 Welcome to the January 2026 edition of the Cheshire East Best Start Family Hub Partner Newsletter!
We hope this first newsletter of 2026 finds you and your loved ones well and that you had a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year.
Spotlight on...
NHS to roll out chickenpox vaccine for children
 The NHS’s vaccination programme is being expanded to include chickenpox (also known as varicella) for the first time to help shield young children from getting seriously ill.
From now on, GP practices will start to offer children a combined MMRV vaccine at 12 months and 18 months of age to add chickenpox to the protections against measles, mumps and rubella.
What's on at your nearest Family Hub
 Many families will find January a challenging time both emotionally and financially. We understand how demanding Christmas time can be, and so would like to remind you to encourage your families to attend our wide variety of FREE groups throughout January.
Safer and Healthier Screen Time - Parent/Carer survey
Beyond is the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership's Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme. This is a partnership across the landscape with health, local authorities, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector partners creating a social movement with a focus on early intervention and prevention.
Beyond's key priorities reflect both system-wide and Place-specific plans to support the delivery of the NHS Long-Term Plan and Health and Care Partnership's aim of giving every child the best start in life.
As part of the Beyond Programme’s Emotional Wellbeing & Mental Health Workstream, we are developing best-practice guidance and actionable advice for parents and carers on safe, healthy use of screens and social media by children and young people.
To inform this work, we’ve created a survey to find out more about the challenges parents/carers experience when managing their children’s screen and social media use. If you’re a parent or carer yourself, we would be most grateful if you could complete the survey and share your experiences and insights with us. We’d also appreciate if you could share the survey with other parents and carers so that we can get as many responses as possible.
All information will be anonymous unless you choose to share your details with us.
We need books for young adults
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If you are able to donate and pre-loved books for young adults in good condition, please contactyoungcarersteam@cheshireeast.gov.uk
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We are recruiting Social Workers
If you would like to feature in this newsletter, please email familyhubs@cheshireeast.gov.uk
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