To be pissed off that the children’s centres where I live still aren’t open?!

[AngeloMysterioso]

My son is 22 months old (so was 4 months at the start of lockdown). Has barely been seen by any kind of medical professional since then except when he’s had his jabs- Doctors appointments are telephone calls, health visitor checks are telephone calls, and the only baby groups that have restarted where I live are the kind that are £7.50 for the pleasure of spending 45 minutes trying to keep your toddler on a yoga mat. Support for new mums pretty much vanished overnight and nobody seems to be in any hurry to bring it back.

With all the covid restrictions easing I’ve been really hoping that my local district’s children’s centres would be re-opening as normal soon, but no- they’ve just updated their Facebook page with September’s “virtual offer” of three zoom workshop sessions and “virtual baby massage”- and no mention at all of any change to the current online-only situation.

AIBU to think enough is enough now? How long do they plan on using covid as an excuse not to deliver the service they are designed and built (and paid) for? I’m expecting DC2 in December and at this point fully expect them to be walking and talking before anyone besides the immunisation nurse actually claps eyes on them.

@Knittingupastorm you were asking what were children's centres. For young children they had free (or pay £1 if you could afford) play sessions. It usually was some time for free play with toys/books/art projects and then some time sitting around in a circle singing children songs.

Some of these were run by a speech therapist and parents could talk about their concerns. DD1 was a late talker and the lady referred her to one on one sessions.

It was great to get out of the house, see other kids, speak to other parents, do some fun art with your child (you may be overwhelmed at home or not have the resources)

Same story here. DC2 born at the end of February 2020. I have given up.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Ps I'm not talking about play groups etc here. I'm talking "the local health visiting team seem to have vanished off the face of the earth". So development checks seem to have been relegated to a quick phone call to mum to ask if she thinks everything's alright.

Cos there's no risk in that approach, is there.

Yeah!!!! My 10mo has been weighed twice in her life! And measured maybe once they didn't even measure her at birth there are no points whatsoever in our charts!!! It's insane.... I'm not too concerned but she is smaller than her 2 sisters and not eating a lot of food....

The ones near me have had to let the paid staff go as they've gone out of business. One was funded by a charity and that budget was cut to save the core organisation.

The community centre one isn't running because it was too much in term time for he two running it to sort all the safety measures. It's the holidays now anyway, very little will run.

The clinic in the community centres have gone but I think that, again, they've gone because the community centre cannot access any support to introduce the barriers etc.

Our children’s centre is open but it does the type of classes you don’t seem to want - they used to be £10 per person, now they’re £14 to make up for reduced numbers.

I’m not sure when it reopened, but it does say everywhere that they may change back to online only at any minute and they won’t refund so it’s not risk free. Same as all the local NCT classes etc. Any hospital groups etc are all still online only.

I think we are luckier than most where I am. I am pregnant and have a 27mo and the HV team have contacted me about and antenatal home visit and my sons 2.5 yr check at the children’s centre. I’d contacted them with some concerns when he was 18months via phone and they were very helpful. I’m so happy to be getting some face time again!

No groups are opening up though which were an absolute lifeline for me the first time round when I struggled with breastfeeding and was a bit depressed due to sleep deprivation. I was incredibly anxious due to feeding difficulties and weighed DS1 weekly and got the tongue tie division we needed to get back on track. I dread to think how I would have coped without this.

Privately paying groups have started up again, and we have an amazing charity which runs like a children’s centre, some church groups have started opening but the children’s centres remain closed. So basically, all those who need HV help or intervention are going to be missed because they aren’t dropping in anymore so the middle class kids with be fine and those who may be struggling will suffer. I’m sure they won’t start the groups again, more stealth cuts.

I said the other day i could of sold my daughter online a year ago and no one would of noticed! We had no toddler groups in the area bar 1 and i didn't fancy feeling incompetent because DD wouldnt sit on the mat to sing songs and run riot instead, so i started a toddler group myself! Sit, have a coffee and a chat and let the kids run riot for an hour! Theres so many mums that come that have had little to no support at all and if they did need it, wouldn't have a clue where to start!

Completely agree, my DD is 22 months also. Weighing clinics still not open here either, her 1 year check was a 5 minute phone call. Got some concerns over her speech but the health visitor isn't returning my calls/voicemails.

Wow it's so poor and I do feel for you all. My kids are now 12 and 14 and when they were small, there were so many things for them to attend. London suburb and Sure Start was still up and running and all the churches had play groups going. So so difficult and boring (imo) to be home and not have something structured to do

Echoing PP, I was living hundreds of miles from family and I had no local friends when DS was born. Getting out each day to playgroups and the children’s centre was a lifeline and kept me sane.

Our local one has opened again, but with less f2f activities. There’s a couple of church playgroups but if they are being run by retired volunteers they might be nervous about the risk?

This thread is a breath of fresh air.

I did get out to loads of baby classes in the end (although they were costly) but in January and February I honestly thought I was going to have a breakdown.

It’s depressing that things still aren’t opening.

Completely agree. These sort of services could be the difference between a new parent coping and not coping and their closure is likely to affect the disadvantaged most. They may also be services which pick up issues with parents who are really struggling and offer support (hopefully before issues get really serious).

I had a baby in the first week of the first lockdown and the support I received was dire. A HV called me to tell me that she wasn't going to be my health visitor and I wouldn't have one, that I probably wouldn't be able to keep breastfeeding as they were stopping all support services (even virtually) and reminding me not to see my family - she didn't even ask if I was coping after a really difficult birth. If I had been a single parent recovering from a c-section or similar and received that call it could have put me and my baby at real risk. I've only recently seen a health visitor but she said she couldn't come near my child to check him. Equally, my baby had essentially no healthcare after he left hospital.

