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20 March 2023
Claire Williamson
Director of strong start, family help and integration, Cheshire East Council and chair of the Cheshire East family hubs steering group
Welcome to our first Cheshire East family hubs newsletter, brought to you as we count down to March 2024 – our deadline to transform services and implement this new way of working.
You will recall that our family hubs aim to bring council, health and community services together so that families can access the right support at the right time. They will build on our current children’s centre and early help offer to provide high quality, joined up, whole-family help services.
It’s important to remember that some services within the family hubs will be delivered virtually. Other services will be delivered in the homes of families themselves - overcoming the barriers many experience in receiving the support they need and making services more accessible to those living in rural areas.
Many of you will know that we are restructuring the teams within the council’s strong start, family help and integration service. I recognise that this is a very uncertain time for many staff across early help services and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their continued commitment and dedication to supporting children and families across the borough.
The staff consultation on the restructure has now launched (13 March) with a deadline of 17 April. The restructure aims to develop and enhance existing and new teams and to really target services to our most vulnerable children and families whilst supporting the family hubs model.
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 The restructure has been one of the reasons why we have not been in touch since many of us came together in October at workshops in Crewe and Congleton. I’d like to reassure you that lots has been going on behind the scenes.
When we came together last year, we heard your views on what our priorities should be as we transform our services and harnessing the passion staff from across all partners have for supporting our children and families.
A comprehensive delivery plan is now in place with many actions completed or in progress. Next, you’ll read a summary of some of the work we’ve been doing.
Our current offer
Since October, we’ve been mapping our current services, including our digital and outreach offer to identify gaps and opportunities.
Based on the current needs of our families we will have a strong focus in the areas of SEND and mental health and wellbeing. We will also build on the success of our two child health hubs that have been operational since 2020 in Crewe and Macclesfield.
It is estimated, from a population of nearly 400,000, there are around 7,500 children living in poverty. We plan to target services to families living in communities that have the most need including where there are high levels of unemployment, low educational attainment, poor or inadequate housing and high incidence of lifestyle behaviours that contribute to ill health.
Our project team have been working hard to build on key relationships formed from the launch events, visiting services to continue discussions around how we work together and implement the family hub model.
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Our first hubs with a focus on two localities
 We are exciting to announce that we will be working to develop three of our existing children’s centres and convert them into our first family hubs:
1. Oak Tree Children’s Centre, Crewe
2. Monks Coppenhall Children’s Centre, Crewe
3. Oakenclough Children’s Centre, Wilmslow
Monks Coppenhall will be developed as our SEND centre of excellence as well as providing our core offer of services. Further centres have been identified and these will be developed on a rolling programme, completed over the next 12 months.
Our plans focus on moving to two localities – North and South, which will be broken down further into geographic collaborative areas. These smaller areas will bring together expertise from schools and other professionals to focus on the needs of the children and young people within these communities.
Alongside this, we will be mapping our current provision against the family hub core offer of services that we need to deliver. This will identify the gaps and we will be working with services across the partnership to create a wholistic family hub offer.
Multi-agency steering group
We have agreed and implemented a governance structure for family hubs, centred around a steering group with representatives from the council, health services, schools and voluntary, community and faith organisations. The steering group, which reports into the Cheshire East health and wellbeing board will work as a partnership to drive the implementation of family hubs across Cheshire East to deliver a ‘whole system’ approach to improving outcomes for children, young people and their families.
The group will inform and monitor the implementation of the family hub delivery plan, provide support and challenge and agree the direction of travel throughout the hub delivery to ensure the sustainability of the family hubs.
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The brand identity for family hubs
A key objective of our communication and engagement plan is to develop a brand identity for the hubs with key stakeholder groups alongside a set of brand guidelines and resources.
We want the brand and accompanying resources (including signage, posters, social media graphics, banners etc) to be:
• Accessible – used both physically and virtually
• Consistent – where it appears and wherever it is used
• Aspirational – to represent professional services and support
• Value for money
We are working with a local design company, called Thrive who are based in Congleton, on three initial options of logo designs which we can share with you in the coming months. It’s vital that key groups including children and young people, parents, carers and frontline professionals are engaged throughout the design development process – so watch this space for more news and how to get involved.
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Coproduction
 Coproduction with children, young people and their families, our workforce and stakeholders from across the partnership will be key to helping us to continue to shape our family hub vision. We have a clear communications plan to ensure that we have a coordinated approach right from our branding to our launch.
Dates and events are already planned for families to influence services delivered by family hubs and these will be advertised on the Cheshire East Family Information Service Facebook page and in our children’s centres.
We have developed a web page which will be regularly updated with developments, visit www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/familyhubs to find out more.
We also have a dedicated email inbox so please share any coproduction ideas with us at familyhubs@cheshireeast.gov.uk
Cost of living and free activities over the Easter holiday
I thought it would be useful to signpost you to the many services that aim to help with the increased cost of living.
We’ve worked together to provide free fun activities during the Easter holidays for children and young people who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals.
The free activity places, including specific provisions available for children with SEND or additional needs, are funded by the Department for Education as part of the government’s holiday activities and food programme (HAF).
The holiday clubs will enable children and young people to enjoy fun activities with friends, whilst learning and developing new skills.
The Department for Education acknowledges that there are children and young people who don’t receive free school meals who would benefit from attending the HAF programme. While the programme’s priority has to remain for those who are in receipt of free school meals, we are piloting a new professional referral process to support additional groups of vulnerable children and young people. For more information, please contact CEHAF@cheshireeast.gov.uk
For more information including how to book a place and an interactive map of the activities on offer, visit Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) | CheshireEast MarketPlace
There’s also lots of information on our website www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/costofliving
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Feedback
Please let us know your views on our first newsletter. Did you find it informative? Are there any subjects you would like to see covered in future issues? Please contact us at familyhubs@cheshireeast.gov.uk |
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