childrens centre attracting the wrong kind of mothers

[Morph2]

i'm not BU as i'm not too bothered (more disappointed) about the decision but others are very angry. Local surestart (only built last year) ran a group for walking to school age every week. Has been scrapped due to funding issues (ok i understand that its a recession after all).

HV unofficially told my friend the decision was because the session was "attracting the wrong kind of mothers". We've started attending another session run by the council which is abit of a trek away (they have started to charge a £1 a session but its worth it, i drive so i can get there), and when i filled out my new started form i had to tick (for monitoring purposes) if i was in one of the groups they specified, i wasn't so i didn't tick, just thinking maybe if enough people don't tick this session will be stopped too :(

Slight aside for KatieMiddleton regarding pnd and socio-economic factors. TAMBA produced credible research demonstrating that multiple birth mothers are 74% more likely to suffer from pnd than singleton birth mums - 10% of singleton mums vs 17% of multiple birth mums and that that depression lasts for longer.
There's quite a bit on the website but here's a link
www.tamba.org.uk/document.doc?id=73

And thankfully some children's centres recognise this and continue to support twin clubs even in affluent areas.

As an observation, a significant proportion of MB mothers are mc and older and have been down the fertility treatment route. That on the face of it doesn't put us in one of the basic target groups, but when one looks at ability to access "universal" services, we often can't, which then throws us into the (slightly) harder to reach group.

Anyway I've rambled. As you were! x

Himalaya Mon 07-May-12 09:48:00
Toothbrushthief -No the target group is children - it is meant to be early intervention with broad groups of families where the children are likely to be at greater risk to health, safety, educational failure, dropping out of school, crime, ASB etc...

It might be parents choice to smoke or to not read to their children -although that in turn is influenced by their life chances- buy it is not the childrens choice.

OK so target group is children identified through ??? location of their parent

It isn't the child's choice but it might be that of the parent... so who are you going to influence - the parent. So they are your target, to effect the change surely?

How do they measure outcome?

Thanks Holly. I'm getting more interest from twin mums recently so that's useful when putting the case together for another group. Our local demographic is predominantly older mums so that's useful to have for future grant applications.

Katie- re bf support- ours was cut over a year ago. It's mainly down to a couple of volunteers and word of mouth ( as they can't use the CC or the hospital).

Children centers round us never have anything free unless you are on certain benefits you have to pay. Few years ago you could pay quite a lot - then they all dropped their prices to nominal amount. Other places offering toddler groups struggled to compete and numbers dropped at those places meaning the days they had groups on were reduced or places closed entirely.

Then children centers stopped nearly all their toddler groups. We weren't allowed to pay more to keep the groups open as that would mean excluding some families even though those on benefits wouldn't pay and some of us offering to pay more had very limited funds.

They replaced these with groups were DC are left which do seem to be favored by what I suppose would be more their target audience rather than few MC families and working poor families. I suspect it has more to do with meeting criteria for funding than anything else.

Upshot is there aren't that many places left to take young DC and many parents starts DC at places where they are left - play groups, nurseries, where previously they have done groups for longer so DC socialise.

surely it is better to have a mix of people and at the end of the day it is probably the 'middle class mummies' or partners who are paying for these things indirectly through taxation.

also some of these mums may not be particularly 'middle class' but on paper they seem to have too much income.

How do they measure outcome?

As said families who have older children that have been on CP/CAF/Child In Need plans are encouraged to bring subsiquent children to classes. It is looked at whether this is lesssoning the need for intervention to go beyond just putting services in place and long term data iscollected to see if the use of CC has possibly improved the outcome.

Primary schools are linking more andmore to CC, so where data is being collected about children attending school that cannot feed/toilet/behave/language approprietly (no SN) it is being looked at whether these attended CC and the part that CC/SS plays in lessoning the effect of deprivation.

Under the law, Children Act 1989, the government has to provide services to Children In Need, CC are viewed upagainst the cost off using private nurseies etc.

Some of the classess in the CC will be purely for children on plans, this brings in revenue because the LA is in effect saving in the cost of a venue.

Many CC are doubledup, as someone said earlier as contact venues for children in foster care.

Its also quite galling when you can't get on things but then hear later usually from staff who I see at school and out and about that they had no-one there as people who don't pay often don't turn up at the sessions. So they've sat around doing very little.

who are paying for these things indirectly through taxation

For the target families these services would have to be provided anyway and may cost more than having a purpose built place.

