The appalling state of Children's Centres

No, I live in a wealthy area in the south east, we have children’s centres.

I think it depends where you are in the country. In my area there are still children’s centres. There’s a few close to me and they all have weekly weighing drop ins, breastfeeding drop ins, baby groups for pre-walkers and toddlers, groups for SEN children and their families and groups for young mothers too. All free. I was in maternity leave a year ago and did a mix of the free baby group and paid ones.

Austerity, profiteering, bureaucracy, propping up property prices and Tory businesses, Brexit, etc. etc.

It went into the private investments of Tory cronies, private healthcare and social care companies which siphoned off large amounts of public services, private profits for contractors taking on outsourced services, and so on. Remember things like the PPE contracts scandals where private companies run by Tory mates got awarded chunks of money to “provide” services that didn’t ever happen? Stuff like that has been happening more and more since 2010. The Tories spent tons of cash on privatising bits of public services, propping up the housing market with schemes like Help to Buy, and so on and so on. And huge amounts of public sector cash and resources since 2016 have gone into “delivering Brexit”.

We have family hubs and we’re in a really leafy area. I work in them sometimes, they are really busy places with loads going on.

My eldest is only mid teens but there was loads about including weekly baby weigh in clinics when he was little. I was quite isolated so I used them to do something along with sure start centres.

I suppose it may not have been a great use of resources in some ways but keeping me sane and not using the NHS in any other way may have saved money in other ways.

I help run a once a week free baby group which a charity pay for. It’s definitely welcomed by many and we “help” just by listening and offering a cup of tea.

Although I’m in a relatively well off area, not everyone has endless funds to pay for private baby groups nor loads of friends in the same boat. It’s very isolating for mothers now which I can lead to other issues. It’s very sad.

The children’s centres and Sure Start were all being dismantled by the Tories when I had DD thirteen years ago - what had been a great resource was completely cut and in our area ceased to exist completely. There was still a HV and a baby clinic each week at my GP practice when DD was born, but shortly afterwards this was cut and moved five miles away and the HV service was massively reduced. I’m not sure it even exists at all in my area any more, which is pretty shocking.

We’ve kind of forgotten all the things we had as public snd community services even a very short time ago, and then we wonder why everyone is so depressed and angry at the dilapidated, rootless Britain we currently live in. Even fifteen years ago things were really different.

The funding for Surestart was cut under David Cameron, it was a disgraceful, short sighted move. In my local area we fought to keep ours open, and kind of won, but then it got run down to a tiny skeleton service over time. We'd had an amazing team of staff who made sure they included everyone who came to sessions, and offered all sorts of activities for parents and children, sessions for child minders, help with return to work, parenting courses, and really valuable targeted work with families with serious challenges. We had a thriving friends of/parent forum. We've got a Family Hub now, but it is nothing like what we did have.

Where has that money all gone??

Interesting!

Yep - Best Start.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/giving-every-child-the-best-start-in-life/giving-every-child-the-best-start-in-life#:~:text=We%20will%20take%20the%20best,and%20a%20digital%20parenting%20offer.

Labour have been in power for well over a year. Presumably they have already reinstated them or at least have plans to?

Wasn't sure start wheni had eldest 2. With 3rd had to travel out of area to attend anything so didn't really bother

Where i live there are drop in baby weigh clinics every week day (at a couple of different children's centres each day). It does sound like a post code lottery!
Also lots of other baby groups have scales for you to use yourself which can be reassuring between official weigh ins with the health visitors.

Aren't they just in deprived areas? One of myDDs asked about them. But apparently she is in An ok Postcode so doesn't qualufy

It was never obligatory. My eldest is mid 30s but after first few weeks I didn't bother. Youngest I didn't take at all (21)

Dgc never been taken once HV signed them off at 10 days

https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/05/02/start-for-life-and-family-hubs-everything-you-need-to-know/#:~:text=The%20Family%20Hubs%20and%20Start%20for%20Life%20programme%20builds%20on,for%20Life%20offer%20for%20babies.

this is what we have! Hopefully more roll out soon

You get a lot of sneering about baby groups on here but I remember them as a real lifeline for my mental health with my first baby. I'm glad your niece has someone kind looking out for her at this stage.

I had a baby in 2014 and another one in 2021. There was so much more available in 2014.

I’m my area we have five but are part of the new pilot scheme and are now called family hubs.

the healthy child programme states babies should be weighed monthly for the first 6 months and two monthly between 6-12 months.

our family hubs offer all the services such as outreach, breastfeeding network, home start, stay and play, baby massage, sensory etc.

the problem is, I think there were only a few areas across the country where the investment was implemented which as a previous poster states makes it a postcode lottery!

I know its absolutely not a substitute for children's centres, but many churches run weekly baby and toddler groups which are either free or just cost a pound or two, so that's an option if you just need to get out and about cheaply. Most have no Christian content at all - its just play, a snack and a singsong. I loved them when I was an SAHP.

This is another area where libraries are going to be missed. I've been lucky to always live in areas with decent libraries and they're great for free story time / rhyme time type stuff.

This.

It was all from New Labour, which cost too much for the Tories 😢