The appalling state of Children's Centres

[Pumkinpiecrazy]

My niece is due to have a baby next month. I offered to take her to Baby Weigh at the Children's centre in the early weeks. I said I'd have a look and find where her local Children's centre was.

I'm really appaled at the state of the service now. When mine were little we had multiple groups per day at our local centre, courses, groups for school children in the holidays, I know they did a lot of outreach too.

Baby weigh is now by appointment once a month at the library. The local centre has a couple of drop in sessions per week for older babies/toddlers. There is a baby group but realistically too far away for her to access.

It's such a shame. In my time we had a world class service to massively benefit children. I remember the figures on how breast feeding had increased in our area due to the fantastic support group. But the Tories have destroyed it all.

Is it the same in your area?
Am I being unreasonable that this is a very sad state of affairs.

Where have you been? The Tories shut most Sure Start centres then slashed Council funding to the bone. Hardly anywhere even has a Children’s centre anymore, much less a high quality one.

We had lots going on when mine were kids. It was a very mixed area so we had lots of sure start funding. The classes were a little undersubscribed but those that made it out were virtually all from the achingly middle class areas. Not sure the funding reached the right people.

Targetted correctly sure start was incredibly successful. Over £5 benefit to the nation for every £1 spent.

Tories got rid of them, no such thing as society remember.

And if people vote Reform they'll get rid of what's left. Can't see Farage funding baby groups, when he doesn't even think women should get maternity leave.

I live in a wealthy bit of a deprived area of London and we are swimming in baby activities - because better-off and retired women have the time to set them up and run them for free, basically.

One o clock club daily, inc Saturdays
meeting for under 1s in local church, inc breastfeeding support
Meeting for under 5s in local church
Three libraries doing rhyme time sessions
A retired midwife running a listening circle for mums of under 1s in her front room

I volunteer in a community hub where a lot of the historical baby stuff happened and Sure Start is based here. The funding has been massively cut so our centre doesn't offer childcare anymore. It used to be that families could register their babies from 12 weeks into childcare sessions, but now any activities the mother)father/carer has to be present, and no one wants to do that, meaning that things will be slashed even further as finding cannot be justified.

My baby is about turn 9mos and my local baby centre used to do Stay Weigh and Play sessions until recently, they still do breastfeeding support groups, multiple baby play groups for moms to meet each other, free antenatal classes, understanding your new baby classes, various parenting groups etc. All free. I availed of many of them and they were brilliant for a new mom to get out and meet people and get support and advice with their baby. Although in the last few months they did stop they stay weigh and play and have the weighs by appointment only with a nurse and the appointments are so hard to get and you could be waiting a few weeks. I know plenty of people were very disappointed that it was cancelled. In the end I bought a scales to use at home

Buy some baby scales that’s what I’ve done.

Had a baby 2017 and 2025 and yes the local baby centre has gone massively downhill practically nothing on in there anymore. Although I think some of the groups I used to go to were just for younger mothers and now at 24 I’m an old hag I guess

I think it really depends where you live, my health visiting team runs multiple weekly clinics for weighing at various locations but none more than 10 minutes drive from me (and I live rurally). I had a small baby with feeding issues and also accessed free baby massage classes and weekly weighing, both at my house. There are lots of classes if you look but none of these are directly related to the children’s centre, unless you are breastfeeding.

This males me so angry. Surestart centres were amazing & held up as the gold standard. The Tories destroying them was so short centre as the longer term impact is huge.
Theyv realised this when they reintroduced Family Hubs but as other people said only in certain areas.
Dd just v has a baby recently & mostly has to go to get them weighed.

We have 2 family hubs in my town and they have loads on tons of baby classes. Send sessions for older kids youth groups. Cooking CV lasses baby weigh in and you can stay and play after. They were closed for a good few years but reopened about 10yts ago under Barnardo's, then changed to Hiubs about 5/6 yrs and closed the nursery. Thankfully we have an amazing service they also do parenting classes, I had two come to my house and do a sleep workshop as my send son doesn't go to bed without a fight.

When Michael Gove became Education minister he slashed and burned the entire programme. Whilst some LAs were able to divert funding into the centres, not all were. The Conservative rationale for this was that were being accessed by yummy mummies and were not supporting the demographic intended. He was wrong and refused to listen to the evidence that this was how you create social mobility and remove stigma of accessing support.to make it worse, he then proceeded to cancel the EPPE project, a world class study led by Oxford uni into outcomes linked to quality early years provision. It would have proved he was wrong.

