Children's Centres
Children's centres aim to support families and their young children, from birth until five years old, with a range of high quality services. They provide free play opportunities, the chance to contact health professionals, and a place to get help and support. A key feature is the importance placed on parents having the chance to become involved in what goes on in their children's centre.
Children's centres played an important part in a number of Transformation Fund projects working with parents. Projects based in children's centres included:
- informal learning opportunities for single parents, supporting them to develop self-organised learning groups: Gingerbread
- intergenerational projects getting older people involved with young families attending children centres: Canterbury Museum
- arts projects involving families in learning focused on creative arts: Helix Arts
- learning opportunities for women from minority ethnic groups, using the children's centre as a familiar, trusted venue, where reliable childcare could be provided :Go-Woman Project
Projects found that children's centres can provide an ideal venue for informal adult and community learning (ACL), particularly for parents and families, as they are embedded in the heart of the local community and parents with young children are used to going there. They serve many different kinds of communities, including black and minority ethnic groups. Children's centre staff are known and trusted in the community. Most importantly, reliable childcare is available.
Children's centres have multi-agency steering groups, and they host services from a range of different organisations, so they are used to working in partnership. Parents' user groups also play a role in planning the activities that go on. Adding an informal learning element into the mix makes good sense.
Key points for success included:
- providing "taster sessions" so that parents did not have to commit to a long course in the first instance;
- making sure that the times of learning sessions coincided with times that child care was available in the centre, and did not clash with collecting older children from school;
- using parents who were enthusiastic about learning as role models and learning champions;
- providing support for parents to set up and sustain self-organised learning groups.
Transformation Fund projects also brought new parents into contact with children's centres and made them aware of their services. Intergenerational projects found that bringing older people into children's centres developed links and increased understanding across the generations.
Children's centres are busy places, and may already have packed timetables. Adding in an adult learning offer will require some co-ordination. If new groups of learners are coming into the centre while the children are using it, there may be risk assessment and safeguarding issues to be addressed.
The first step is to develop conversations between children's centre staff and local learning providers. Information about local children's centres is available on local authority websites. Children's centre staff are likely to have a good idea about learning opportunities that local parents may be interested in, but they will be open to suggestions. Consultation with existing user groups is recommended.
While children's centres are ideal venues in which to provide learning opportunities for parents and families during the hours that childcare is available, they can also provide facilities for the wider community outside of these hours. It's important to check that facilities are suitable for adult use, for example that there are chairs, tables and toilets available at adult height.
By 2010, there will be 3500 Sure Start Children's Centres, serving every community in England and offering universal provision across the country, ensuring that every child gets the best start in life. They are inspected by OFSTED. Their services vary according to centre but may include:
- integrated early education and childcare
- support for parents
- child and family health services
- helping parents into work
