To be really cross that David Cameron wants to limit useage of Sure Start Centre to families on low incomes.

[Housewife2010]

I have used them for the last 3 years & the majority of the mothers there are middle class. If they didn't go, the places I go to would be almost enmpty.
I use them a lot and my children have got a lot out of the classes/events there. We may not be poor, but our household income has dropped a lot since I gave up work to bring up our children. It is very helpful to be able to take them to some free classes and meet other local families.

I would be ashamed of my council estate, thuggish kids ,if they grew up with attitudes towards other people like some expressed on here ..

Hello Moondog - a bit harsh - I wasn't a gibbering wreck post childbirth or depressed but I also wasn't that confident... and being 'grown up' enough to have a baby physically doesn't neccesarily mean you are 'grown up' enough emotionally. I know I wasn't - although DS has turned out pretty well despite that . Its a fact that Surestart isn't reaching the people its meant to benefit - and there needs to be a rethink about getting people engaged. Mentors may help some young Mum's to go along.

Surestart killed our local toddler group, because it was free and we had to charge £1.50 just to break even. Years of local mums running their own group, getting to know each other, bringing their children together. And now it's closed down because numbers tumbled to the point of 2-3 mums coming every week and we just kept making a loss until all the money was gone.

SureStart just turned up, used the same hall on a different way, even had the cheek to ask if they could borrow some of our equipment! They had newer toys, no charge, no asking the mums to help wash the mugs or do a craft - we didn't stand a chance.

Very very sad. I wouldn't worry to see SS centres them closed down in areas which aren't financially deprived. And there should certainly be research done into how opening a SS centre could negatively impact local toddler groups before they open them.

havn't read whole thread but I'm with moondog, poor outcomes, duplication of services, poorly performing staff, providing a service which is poorly targetted and often abused that we can ill afford.

should be scrapped alongside connecting for health

(and I do say this with some professional knowledge!)

Another bad side effect there then Annie-spirit of enterprise killed off by state funded 'initiatives'.

Criminal.

sancti haven't read whole thread, but there's a soft play place at Caernarvon with a reasonable cafe. And a really good Spar in Pwelli (sorry for spelling) with a great off licence next door. Oh, and a really good fishmonger a few doors away. Really fresh local fish.

Not sure I'm welcome back to North Wales after we were in a playground. DD was playing with a girl and commented to her mother, 'how great she's speaking Welsh at such a young age!' And was reminded that she was Welsh...

I'm in north London and am in top income bracket family. I have used SS for around 7 years with my DC alongside very needy, often immigrant families. A good proportion of users round here are degree educated with very good incomes. The proportion is probably about 40'middle class' mums or their nannies:60 not so. I know the service is not really aimed at people like me or my kids. But we make a good contribution to the sessions when we go and I feel the quality of the sessions would be diminished if the likes of me and mine were excluded.

If the philosophy of SS is to target resources at the most needy and I'm not sure it is *just checked website and it says aims to help establish best start for EVERY child, that is so difficult to do as to be flawed. The kids getting the worst start will be those with parents who aren't motivated to go to such activities. Not those who's parents, although poor, lacking education or English skills take the time and effort to find out where they can take their kids and then do so on a regular basis.

Many families HAVE to work. They don't have the chance for SS. It is anything but lazyiness why their children don't attend surestart activites. The chattering middle classes have more time than the stressed out full time working single mum.

But who gets the help? Its pathetic.

The Dad's group at our local SS centre was aimed at out of work Dads and was held mid-week - hardly anyone went to it. They switched it to a Saturday and some mc Dad's started going (my DH included) and they also got some of their target group attending. Apparently the Dads that they were targetting found the whole thing patronising when aimed at them but were quite happy to go when it was aimed at everyone.

I'm curious though - if I wasn't allowed to attend my SS centre I wouldn't be able to get my baby weighed or speak to my HV at all because that is the only place I can do it.

I also think that groups like "Bumps n' Babies" can benefit from having Mums there who are BF or have experience of it.

Jacanne - I think that's a really, really good point about having positive examples of BF. (Okay, so pretty much anyone can breastfeed and I have met BF mums from many different backgrounds, but women are statistically more likely to breastfeed if they are well-educated and over 30 - perhaps two indicators of being a MC mummy?)

Also, an interesting point about the dads who felt they were being patronised when the group was aimed only at out-of-work dads. That kind of thing only contributes to the social exclusion they were perhaps already feeling. It's much better to have a social mix so that parents can all feel valued and learn from each other instead of having perhaps dubious theories about childrearing preached at them by well-meaning staff.

It's good that children's centres act as a safety net for parents who are really struggling - but I thought that one of the main reasons they were set up was to deliver a range of cost-effective services to everybody under one roof, so that they were easy to access (e.g. specialist support workers attending everyday playgroups so that parents can talk about concerns without going through the rigmarole of a special trip or expensive referral).

