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 :(

Edwin Bear £20 for a massage class and they wonder why they are not reaching their target market! £20 is a weeks food budget for a lot of people.

The mixing different classes is lovely in theory, but difficult in practise. My area has a mix of older professional mothers (usually but not necessarily high income) and younger low income ones. There is a huge culture gap that no amount of good intentions seems to bridge. I find I fit with the former group, despite having grown up in a low income family on a council estate, because my a lot of family were 'old working class' (self-educated, read a lot etc etc) and actually more similar culturally to what is now the middle class. Its not snobbery on my part. Its just really hard to find common reference points beyond the most basic baby-related conversation. Even then there's a lack of shared experience (the BF/FF divide is very very class based in our area). The two groups share activities to some extent but gravitate towards each other so interaction is a bit limited.

We used to go to the playbus which was the rural outreach service and when I asked them they said 'oh we don't have a problem as long as you live in a village because we get funding based on reaching parents in the sticks' - I think they do have to get to the demographics they were set up to meet. We've now moved to the city though.

I did get raised eyebrows when I asked if I could make a contribution at the local sure start centre, at least towards the cup of coffee they made me, I don't really see why that can't work if I'm willing and I can afford it.

I love our local children's centre, but it is predominantly yummy mummies. Something I did find disappointing though - I'm disabled and can only walk very short distances. Never mind - I can drive to the local centre (it's about 500m away). However, I am due to have surgery soon for carpal tunnel syndrome which will put both my hands out of action for a few weeks. This means I can't drive, use my wheelchair or my crutches, or push the buggy, so DD and I will effectively be housebound while DP is at work. I asked at the centre if there is any help available, even to get to the centre once a week for some company and was told not. So, provided there is nothing wrong I can use the facilities. When there is a problem and I really need help, I'm on my own :(.

years doh..too early in the morning

'alot of my family' even...must not post without checking for typos after a three feed night

I teach children with mental health problems in a hospital school. It must cost a fortune to fund the team of psychiatrists, nurses, teachers and support staff around them. Whether we like it or not, many children are neglected from an early age and it has a huge impact on their abilities to cope with things. To support target families early on in ways that help them build positive loving relationships with their children is the most effective way to make strong foundations emotionally for these children.
I think ss centres doing this is great and the 2 staff on here sound very knowledgable and dedicated. Can the very interactive mums not appreciate the service being provided and pay an extra £2 to go somewhere else? There will always be more free stuff for vulnerable groups because the fallout from no support is more costly later.
The best money ever spent would be in early childcare support. Stop saying it's not fair and think about what these centres are for.

Re the bf/ff divide surely having both groups together would benefit bfing rates.Also somewhere not all areas have such a divide. Surely most areas are less extreme as generally the stonking rich yummy mummies don't live in close proximity to the very poor.In our area the divide is far less pronounced.

I personally found as an older mum I did have lots in common with some very young mums.I found it reassuring to see we all had the same concerns and stresses regardless of age and experience.I'm sure it went both ways.I became very good friends with a couple of mums that I am old enough to actually be the mother of and we're still friendly now.

I also think witnessing how all types parent/deal with discipline etc is hugely beneficial too,segregation really limits this.

MrsHeffley The point I'm making is that having both groups together doesn't necessarily mean that they will interact meaningfully. The divide in our area isn't actually so much an income one as a cultural one. We're a suburb on the edge of a small university city with a lot of very highly educated but not particularly well off junior academic types, living alongside a working class which is often not vastly poorer but has very different cultural reference points, work experiences blah blah. I'm not saying I like this. Its just is how it is. This is the only bit of the UK I've lived in so I've no idea how typical we are...my home country has much less of a class divide so I find it all a bit weird.

We don't turn anyone away from the children's centre where I work, although we do prioritise families from the two wards that are our catchment area for bookable events, purely because that's who we are funded for. As someone has already said, just because you live in a "posh" area, doesn't mean that you can't suffer from DV or PND or loneliness or have questions on how to look after your baby.