I also live in a pilot area. The offer is fantastic. Full timetable of activities, over three main family hubs, 4 spokes and 4 libraries. All with similar support, feeding, cost of living, early help, send etc.
The town is one of the most deprived in the country, the work going on here is incredible (regardless of what is said in the media)

They were brought in to ensure that abused kids didn’t slip through the net and to help parents that needed parenting lessons. Ss are over whelmed so thresholds upped, and funding has dropped. Not somewhere I would visit as ours was on an estate that is regularly featured on 24 hours in police custody and shootings and stabbings are a everyday thing as its drug wars central.

We have family hubs in my area. They are fab. They refurbished the sure start centres to be more appealing to families of all ages and not just those with babies and toddlers. Our family hubs run lots of classes and group and host other services who run sessions as well.

I went to the weekly weigh clinic at my local GP surgery. Usually 2 nursery nurses and loads of mothers getting babies weighed. OP was right about second time round though and not going loads. We had a new mum group that ran for 6 weeks covering the basics called meet a mum and I made so many friends. We then went to the sure start stay and play sessions and baby and toddler groups. I also paid for some other groups such as baby signing but those seem to have been replaced with the newest groups such as baby sensory. There were also quite a few churches holding baby and toddler groups as well. We were out nearly every day and there was something for every budget. Kept my sanity!! Mine were 2009/2012 so quite a while ago now. I hadn’t realised the family hubs weren’t on all areas.

YANBU. I have a 2 year old and in our fairly large village on the outskirts of a very large town, there is 1 toddler group and that’s it. I wonder if the number of kids that attend nursery means there is less call for them.

24 being old makes me laugh. I had my first at 32. There were quite a lot of us that age and some older!! But also some very young mums too. I think people grouped with those nearer their age.

It’s definitely dependant on where you live. My borough and nearby ones have excellent children’s centres.

Yanbu

When my ds2 was born the weigh in clinics times and locations were random. Like they’d be in Village 1 on the first Tuesday of every month, Village 2 the third Thursday, Village 3 the second Friday and so on. Tbf we live in a village not a big city but it’s not remote. I could never keep track of it so as a result ds2 hardly ever got weighed. Good thing I didn’t need much support really!

Yanbu. The Tories decimated baby clinics.
20yrs ago we a weekly baby clinic. They supported BF, weaning, general development and health. IIRC there was one every day somewhere in our large town so if you missed one you knew you could always catch up with the health visitors somewhere. Made a few bonus casual mum friends at the one nearest to me.

I never went to sure start as it clashed with my timetable but we had those too. They're almost all gone now. Along with the walk in medical centre that the Tories also shut.

That's austerity for you.

I believe that the government is addressing this issue imminently.
North Northamptonshire Council and now West Northamptonshire Council (maybe others too?) have been given government funding to trial Family Hubs which are very similar to SureStart of old. They have been very successful and there’s been a good amount of interest and take up from local parents and caregivers. It’s my understanding that this will be rolled out to other councils in due course. Certainly some welcome and much needed good news.

They still exist but are very tightly focused on deprived areas and families with issues that are referred to them.

middle class area ones just got shut.

Defintely advise your neice join local FB toddler and baby groups as normally lots of knowledge on local resources.

May I ask where you are in the UK our local family hubs offer weekly weighing clinics and general advice. It's odd you only have a monthly unless very rural?

Originally, everyone was supposed to be "within pram pushing distance" of one.

Whereas I'm sure that was never true in rural areas, it was the aim in more populated areas.

Prior to 2010 there were 75 Sure Start Children's Centres in my LA. Down to 10 now
The Conservatives cut every preventative service, and service that was open to all, to the bone. For example, the Youth Service had 95% of it's budget removed over about 8 years from pre- 2010 to about 2018. Then seem surprised about things like the horrendous rise in knife crime. It's not rocket science is it?
No Children's Centres for most people, and a huge rise in children not ready for school. Not sure it is that difficult to join the dots.

Oh, and the clinics where you could get your baby weighed weren't all about weight. They were a chance to 'check in with' health professionals that you could ask questions of....... all those little things that worry you when you are a new Mum that can overwhelm you and seem much bigger than they are..... all those things you aren't sure if you should worry the Dr about......and of course get out the house and bump into other new Mums doing the same....... then there were all the clothes swaps or giveaways or sales for token small amounts..... and the chance to learn about things and sign up for classes or drop in sessions.

I was only 16 with my first and used to go to a group for young mums I’m not sure if you had to be under 21 or under 25 I tried finding out but 8 years later it’s either stopped being a thing or I’m too old for it
Place has practically nothing going for it anymore and tbh I always thought it was a bit unfair other babies were excluded from a group meant for the babies not the parents because of the age of their mother. The library is the place to go for baby groups round here now