Cabinet considered the report regarding consulting on a  new Integrated Family Hub Model to transform early help services.

The lead member for Housing, Communications and Youth Engagement introduced the report on behalf of the Lead Member for Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, Health and Mental Health.

Cabinet were informed that in order to achieve efficiencies and to meet the needs of families that require support the most it was proposed to review early help provision with a key focus on universal provision.

This transformation would focus local resources to work with the most vulnerable young people and families in the borough strengthening families and reducing demand for statutory services.

There would be consultation on the design principles of a proposal to rationalise Children’s Centres, Youth Centres, the Parenting Service, Health Visitors, School Nurses and the Family Resilience Service into Family Hubs as part of the Government’s “Life Chances” agenda.

Cabinet were informed that the Health and Social Care Select committee had published a report looking at the impact of the first 1,000 days of life for a child.  The report challenged the government to develop a real focus on targeted support.  The principles of this review were shown in section 2.4 of the report.

It was proposed to introduce a family hub model that would have centres located in Windsor and Maidenhead.

Cllr C Da Costa asked for clarification if the hubs would be different to hubs currently in existence and was informed that we currently had youth centres and children centres and that there were discussions with the clinical commissioning group to bring services together in centrallocations. Cllr Da Costa mentioned that she had some concern regarding certain services but as she did not wish to break confidentiality she would discuss her concerns with the Lead Member after the meeting.

Resolved unanimously: that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)             Approves a public consultation to seek the views on transforming early help services into integrated Family Hubs for 0-19 year olds based in the model outlined in this report.

ii)            Requests a report to cabinet in April 2020 based on the results of the consultation and impact assessments to confirm the specification of the future Family Hubs based services.