SAVE OUR SURESTART - Any social workers or nursery teachers out there?

[Piffyonarock]

Can you help? Salford Council have been forced by government cuts to announce the closure of our local Surestart Centres and we have formed a campaign to fight this.

If you are a Social Worker who works in the areas of child protection, adoption and fostering do you think the closure of locally accessible buildings for the purposes of contact visits will add pressure to you - I am thinking that a lack of locally accessible contact venues would make it harder to fulful court orders etc and amke it more difficult for families to stick to their contact plan? Am i right do you think?

Another area we think will be adversley affected is school readiness, if you are a Nurdery teacher do you forsee a lack of Surestart support in an area as having an impact on your role? I know our local Surestart supports local childminders, nurseries and playgroups in meeting eyfs etc

Anyone with experience of successfully fighting Surestart closure who can give us any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you for any help you can give us!

Here is our FB group, please join if you can:

www.facebook.com/groups/1410124125916357/member_suggestion/#!/groups/1410124125916357/

E-petition to David Cameron about cuts generally for Salford here, please sign if you can:

www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/david-cameron-a-fair-deal-for-salford

[Piffyonarock]

Bumping for Mothers Day :-)

[Annoyed99]

Could you contact Locality? They can help give advice on guidance on keeping local services open.

[WorriedWatcher]

I have signed your petition!

[Piffyonarock]

Thank you Annoyed99, just googled them and that looks very useful, will get onto them.

Thank you WorriedWatcher, much appreciated!

[Piffyonarock]

bumpity bump

[MrsDeanAmbrose]

Signed the petition. I have worked in Salford in the past and know how important the Surestart centres are. It's ridiculous how some Greater Manchester local authorities can see and value the importance of these services yet others just see them as an easy way to save money.

[Nomama]

Good luck to your campaign, piffy. And to all other similarly essential service providers who are under threat.

[Piffyonarock]

Thank you for signing and for your support! I think Salford have valued the centres and have kept them going so far, but the cuts are really biting :-( . So as we'll as fighting the council we are very much fighting the government for more funds. We need more signatures ! :-)

[Piffyonarock]

Hi Miaow, I think one of my fellow campaigners is on NMs so hopefully garnering some support there too.

That's the idea with ours, fewer hubs leaving outlying areas like ours without a service, but notional access to the neareat hub. The realisty will be that my community will not access the nearest hub much at all because it is hard to get to and from it. Can you say where you are?

[Piffyonarock]

Any more Salford residents out there who could sign the e-petition? Roll uip, roll up :-)

[Piffyonarock]

Coverage in the Manchester Evening News today: www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/salford-eight-childrens-centres-close-6895436#.UzkPz_JpFfU.facebook