such as drop in, telephone, computer access, etc. 3.2. Each centre operates very differently and is unique in ensuring that they successfully deliver the Core Offer. Birmingham has been innovative and creative in the development of each CC to enable services to be developed and delivered in direct response to community need. Working in partnership with statutory, voluntary and private sectors have harnessed the expertise of CC services to meet the diverse needs of the community. Through the ethos of reflective practice, CC services have evolved to ensure that services meet the constant changing needs of the community. 4. Models of Children's Centres in 4.1 Each CC delivers the Core Offer as set out in DCSF guidance, spanning early learning, childcare for working parents, the identification of children with special needs, child and family health services, family support, links with Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and parental involvement. Other services are also offered such as adult basic skills training and access to toy libraries. 4.2 Each CC plans services using local knowledge that is supplemented with information provided by external sources such as JCP, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and the Office for National Statistics, to assist in identifying and prioritising community need and to ensure that hard to reach groups are targeted. This allows for a more flexible approach to service delivery ensuring that children and families who are disadvantaged, vulnerable or who have special needs have access to a full range of integrated services. 4.3 The formation of Cluster Groups with neighbouring centres has allowed CCs to support each other in the delivery of integrated services by sharing managers, information and resources. 4.4 CC's services are enhanced through the development and implementation of a Monitoring and Evaluation toolkit to support them in the design of outcomes focused services using the Logic Model thus enabling them to tailor services to the specific needs of their community. CCs continue to monitor and evaluate their services to guide the planning of future service provision and the improvement of performance. 4.5 CCs are constantly improving the quality of provision through participating in quality improvement programmes such as the comprehensive Quality Together Scheme to promote and standardise high quality care and delivery of services across the Core Offer. Approximately 43 CCs have completed the Quality Together training. 5. Promotion of early childhood development (ECD) 5.1 To ensure that early intervention and preventative services are offered as soon as possible, CCs have been successfully working directly with health professionals, such as midwives and health visitors, to contact and/or support the families of all new born babies within their reach area. Since 2006, approximately 50,000 babies have been born in Birmingham, and on average CC new birth contact rate has increased by 20% per annum. 5.2 As part of the ECD framework and recognising that early childhood development can be enhanced through breastfeeding, CCs work in partnership with the Heart of Birmingham PCT to refer mothers onto the Best Buddies, Breastfeeding Peer Support Programme to provide support for mothers who wish to breastfeed. This programme also encourages local mothers to become peer supporters by inviting them to take part in a training course to enable them to support other women breastfeeding. 5.3 The M&E team undertook extensive research looking at transitional support offered at CCs. Findings were shared across services through a conference which brought together city-wide CCs in order to share good practice. These findings were incorporated into the Making a Big Difference (MABD) programme aimed at narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest achievers in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile. One of the three MABD strands include the development of a city-wide transition record sheet to support children, parents and teachers in the transitional process between early years settings. 5.4 The 5.5 All CCs have teachers and staff that are committed to building a coherent and flexible approach to child care and learning using the EYFS Profile to ensure that all parents can be confident that their child will receive a high quality learning experience. 5.6 Training is provided to CC staff by the Children's Services Training Team to promote ECD. This includes a variety of training on healthy eating, safeguarding, EYFS, understanding equalities and diversity, developing partnership relationships with parents, effective communication and leadership skills in CCs. 6 Response to deprivation. 6.1 Birmingham has the highest level of marginalised groups[2] and deprivation[3] in the West Midlands, with 60% of children living in low-income families in 2006[4]. In Birmingham, phase 1 CCs were developed within the 20% most deprived wards. These include wards which are rated as in the top 2% of the most deprived in England. Within these wards there is a diverse mix of hard to reach groups. 6.2 CCs commission staff and agencies with specific skills and knowledge within their expertise to ensure that ALL mainstream services are accessible to hard to reach families. CC staff reflect the community ethnic makeup of the communities they serve and many speak local community languages. 