By EU guidelines the UK goverment has to have strategies to tackle outcomes and child poverty/deprivation.

Also, SW's use rooms in the CC's to hold various types of meetings. The LA 'pay' for this use, the services feed into each other. If the CC's have offices upstaires, HV's, MW's and family support are often located there.

"Its also quite galling when you can't get on things but then hear later usually from staff who I see at school and out and about that they had no-one there as people who don't pay often don't turn up at the sessions. So they've sat around doing very little."

That is an ongoing problem. For children on CAF/CIN the plan will be put upto a CP and the family will then have to attend the classes. That is why they cannot be allowed to be over subscribed by the 'wrong' groups.

It is often thought that all some families need is support/servises, but they won't take what is offered. I would have bitten the hand off the offerer for some of what i offer the families that i work with, when mine were little, but they don't see the need/want what is offered.

It's interesting that there seems to be a problem with people turning up to free sessions/events. We have a similar problem around us. Where events are entirely free, parents will say they are coming so we arrange venues/volunteers etc. only for nobody to turn up. However, sessions where we charge a nominal (usually 100% refundable) booking fee, see a much better turn out on the day.

I sometimes think people don't really value things that are free.

Birdsgottafly I think that why playgroup where DC are left were instituted at the children centers here as there was better attendance from these groups especially if an entire morning or afternoon is offered often completely free.

I can understand that they need to target these people but previous years children centers behavior closed many other groups in our area. They haven't come back or ones left got busier. It makes it hard for non target families with young DC though I suppose that might improve in future years but not in time for us.

There was a national evaluation of CCs about 2 years ago I think, which showed they hadn't achieved what they had set out to do i.e. improve outcomes overall for children. It is partly the results of the evaluation and partly money, that has seen the drive towards more targetted services.

I do agree that CCs closed many other groups and I think we need a resurgence of the 70's playgroup movement to get groups set up for parents with young dcs.

"Under the law, Children Act 1989, the government has to provide services to Children In Need, CC are viewed upagainst the cost off using private nurseies etc."

I'm glad of this. Hopefully the centres will stay open so if and when we get a government that is not dominated by rich men whose only parenting problem is when the nanny has a sick day, their services can be extended to all who need it again.

Nadine Dorries may be a twat but I totally agree with her that Cameron&co are "a bunch of posh boys who don't know the price of milk" Love it

Katie middleton, I totally agree with you on the breastfeeding issue, all women need the service and it will be utilised more by mc mums, the statistics prove this. Some one close to me is an infant feeding co ordianator. In her area many women start breastfeeding but dramatically fewer are still doing it at six months.

all women who want to breastfeed need the service

I think it would be a great pity if the Children's Centres were no longer available to everyone.

As an older (36 years old) first time mum, getting out and about and finding friends for me and DS was a daunting prospect to me. Our local children's centres were a lifeline providing breastfeeding groups, new parents groups and health visitor clinics. The play leaders in my local centre work so hard to make everyone feel included, introducing newcomers and offering support to stop things becoming too cliquey. New mums are given heaps of helpful and non judgemental advice by the play leaders and are much more accessible than the health visitors for the little things.

Our local centres ask for a voluntary contribution of £1 per session (+50p for each additional child). I think it's only fair that those of us who can afford to contribute do so in order to keep the facilities open to everyone.

Yesterday I attended a stay and play session where armies of 4x4 mummies turned up. I was shocked at how few of them bothered to make a contribution. I wasn't being nosey - I only had a £5 note, so was waiting for change.

Who StrandedBear? Another mum or one of the group leaders?

That's the problem isn't it stranded, I was a young mum, 20 when dd was born. But I also had a degree, a good ish job and a partner.
We wasn't on benefits but we disn't have a lot of money.

So where would I have fitted in?
Luckily sure start wasn't around when I had dd we had a lovely baby group and everyone was welcome.

I think it just goes to show, you can't catorgorise people, mc mums might well be at home watching Jeremy Kyle and ignoring their DCs and young mums are not all hanging about in car parks with their "non parent friends, smoking, with DCs strapped into pushchair"

Hi

Has any parents on here had any problems with the eva armsby family contact centre? I am trying to find anyone who has had bad experiences whilst having assessments carried out by social workers at this centre based on glamis road london.

If anyone has any information then please contact me asap