The appalling state of Children's Centres

It’s definitely dependant on where you live. My borough and nearby ones have excellent children’s centres.

24 being old makes me laugh. I had my first at 32. There were quite a lot of us that age and some older!! But also some very young mums too. I think people grouped with those nearer their age.

YANBU. I have a 2 year old and in our fairly large village on the outskirts of a very large town, there is 1 toddler group and that’s it. I wonder if the number of kids that attend nursery means there is less call for them.

We have family hubs in my area. They are fab. They refurbished the sure start centres to be more appealing to families of all ages and not just those with babies and toddlers. Our family hubs run lots of classes and group and host other services who run sessions as well.

I went to the weekly weigh clinic at my local GP surgery. Usually 2 nursery nurses and loads of mothers getting babies weighed. OP was right about second time round though and not going loads. We had a new mum group that ran for 6 weeks covering the basics called meet a mum and I made so many friends. We then went to the sure start stay and play sessions and baby and toddler groups. I also paid for some other groups such as baby signing but those seem to have been replaced with the newest groups such as baby sensory. There were also quite a few churches holding baby and toddler groups as well. We were out nearly every day and there was something for every budget. Kept my sanity!! Mine were 2009/2012 so quite a while ago now. I hadn’t realised the family hubs weren’t on all areas.

They were brought in to ensure that abused kids didn’t slip through the net and to help parents that needed parenting lessons. Ss are over whelmed so thresholds upped, and funding has dropped. Not somewhere I would visit as ours was on an estate that is regularly featured on 24 hours in police custody and shootings and stabbings are a everyday thing as its drug wars central.

I also live in a pilot area. The offer is fantastic. Full timetable of activities, over three main family hubs, 4 spokes and 4 libraries. All with similar support, feeding, cost of living, early help, send etc.
The town is one of the most deprived in the country, the work going on here is incredible (regardless of what is said in the media)

When Michael Gove became Education minister he slashed and burned the entire programme. Whilst some LAs were able to divert funding into the centres, not all were. The Conservative rationale for this was that were being accessed by yummy mummies and were not supporting the demographic intended. He was wrong and refused to listen to the evidence that this was how you create social mobility and remove stigma of accessing support.to make it worse, he then proceeded to cancel the EPPE project, a world class study led by Oxford uni into outcomes linked to quality early years provision. It would have proved he was wrong.

We have 2 family hubs in my town and they have loads on tons of baby classes. Send sessions for older kids youth groups. Cooking CV lasses baby weigh in and you can stay and play after. They were closed for a good few years but reopened about 10yts ago under Barnardo's, then changed to Hiubs about 5/6 yrs and closed the nursery. Thankfully we have an amazing service they also do parenting classes, I had two come to my house and do a sleep workshop as my send son doesn't go to bed without a fight.

This males me so angry. Surestart centres were amazing & held up as the gold standard. The Tories destroying them was so short centre as the longer term impact is huge.
Theyv realised this when they reintroduced Family Hubs but as other people said only in certain areas.
Dd just v has a baby recently & mostly has to go to get them weighed.

I think it really depends where you live, my health visiting team runs multiple weekly clinics for weighing at various locations but none more than 10 minutes drive from me (and I live rurally). I had a small baby with feeding issues and also accessed free baby massage classes and weekly weighing, both at my house. There are lots of classes if you look but none of these are directly related to the children’s centre, unless you are breastfeeding.

Buy some baby scales that’s what I’ve done.

Had a baby 2017 and 2025 and yes the local baby centre has gone massively downhill practically nothing on in there anymore. Although I think some of the groups I used to go to were just for younger mothers and now at 24 I’m an old hag I guess

My baby is about turn 9mos and my local baby centre used to do Stay Weigh and Play sessions until recently, they still do breastfeeding support groups, multiple baby play groups for moms to meet each other, free antenatal classes, understanding your new baby classes, various parenting groups etc. All free. I availed of many of them and they were brilliant for a new mom to get out and meet people and get support and advice with their baby. Although in the last few months they did stop they stay weigh and play and have the weighs by appointment only with a nurse and the appointments are so hard to get and you could be waiting a few weeks. I know plenty of people were very disappointed that it was cancelled. In the end I bought a scales to use at home

I volunteer in a community hub where a lot of the historical baby stuff happened and Sure Start is based here. The funding has been massively cut so our centre doesn't offer childcare anymore. It used to be that families could register their babies from 12 weeks into childcare sessions, but now any activities the mother)father/carer has to be present, and no one wants to do that, meaning that things will be slashed even further as finding cannot be justified.

I live in a wealthy bit of a deprived area of London and we are swimming in baby activities - because better-off and retired women have the time to set them up and run them for free, basically.

One o clock club daily, inc Saturdays
meeting for under 1s in local church, inc breastfeeding support
Meeting for under 5s in local church
Three libraries doing rhyme time sessions
A retired midwife running a listening circle for mums of under 1s in her front room

Tories got rid of them, no such thing as society remember.

And if people vote Reform they'll get rid of what's left. Can't see Farage funding baby groups, when he doesn't even think women should get maternity leave.

We had lots going on when mine were kids. It was a very mixed area so we had lots of sure start funding. The classes were a little undersubscribed but those that made it out were virtually all from the achingly middle class areas. Not sure the funding reached the right people.

Targetted correctly sure start was incredibly successful. Over £5 benefit to the nation for every £1 spent.

Where have you been? The Tories shut most Sure Start centres then slashed Council funding to the bone. Hardly anywhere even has a Children’s centre anymore, much less a high quality one.

More or less yes, the LA was selected based on deprivation levels, although there were some additional LA's who qualified through other vulnerabilities.

https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Family%20Hubs%20Funding%20Explained.pdf

Well over a year!!!

Joker

You think the running down of public services can be fixed in 'well over a year'

It takes decades of committment, cultural change and money to undo each round of Tory decimation of our public services.

It’s so sad that these aren’t available in the same way as 20 years ago. I found them invaluable. There were 4 in my city that I could easily access.
I met friends, accessed services and could chat to someone when needed. They also gave us things to do, when your day with a toddler and a baby is long!!
It was short sighted of the last government to not see (or care) about their value.

Baby weigh-on in my area have stopped since COVID. We had our eldest in 2021 and I remember my midwife saying they had been stopped with lockdown and should restart by the time by baby was born, but they never did.

They changed for appointments only I think, but also there wasn't a huge demand for it from parents.

You can thank the Tories for decimating these.

I'm in a fairly affluent town in SE and was neve a Sure Start here nor any family hubs Other towns used to have all these facilities but not us We only had unaffordable private things for kids

I'm in a London borough and the Children's Centres are pretty good here, although not as good as 20+ years ago. There are 5 centres in the borough and there are 10-15 sessions running on every weekday across all of them (for different needs/ages). Sessions for breastfeeding, under 1s, under 2s, under 5s, SEND. So on any weekday there will be a session suitable for your child nearby. Plus there are one o' clock clubs, libraries and a ton of lower cost groups, and lots of paid groups and classes, soft play, toddler sessions at museums etc. I never ran out of places to go with my baby!

At my GP surgery there was a weekly session for baby weighing, but I found it a hassle and just used my own scales at home most of the time.

I was never able to use the children's centres because our area, though in a deprived northern town was not deemed to be deprived enough.
The trouble was because the centres existed they were the only things running baby and toddler groups in our town so I was terribly isolated.
I feel a bit bah humbug about the whole thing as it was a horrible lonely time and I didn't really manage to meet anyone else with babies to form friendships with until my eldest was 1.