6.3 A Child Poverty Group of six senior managers has been established to take a strategic approach to working closely with CCs and further explore how issues around poverty are being addressed. This links in with the Early Years Outcomes Duty, the Birmingham, Children and Young People's Plan 2008 -11 and The Brighter Futures Strategy. 6.4 CCs address child poverty through links established with JCP, Pertemps, PVIs and statutory settings such as Freshwinds, Birmingham Law Centre, Adult Education and local colleges to provide information on training, employment opportunities and advice on benefits. CCs also receive information from JCP on new benefit applications so targeted support can be given to families to help overcome the barriers to employment. 6.5 CCs have access to a comprehensive website that supports the provision of employment and training advice to parents and the public. This website is supported and overseen by the Employment and Training group which is a sub-group of the Children's Centres Steering Group. 6.6 Birmingham's Childcare Sufficiency Strategy has ensured that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in all areas to enable them to work or access education or training. The strategy incorporates all CCs which deliver on-site childcare and those where child care is linked through a partner provider. 7. Range and effectiveness of services 7.1 Birmingham CCs offer a full range of services to effectively meet the needs of communities. These services include: 7.1.1 Healthy eating, such as Cook n Taste, Healthy Eating on a Budget, Weaning support group. On average, over 150 parents and children access a healthy eating service each month and approximately 92% of CC are successfully delivering healthy eating sessions. These services aim to educate parents on healthier living and contribute towards reducing childhood obesity. 7.1.2 Smoking cessation - CCs have contacted approximately 1,300 smoking carers and through working in partnership with health professionals, there has been a 30% decline in registered carers who are currently smoking. These services work to reduce the number of children living in homes where adults smoke and to reduce infant mortality rate. 7.1.3 Maternal services, such as Antenatal Clinics, Baby Massage, Baby Stay n Plays, Breastfeeding support. On average, over 1,700 parents and children access these services each month. 7.1.4 Speech and language support (S&L), such as Baby Sign Language, Chatters Matters or referrals to local speech and language therapists. On average, 60 parents and children access a S&L service each month. CCs also participate in local campaigns such as 'Tune into Babies'. 7.1.5 Early education and daycare - each CC has a teacher to provide EYFS curriculum planning and teaching support to other staff. This would include Stay n Plays, Book Clubs, Lets Get Messy and Arts and Crafts. These services aim to raise the standard of early years learning, particularly in personal, social and emotional development. 7.1.6 Parenting programmes, such as 'Triple P' and 'More is Caught than Taught', aimed at increasing parents' confidence and their involvement with their children's development and learning. 7.1.7 Family support/ parental outreach - Family Support Workers (FSWs) provide families with advice and support on many issues and act as advocacy. This support can be through contact visits or telephone support. 7.1.8 Working with fathers - CCs deliver Fathers Group and recruit Fathers Workers and male FSWs. CCs are piloting the 'Hit the Ground Crawling' programme where existing dads offer peer support to new dads-to-be to facilitate fathers being better engaged with their children. Approximately 90 fathers access CC services each month. 7.1.9 Provision of information for parents, CC deliver drop in clinics, signposting and work in partnership with the Family Information Service to provide information to families. 7.1.10 Mental health - CCs aim to build trust between parents suffering from mental health issues such as postnatal depression. This creates a pathway for parents out of isolation and depression through support, activities and volunteering opportunities. 8. Services for hard to reach families 8.1 Birmingham CCs pride themselves on their ability and expertise in reaching hard to reach families. The multi-agency approach to service provision allows CCs to develop effective outreach strategies to the most socially excluded. For example: 8.1.1 Refugee and asylum seeking families - CCs work in partnership with the Midland Refugee Council and Wardlow Road Centre to provide support on health, welfare, housing, education and counselling support. 8.1.2 Teenage pregnancies and lone parents - CCs work closely with Connexions, Secondary Schools and Youth Centres to offer support to young parents. To date, CCs have successfully contacted over 4,000 lone parents and over 750 teenage parents; 8.1.3 Victims of domestic violence - CCs work closely with the Police and Crisis centres and have developed effective outreach strategies to support these families. 8.1.4 Disabled
children - there are approximately
