Government give £90,000 to help fund York children’s project

Hob Moor children’s centre

The government has announced that it will help to fund Improvements to children’s centre services in the City.

The announcement was made by Stephen Williams MP

It forms part of a government project which help councils deliver “more for less” by working with local communities and neighbourhood groups to redesign services to address their needs.

York has today been awarded a share of £2 million to develop the childrens scheme further.

Communities Minister Stephen Williams announced 24 successful bidders for “Delivering Differently in Neighbourhoods” funding after they set out innovative approaches to “transform services, drawing on the energy and expertise of local people to help to reduce reliance on public services and cut waste – giving local people a greater role in solving problems in their local area by themselves”.

Liberal Democrat Councillors are monitoring the project closely. They want to ensure that the work of local children’s centres is enhanced by any changes.

There was a fear that proposals tabled by Labour last year were just a cost cutting exercise.

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Information Day for York Families

City of York Council’s Children’s Centres are inviting local families to find information and advice on training, education, jobs, childcare, finances and volunteering at a special event later this month (Wednesday 21 January).

Held at The Avenues Children’s Centre, Sixth Avenue, Tang Hall, the Aspire event will run from 1pm-4pm and is open to all families across the city.
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Most of York’s “Sure Start” children’s centres face closure threat

Council officials tight lipped about results of user survey

Six of York’s nine Children Centres could close under options put forward by the Labour Council.

Council consultation leaflet click to enlarge

Current users were surveyed during August on their preferred future for the centres.

The options on offer were

Three centres (The Avenues, Clifton and Hob Moor) would remain open during the whole of the year while the other 6 centres would operate with reduced opening hours
Six children’s centres would remain open with Clifton, The Avenues and Hob Moor closing permanently
Three centres would remain open (The Avenues, Clifton and Hob Moor) with the others closing (or being taken over by “volunteers”)
All the Children’s Centres would be ruin by volunteers or hived off to local schools or the private sector

The Consultation closed on 26^th August but so far Council officials have declined to reveal the results of the consultation.

Sadly this process is all too familiar to York residents with decisions being taken behind closed doors and little opportunity for the community at large to express their views.

Hob Moor Children’s Centre future unclear

No doubt the Councils panacea for all problems – ditch services and hope that “volunteers” will take on the burden – will emerge as the favoured option.

With millions of pounds having been invested in Sure Start (which originally enjoyed Labour Government support) it is little short of tragic that the programme is now in jeopardy.

The York Childrens Centres gained a national award for excellence only last year.

The 9 Sure Start children’s centres are (click for details):

York’s Children’s Centres praised by Ofsted as budget cuts loom

The work of children’s centres in the South East of York has been praised by independent inspectors, Ofsted.

Inspectors rated the Knavesmire, St Lawrences and The Avenues children’s centres as ‘Good’ in their first inspection, highlighting the centres’ work with vulnerable and hard-to-reach families as particularly strong.

In York, Labour are planning to cut over £260,000 from the Children’s Centre budget over the next 2 years.

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York chosen to pilot NSPCC’s new parenting film

Yorks Children’s Centres have been chosen to trial a new NSPCC film to help parents’ cope with their children crying.

The NSPCC has created a powerful new film to help parents care for a crying baby and cope with the stresses of sleeplessness and crying. The film has been designed to support parents and reduce the risk of them losing their temper and harming their baby. It is based on a similar programme in America which reduced the number of babies who suffered from non-accidental head injuries by nearly half.

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