Start for Life Partnership
Does your service work with new or expectant parents or children under the age of 2?
Are you part of Merton’s Start for Life Partnership?
Merton’s ‘Start for Life Partnership’ is a collection of services and organisations that individually provide support service to some of Merton’s youngest families. Together, the partnership helps to ensure that Merton’s Start for Life offer is robust and well understood by local parents, carers and agencies that provide care and support.
The partnership meets monthly to network and develop greater awareness about the needs of our babies and young children and those who look after them. Updates from the voice of local families (Merton’s Family Voices) are routinely shared within this forum. This informs the way in which we develop our service offer through Family Hub transformation.
The partnership welcomes contribution from new services areas that have not been part of this forum so far. We are particularly keen to have more community, voluntary and faith groups join the Start for Life Partnership to share their experiences in supporting local parents with young children.
Our next Start for Life Partnership meeting will take place on Wednesday 7 February 2024 from 9.30-11am. Please do email familyhubs@merton.gov.uk if you would like to find out more about attending this meeting.
Merton's Family Voices
This month I would like to update you on the latest insights obtained from our ‘in person’ Merton’s Family Voices (0-2) meeting held in December.
The event included a tour of Family Hub 2, of which Acacia Children’s Centre is a part, and a Merton Library Rhyme Time session.
Parents and carers gave us valuable insights on how they have found accessing Family services and shared their views with us on our digital Start for Life offer:
- Information on family services easily accessible, both digitally and physically
- Family Hub staff know what services are available in the Family Hub network and are able to signpost families
- A mixture of drop-in sessions and bookable events, with some ‘out of hours’
- More activities for parents/carers, to improve their physical and mental health
- Information on Family Hubs and family services should be promoted more widely
- Start for Life information given at multiple times throughout the pregnancy and parenthood
- Start for Life website should include images which give context, links and where to go for help
- Videos added to the digital start for life offer
- Good access to family hub sites and help for those accessing buildings and services with more than one child
- Secure places to leave buggies and prams
Many thanks to everyone who took part in this event and shared their insights with us.
If you are, or know of, a parent or carer who is pregnant or is a parent or carer of a baby or child under the age of 2, it is not too late to join Merton’s Family Voices (0-2). You can do so by clicking the link below.
Thank you to everyone who shared their insights and to those who have been promoting Merton’s Family Voices!
Beatrice Marett, Family Hub Participation and Engagement Manager
familyhubs@merton.gov.uk
Sign up for the next Merton Family Voices event
Our next Merton’s Family Voices (0-2) meeting will be online on Wednesday 7 February 2024, from 1pm–2.15pm. Click the button below to register via the Eventbrite website. Please do encourage any parents and carers you are in contact with to attend.
Update on signage
Over the coming months, you will begin to notice the Family Hub logo appearing on designated buildings in and around the local area. This is in preparation for the launch of our Family Hub service offer during the spring. We want to make sure that families can easily locate the places in our local communities where support can be accessed. We are using big, bright and bold coloured signage to make our Family Hub buildings and the places where services are delivered to be easily identified. In addition, there is lots of work happening behind the scenes to coordinate a programme of support which will include access to many of the 24 core Family Hub services. Please stay tuned to our newsletter for more information.
Partner Engagement Event
On 19 January, Merton Family Hub team partnered with Keystone Marketing to host our first Family Hub Partnership Engagement event. The event brought Family Hub key partners together to ensure that everyone who is part of Merton’s Family Hub delivery feels informed, ready and excited by the change.
There were presentations from:
- Jane Vertkin (Policy & Practice Advisor, National Centre for Family Hubs, Anna Freud Centre)
- Elizabeth Fitzpatrick (Assistant Director for Education and Early Help).
- Members of the Family Hub Transformation team
- Two of Merton’s Young Inspectors, and
- Councillor Brenda Fraser (Cabinet Member for Children’s Services)
Alongside these presentations were interactive session, activities and discussions which gave Family Hub partners an opportunity to have their say on the direction and vision for this transformation.
The day was a huge success with over 70 partners from various services and organisations attending. A further engagement event was also held on 16 January with additional members from voluntary and community sector organisations. Feedback from this session was channelled into the day.
We will provide detailed feedback on the themes arising from this day in or February newsletter, but for now, please find a some post event feedback:
“It was a wonderful day with lots of opportunities to speak to others and hear their views. It a very exciting time and i am looking forward to the development of the family hubs”
“The level of partner engagement was amazing.”
“A well organised day, informative and very interactive. A great way to move the Family Hub transformation forward.”
“Was great to finally get together and get a picture of what a Family Hub will look like.”
Start for Life ‘Little Moments Together’ campaign
The Department for Education (DfE), in partnership with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched its Start for Life ‘Little Moments Together’ campaign. The campaign aims to educate parents about the importance of brain development in the first five years of a child’s life, and the crucial role they play, with advice and tips from Start for Life. Too many children in the UK start school developmentally months behind their peers, particularly in speech and language ability. This gap often widens over time, particularly in disadvantaged groups, with children who have poor vocabulary skills at age five being less likely to succeed academically. They are also up to twice as likely to be unemployed in their thirties.
By focusing on behaviours that can easily be integrated into their busy daily routines, the campaign aims to illustrate a ‘way of being’ to parents, showing them that sharing simple, child-led ‘serve and return’ moments together throughout the day has a big impact. By directing parents to the Start for Life website, they will find simple ideas from other parents on how to build these little moments into each day. It includes lots of examples of tips and activities for parents to do with children at different ages. It also signposts parents to the relevant in-person support available in their local communities.
As part of the campaign’s resources, a new film has also been released to explain how children’s brains develop during the early years, and the crucial role parents play through all the little moments they spend together with their child. Watch it here
Early years professionals are encouraged to use the assets from the Campaign Resource Centre to reach and upskill parents within your communities: Better Health Start for Life Home Learning Environment 2024 | Better Health Start for Life | Campaign Resource Centre (dhsc.gov.uk) (registration is required)
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