Turn children's centres into family hubs, says Longfield

In a new report, Changing the odds for children in need, children's commissioner Anne Longfield states that children's centres should have a wider role in co-ordinating services for vulnerable children and families.

The future role of children's centres is set to be the subject of a government consultation this autumn, after a delay of nearly a year.

The report states: "The government has yet to make an announcement on the future direction of children's centres, which, if developed along the right lines, have the potential to champion a new approach to supporting children in need with a strengthened focus on the whole family."

Hubs were first put forward in 2014 by The Centre for Social Justice, and their benefits were argued by Longfield when she was chief executive of the recently closed charity 4Children.

The aim of hubs is to co-ordinate support for parents, children and families, including early help and preventative work.

Hubs join up local services, such as public health, mental health and national government initiatives such as the Troubled Families programme, to offer one point of contact for families to receive help.

In her report, Longfield argues that children and family hubs offer the best approach to support children who are in need of services but do not meet the threshold of beign at risk of significant harm.

"Their introduction is a clear next step to co-ordinate existing services and support, thereby creating better information-sharing networks, ensuring that children and families no longer go missing between services," the report states.

"Family hubs would co-ordinate statutory and voluntary approaches to tackling the root causes of intergenerational poverty, family breakdown, and poor outcomes for children. They have social mobility and family stability at their core."

The report cites the Isle of Wight as an example of good practice, where the council pooled funding for children's centres for five- to 19-year-olds with the local Troubled Families programme to create a combined service with a single point of access for all children and families.

To read more about family hubs see the latest issue of CYP Now or click here