As a health visitor my experience of surestart children's centres is of a service that I can refer into for all the families I work with (many on low incomes but not all). These are services that simply were not there before the Labour Goivt. In fact I think these centres are Labour's finest hour. The service is brilliant and provides all manner of support. We have SALT services within ours, physio support, young parents groups, wishes and feelings work (with children whose families are in uproar due to domestic violence), outreach support and emotional support. I can remember one Mum (middle class) who literally could not leave the house without having panic attacks. The Outreach worker befriended her and spent time getting to know her before progressing to slow walks (initially just to the end of the path and back) around the block. These kinds of services are just so stretched elsewhere. Where would this Mum have gone without the outreach service? Into the mental health service which is as overstretched as the HV service locally. She would have joined a long waiting list within the mental health service. The children's centre provided a friendly service very rapidly. With this latest proposal she would not have had the Surestart support.
Some of you here are very judgemental - emotional and psychological problems can affect any of us and it's not always about being "emotionally mature enough to have a baby".

I work with surestart in my job and personally I dont think the middle classes should be able to attend. Often they are like the ones that are on here judging people on whether they use dummies, let their child drink a fruit shoot or drink juice out of a bottle etc.

I have seen it in real life through my job and I think its awful when there are unconfident mums there going through the hell of no money, substandard housing, pnd and abusive relationships all in one. They have nowhere else to turn, no support and often come from very chaotic backgrounds and have experienced inadequate parenting themselves. Its those people that I want to help.

The middle classes should only be able to go if they are directedly referred for a big issue eg pnd. A parent when they are suffering should be able to go to a place like surestart for support not to be judged. Unfotunately often it is like a big competition for some of the mums who attend surestart centres, this is resulting in the families who really need help not getting the help that they need imo.

"We have SALT services within ours, physio support, young parents groups, wishes and feelings work (with children whose families are in uproar due to domestic violence), outreach support and emotional support. I can remember one Mum (middle class) who literally could not leave the house without having panic attacks. The Outreach worker befriended her and spent time getting to know her before progressing to slow walks (initially just to the end of the path and back) around the block. These kinds of services are just so stretched elsewhere. Where would this Mum have gone without the outreach service? Into the mental health service which is as overstretched as the HV service locally. She would have joined a long waiting list within the mental health service. The children's centre provided a friendly service very rapidly. With this latest proposal she would not have had the Surestart support."

Do you not think a health visitor or a CPN should be providing this sort of support? When my son was born our doctor's surgery had THREE health visitors. It now has one health visitor that it shares with a neighbouring surgery. The cutbacks in the health visiting service have funded surestart.

In my sad experience with my son, even a health visitor can get out of their depth with mental illness. Surely an outreach worker with limited qualifications could end up doing more harm than good. It would be safer for your client to have a CPN.

There is a lot of waste in surestart. There is far too much spent on admin staff.

"The middle classes should only be able to go if they are directedly referred for a big issue eg pnd. A parent when they are suffering should be able to go to a place like surestart for support not to be judged."

A middle class mum with postnatal depresion would find it humilating. They would never go if Surestart was seen as being something for those who can't cope. Mental illness doesn't stop people having pride.

Surely its better to allow all mums to attend, but think about the services offered.

"I work with surestart in my job and personally I dont think the middle classes should be able to attend. Often they are like the ones that are on here judging people on whether they use dummies, let their child drink a fruit shoot or drink juice out of a bottle etc."

Surely its your job to challenge such behaviour. If a mother is vile to others then she loses her right to attend surestart.

However mothers with postnatal depression are sometimes the most judgemental.

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"I work with surestart in my job and personally I dont think the middle classes should be able to attend. Often they are like the ones that are on here judging people on whether they use dummies, let their child drink a fruit shoot or drink juice out of a bottle etc."

Surely its your job to challenge such behaviour. If a mother is vile to others then she loses her right to attend surestart.

However mothers with postnatal depression are sometimes the most judgemental.grin'

I work in a surestart centre status nursery which is now community interest as been sold off as too expensive to run. I work in the nursery so all of my job is working with the children and nearly every child is a social service referral or from families of the working poor. I see the classes though and know what they are like.

The middle class mums dont send their children to the nursery they just access the classes as they dont have to work. Our combined household income is 21k and I didnt use any surestart services when I had my child as I do not think they are for me as I dont need them. I would rather the staffs time be used on engaging families who actually need it, as that is the reason I went in to this line of work.

i never really see judgemental people @ surestart, its when you go to the other little playgroups that people seem more stuck up (they seem more middle class in those but i would say its more about their age than the income?) surely if you work there and you see people behaving in a judging others and stuck up kind of way you can just say something to them in a nice way but to let them know not to behave like that?

I don't know what cutbacks in the HV service have funded, but I'm sure it wasn't Surestart. What rubbish.