One ward is one of the most deprived (10%) in the country, and the other is "middle class". Families from the "middle class" ward don't normally want to come to the children's centre because we are in the middle of a rough council estate, so we do run a couple of activities in their local schools. They also don't want to come to our heavily subsidised pre-school activities because they take place in a hall at the bottom of a high rise block of flats.

We do have targets of "hard to reach" families living on certain roads, lone parents, english as a 2nd language etc, and we have outreach workers who work very hard to bring them into the centre. As for getting families to trust us, we softly softly starting working with the local church playgroup which the families do go to. We provided them with funding for new toys, fruit for snack time, and a play worker (who lives in the community) to run craft activities which gradually brought them around.

We did cancel subsidised swimming lessons because people paid and didn't show up for them. Coach trips were a logistics and social nightmare with lots of "needy" families trapped together on a coach for 1.5 hours.

99% of our service users are people who really need us. Middle class, deprived or otherwise.

I love how people justify prejudice by stating that no offence was intended. What you said is offensive. People like the Johnsons live everywhere.

Rollersara - if you were one of "our" mums we would pay for a taxi for you.

I can believe this actually. When DS1 was born I was living in London - we were in a fairly middle class area that bordered one of the poorest areas of south-west London. We had a brilliant surestart centre where everyone was welcomed - there was quite a high population of immigrants from a couple of African countries who spoke almost no English, there were lots of very young parents, some quite wealthy parents and the groups were well-run and people mixed well and enjoyed each other's company.

However, one of the HVs did say that they were coming under pressure about so many better-off people using the centre and that another centre in a nearby area had been told they had to make restrictions to stop it becoming a "middle-class mums' drop-in centre."

I don't see a problem in targetting help where it is needed most. Early intervention has to be a good thing. Families who really need help can be put off by boden mums passing by for a bit of discount baby massage. Really needing help meaning more than a bit lonely, or a bit bored.

How sad vickles. You might have met ME! Out of an appalling marriage and no say in where I was housed I ended up on the local sink estate. I have a degree in public health, am a nurse and midwife, able to talk intelligently etc. and do you know what? I was surrounded by mostly normal and nice families who did not like the estate either but like me had no choice but to live there.

I don't live there now as my council took pity on me due to DS's disabilities but I still have a friend who will be a life long one from that "rough council estate".

Be aware that if all goes bad in your life like it did mine that it could be YOU on that council estate who other mothers will sniff superciliously at and tar with the same brush.

I agree, that people like the Johnsons live everywhere. But, I had a particularly bad experience at the CC and I left in floods of tears! I will not be going back there, ever!

Just accept that some CC's are worse than others. Maybe my CC is better now, but because of my experience, I am understandably prejudiced about my particular CC!

I love the cc at my kids school. I know all the staff but I'm not in their target groups so only go to the special needs groups/courses they sometimes run. I did go to the music classes but it was full of middle classed mums and I didn't see a 'target' mum there.

I think it is great to have some balance but it can tip the wrong way and then the very children who are being targeted miss out.

I used to run groups aimed at hard to reach families , it took a long time to build trust and get such families attending. Most " middle class" types would not attend because of our location. However we got a fantastic reputation and soon we had growing numbers of "middle clas" mothers . This created a real dIvide in the group and just as happens on MN they started to openly sneer at women who made "poor choices " I started to lose the original mothers and we had to close as I was not employed to run groups for women who were already going to lots of other groups and had a support network.

Vickers, whilst your first post sounded pretty narrow minded, your subsequent posts sound fair enough! You tried it, its not for you, fair enough.

When I had DS1, living in London where class and income varies massively on a street by street basis I remember going to NCT coffee mornings which were at some very grand houses and very intimidating. At the same time the local cc groups were mainly working class mums who had known each other since school etc... also intimidating. I had not a lot in common with either group.

The idea of providing common services "for everyone" sound nice, but in practice I don't think people want to mix that much.

Thanks TattyDevine...

I agree, it does sound narrow minded.. as it sounds like I mean all council estates and all mum's on council estates... and I apologise, as that is not what I meant.

I am still angry about my treatment there, and it has tainted my opinion of the CC and the area it is in.