The free baby and toddler groups near us are mostly still closed whereas all the private ones are open. I'm lucky that I have been able to afford the private ones although my preference would have been to go to the free ones where they put some toys out in the village hall and toddlers play while you have a chat to other mums. It's been very difficult to meet any other mums because at the private ones you are on a "mat island" often in a mask and discouraged from socialising. Still better than nothing though and not an option available to people who can't afford them.

I was also lucky to have a supportive NCT group which obviously many people don't have.

What really angers me is that this has continually been presented as a way to "keep my baby safe". Healthy babies are not at risk from covid any more than they are at risk from flu or RSV. They are at risk from having no proper healthcare, their parents having no support, their mother ending up with PND, having limited socialisation etc, at worse abuse / neglect etc..

@ImJustMum
This is a lovely thing to have done and must be really appreciated. I also have a toddler who won’t sit on a mat. Classes just involved him screeching and wriggling while I tried to restrain him.

Our local authority has restructured the services offered at our children's centres. So no groups in the ones that have reopened, just outreach work like food banks. It's really, really sad as our groups were such a highlight of our week and now they are never coming back.

It seems like such a false economy to me. If these services stopped even a few people reaching crisis point they would pay for themselves and benefit all new parents and babies who use them in the meantime.

What really angers me is that this has continually been presented as a way to "keep my baby safe". Healthy babies are not at risk from covid any more than they are at risk from flu or RSV. They are at risk from having no proper healthcare, their parents having no support, their mother ending up with PND, having limited socialisation etc, at worse abuse / neglect etc.

Absolutely this. ‘Safe’ now can only ever mean ‘Covid safe’, with development and well-being in all other areas being neglected. As a former Early Years/KS1 teacher I can see the fallout from this coming down the line, and have no doubt that the coming tsunami of issues relating to poor socialisation, delayed language development, parental abuse and neglect, obesity etc will be left for our already stretched and underfunded schools to sort out.

DD starts Reception next year, and a big factor in our school choice for her has been trying to choose the one that will be least severely impacted by these issues (which is in practice means the most middle class one, well funded one). As ever, it will be those with the fewest choices and resources who will be worst hit.

What really angers me is that this has continually been presented as a way to "keep my baby safe".

I found this infuriating too. There were many times in the past 18 months where I really could have down with someone to listen to me and to answer questions but this wasn't an option. Im guilty of many late night googling to see what was or wasn't 'normal' when a conversation would have made all the difference.

I know looking back that my child didn't have the best first year but no one seems to care that mentally I wasn't always in a good place and that there were days we didn't leave the house because I couldn't face the same mind numbing walks. We've fortunately made it out the other side but that's truthfully more out of luck than anything else.

@ImJustMum that sounds wonderful.

The baby group I ran was like that. I used to joke that we just offered tea and sympathy. You could come, have a cuppa (though since covid we're not allowed to give our drinks) and chat to other mums. Didn't matter whether your baby cried the whole time or slept the whole time. It was just somewhere to be

And @ImJustMum well done and thank you - you will have been a complete godsend to many people.

How long do they plan on using covid as an excuse not to deliver the service they are designed and built (and paid) for?

It's not Covid there are cuts to LA budgets which Kneesaregood has explained.

In my area of London the service in children's centres started diminishing long before Covid hit. All the children's centres are actually part of primary school buildings and they started slowly disappearing in the last 6-7 years.

The ones that were kept open were only kept open because midwives and health visitors would have their clinics in them, and some volunteers would run groups in them.

I know when I talked to my community midwife when pregnant in 2018 she said they had issues (e.g. had to fight) to keep doing their clinics in the various community locations. The powers that be wanted them to do them in 3-4 places in the borough rather than multiple places they used.

Anyway the volunteers running parent and baby/toddler group sessions in the children centres were frequently from the local churches. They would run most of their weekly group sessions in their respective church hall and a couple of other sessions in the nearest children's centre to their church.

The volunteers were mostly older women. As lots of older people have been shielding due to their own or family members health, or have simply got fed up of doing so much volunteer work lots of the church parent and baby/toddler groups are now not back up and running.

There was also a couple of charities who would run a couple of sessions aimed at specific groups of people e.g. those with disabilities. (I volunteered with one.) They also lost their funding. This funding loss happened before Covid, but the impact is really being felt now.

When my DD was born in 2018 within an hours walking distance from where I live there was at one parent and child group a day from Monday to Wednesday, with more groups on Thursdays and Fridays. My local church had something like 6 different sessions a week. 4 where in their church hall and 2 at a local children's centre. The sessions were aimed at different aged children and for everyone. Whether you paid depended on your financial circumstances but was something like £2 a session.

Now they are only back to doing one per week in the local children's centre targeted at specific families.

But covid is presented as the reason, regardless as to what the real reasons are. I’ve had untreated and undiagnosed PND. It’s been rubbish.

It's not Covid there are cuts to LA budgets which Kneesaregood has explained.

But covid is given as the reason. If there's problems with budgets be honest and say that don't keep fobbing people off with nonsense about no one wanting to clean toys or it's not viable due to social distancing etc.

I think a lot of issues will arise from the lockdowns, especially with regard to speech and language development.

Exactly the same here, DD is a month older and if she weren’t at nursery (or in a&e with croup) she’d have seen no-one since 5 months old. In that respect I’m glad she’s in childcare as she now has friends and is used to different people.