1,400 disabled children aged 0-5 in 8.1.5 English as Additional Language speakers - CCs deliver 'English for Speakers of Other Languages' classes and hire translators to delivers services. Publicity materials, leaflets and flyers are provided in alternative community languages. 9. Partnership working - partnership organisations across the city 9.1 Partners are selected via a procurement process for their ability to deliver effective and value for money services centred on the promotion of the achievement of outcomes for children. CCs facilitate and co-ordinate these services whilst continuing to build on mainstream provision to ensure that all children and parents have easy access to a multi-agency team. 9.2 CCs work closely with health professional such as health visitors, CAMHS, midwives, speech and language therapist to deliver health services. Some centres offer a base for Community Midwives to carry out mainstream midwifery services, with an expansion of this planned across the CCs. CCs make referrals or signpost families to other specialist or statutory services. Any gaps identified are addressed through a 'Team Around the Child' approach using tools such as 'Common Assessment Framework (CAF)' and Early Support as appropriate. 9.3 The Early Support programme encourages co-ordinated and joint planning of services for families with disabled children. Over 60 staff across 28 CCs have received training in ES as part of a rolling programme 9.4 Three Senior Practitioners have been seconded from Children's Social Care to support CCs with CAF tier 3 and 4 cases and the development of partnership working with Children and Families Social Care services. 9.5 CC's work closely with West Midlands Fire Service to promote fire safety to children and families, both within the home and the workplace. 9.6 BCC currently has 8 Service Level Agreeements with organisations including CCs, Barnardos and NCMA as part of the First Steps Childminding Network. These Co-ordinators are based at CCs and support local childminders on the use of CC facilities and respite care for families. 10 . Governance, management, strategic planning and staffing 10.1 All CCs in 10.2 All CCs in 10.3 A 'Quality Assurance in Children's Centres' steering group has been established to oversee the quality of services delivered and to provide support for centres which have been identified as needing additional support around particular areas of service delivery. A Support for Settings (SFS) mechanism is also in place to provide support for centres around particular areas if necessary. 10.4 In the last 2 years, 46 CC staff have completed the 'National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) programme. The course is aimed at leaders within CC and gives them the opportunity to collaborate across the community and provide seamless, high quality services for children and families.
10.5 An audit of staff's qualifications using the CWDC online Audit tool is being carried out to ensure that all staff's qualifications are up to date and compliant with standards outlined by the EYFS. The Early Year's Training Team have linked with University College Birmingham to offer settings the CACHE Level 3.
10.6 CCs have successfully developed effective mechanisms for ensuring that the views of parents, carers and children are taken into account when planning for services. These include focus groups, questionnaires for parents, impact assessments and specific consultations with parents where information gathered is used to help inform the planning and improvement of future services. There is also an Annual Celebration Ceremony, where CCs are rated on performance by service users in many aspects of service delivery. 11. Funding, sustainability and value for money 11.1 BCC is responsible for the allocation of funding for each CC which is monitored through the M&E team. Funding levels are dependent on the number of children aged 0-5 within their reach area and the deprivation levels of the communities they serve. All CC are required to complete an annual Action Plan and are required to deliver services in accordance to the Condition of Grant Aid (COGA) which is monitored centrally. 11.2 CCs have improved the potential of future sustainable services through integrating with local service providers and partnership organisations, where possible mainstreaming services and working together for 'added value'. 11.3 Staffing structures within CCs are kept streamlined and any additional services outside of the Core Offer are assessed on a basis of need. Many centres will review the budgetary implications of employing extra staff and some centres have developed a needs led approach to recruitment. October 2009 11.4 CCs remain a valuable asset to the communities they serve as they provide mainstream, affordable, integrated services for all children and ensure that priority vulnerable groups receive targeted support to enable access. In addition, with the recruitment of qualified staff and a commitment from centres in their professional development, the city will see the growth of a highly qualified workforce who work at the front-line of services and have close links with the community. 12. Safeguarding 12.1 CCs have many different support mechanisms in order to ensure all children are safeguarded both within their childcare settings and within their homes. The Senior Development Worker for safeguarding assists CCs in writing robust safeguarding policies and attends the SFS groups in order to address any safeguarding issues a CC may have.
12.2 All CCs staff will be Criminal Record Bureau cleared and CCs will be compliant with the Independent Safeguarding Authority vetting and barring scheme.
12.3 Training and support is provided by BCC on the CAF and a team is in place to monitor Integrated Service Plans and Early Support Family Support Plans. October 2009 [1] eStart data October 2009 [2] National Statistics - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html [3] Meltzer H, Gatward R, Goodman R, Ford T.
Mental health of children and adolescents in [4] Indices of Deprivation 2007, |