York Family Information service celebrate turning 15!

City of York Council’s award winning York Family Information Service (FIS) is celebrating 15 years of supporting families in York this year.

The milestone comes at a time when the Labour led Council is considering major cuts to children’s services including the popular children s centers. The scale of the reductions will be decided at a meeting next week.

Liberal Democrat Councillors will be opposing the cuts.

York FIS is a free and impartial information service for mums, dads and carers of children and young people aged 0-19 (or up to 25 for disabled children), providing help with family life.This ranges from childcare to toddler groups to youth clubs to support for a child with a disability.
The YorOK website provides advice about childcare, children’s centres, parenting, disabilities and additional needs and much more. It’s also possible to search the  directory which has information about groups or services that may be helpful to families in York.
If you’re a mum, dad or carer, and have a question but don’t know where to go, then call 01904 554444 or email fis@york.gov.uk or for a face-to-face chat visit the council’s West Offices.

For more information about York FIS visit http://www.yor-ok.org.uk/

Grants to apply for Better Play for young people

Community groups are invited to apply to City of York Council’s Better Play Grant, which provides funding to organisations that deliver play opportunities for children and young people in York.


In the new financial year, £87,000 will be shared between projects of between one and three year’s duration, and which address the priorities highlighted in the York Taking Play Forward policy. In the current Community Play programme, four organisations are delivering projects until the end of March 2015.

To qualify, applicants for the 2015-18 funding must be a constituted voluntary organisation, or a community organisation with policies and operating procedures in place which are appropriate for working with children and young people. Successful applicants will also be required to register their organisation on the YorOK Service Directory.

Anyone wishing to talk through a project or idea in more detail before applying can contact Tim Waudby on 01904 553426 email: tim.waudby@york.gov.ukor Mary Bailey 551812 email: mary.bailey@york.gov.uk
Application forms and guidance can be down loaded from www.yor-ok.org.uk/play and must be submitted before the deadline of 13 March 2015.

York letting disadvantaged pupils down?

A new Centre for City’s study has put York bottom of a league table when measuring the exam results achieved by disadvantaged pupils.

Attainment graphs

Although the number of pupils achieving 5+ A*-C GCSEs including Maths and English in 2013/14 was good, the results for those from disadvantaged backgrounds was worse then elsewhere in the country.

 The gap in York at primary school age (KS2) is 23 percentage points.

This widens to a 40 percentage point difference between disadvantaged pupils and their peers at GCSE level: just 29 per cent of disadvantaged pupils in York achieve five or more good GSCEs, while 69 per cent of their peers do.

The government’s flagship “pupil premium” funding was intended to address this issue.

Someone at the York Council needs to start explaining why some secondary schools seem to be letting down those pupils from a disadvantaged background.

Council Leaders have been quick to jump on any good news from this organisation.

When a downturn in performance become apparent, silence isn’t an adequate explanation.

Free childcare reminder

Parents of toddlers in York are being reminded to check out whether they’re eligible for free childcare.

From 1 January over 585 two-year-olds in York are eligible for up to 15 hours of free childcare a week at a playgroup, day nursery or with a childminder as part of a national initiative.

Parents, who earn no more than £16,190 a year and receive Working Tax Credits, Child Tax Credit or Income Support, could be eligible for a free childcare place. Two-year-olds, who are looked after by the council automatically qualify for a place.

Since September 2014, children with special educational needs, those who have been adopted or with a residency/special guardianship order also qualify for a place.

The free places are available to children who are two years of age and whose parents fulfil the criteria. The places can be taken up the term after the child’s second birthday.

Parents can apply on line at www.yor-ok.org.uk/childcare or to find out more call the Family Information Service on 01904 554444 or text ‘’free place’ to 07624 802244.

York pilots flexible ‘childcare hubs’ as part of national initiative

Parents in York will find it even easier to find childcare to fit their needs thanks to a new national pilot scheme to create childcare ‘hubs’.

Ten Community Childcare and Early Learning Hubs have been set up across the country by childcare charity 4Children, on behalf of the Department for Education, four of which are in York.

The Hubs consist of a variety of early years settings and schools all working together in a local area to achieve three goals – improving quality, offering blended childcare to parents and supporting the provision of new childcare places as required.

Adoption success in York

adoption

Thanks to the efforts of social workers in York and adoptive parents across the country there are currently no children and young people from York waiting for adoption.

Because the council’s area is geographically small, York children needing adoption are placed outside York by City of York Council’s Adoption Team and approved adoptive parents in York are matched with children from across the country. Mary McKelvey, Adoption Service Manager, stressed that this arrangement means that there are still lots of children from outside the city – particularly siblings and children over the age of three – who are looking for loving homes.

She explained: “It’s great news that we don’t have any children from York who are waiting to find permanent loving homes at present. This is down to the hard work of the social work teams in York and adoptive parents across the country with whom we have placed children. However, there are hundreds of children across the country who are still waiting to be adopted and I would urge anyone considering adoption to get in touch to find out more.”

For more information on adopting in York visit www.york.gov.uk/adoption, call 01904 553525 email adoption@york.gov.uk or visit ‘Adoption and Fostering York’ on Facebook