Agenda item

The purpose of this paper is to provide an update on the progress of the Family Hubs since its launch in April 2024. It provides an overview of the Family Hub launches, coproduction and marketing, explains the services available through the Family Hub offer and evaluate initial feedback from residents, identifying areas of improvement moving forward.

Peter Haylock (Operational Director for Education and SEND) presented the report.

NOTE: The presentation slides are attached in Appendix A</AI4>

Responding to Councillor Daryl Brown’s question about managing the attendance, Peter Haylock noted that there was a booking system for parents to reserve a visit slot. Referrals were also arranged so that the right staff might provide the support via the hubs for parents in need.

Nandini Ganesh (Parentsactive Representative) asked whether people registering themselves or being part of a case management would be counted as using the Hubs. Peter Haylock noted that for people who had formally registered through the Power App, their activities at the Hubs would be recorded. For unregistered visitors without using formal services, their causal visits might not be captured. He remarked that the Hubs helped create the opportunities for families to access the needed services and support as early as possible. He remarked that this would be an indicator hard to measure, requiring longer running time to generate meaningful data. Replying to Councillor Aliya Afzal-Khan’s question, Peter Haylock said the Power App captured individuals’ registration details and made referrals to the most appropriate service.

Noting that information about most of the Council’s services would be provided at the Hubs, Councillor Mercy Umeh was concerned about the management of the information to meet the needs of families looking for support. Peter Haylock advised that the Hubs acted as an access point whereby the multi-disciplinary team would review the potential services that could meet residents’ needs. Referrals could then be set up for the right people to provide assistance.

Jacqui McShannon (Executive Director of People) added that the services on offer at the Hubs were co-produced with residents, for example, via Family Voices who were heard at regular consultation forums. These services were very dynamic to meet family needs and had been evolving over the last two years to respond to the changing needs. Peter Haylock agreed to share more information about Family Voices after the meeting.

ACTION: Peter Haylock

Considering that services at the Hubs would probably be run on different days, Councillor Afzal-Khan asked whether a timetable was published online for the residents’ reference. Peter Haylock noted that an up-to-date timetable of what’s on at the Hubs was posted at the new Family Hub website.

NOTE:  Below are the online Hub timetables for the three sites:

Family Hub Old Oak Community Centre | LBHF

Family Hub Tudor Rose Community Centre | LBHF

Family Hub Stephen Wiltshire Centre | LBHF

Noting the registrations at the Family Hubs had grown from 371 in 2023/34 to almost three folds of 961 in 2024/25 but the number of ‘children seen’ for the same period only increased twice, the Chair brought this up and discussed with Peter Haylock. Peter clarified after the meeting that registrations were a one-off data entry whereas 'children seen' was the number of times children engaged in activities across the year (this could include the same child accessing multiple times).  The average engagement rate for each child would be around 10 times over the year.  The number of individual families seen at the Hub was higher than 'children seen' was due to some adults/parents accessing activities without children (such as pre-natal, debt and welfare services etc).

On Nandini Ganesh’s question as to why Stephen Wiltshire Family Hub had only grown a little from 541 to 686 since launching, Peter Haylock noted this Hub was running as a children’s centre previously so many of the visitors were existing users of the services.

Questions from the floor

Marie Thomas (Resident) was concerned the Hubs were not advertised properly and known to only a small group of people.  For example, the monthly letters from the Housing Services received by the Estate she lived on or the housing forum she attended never mentioned about the Hubs that advice on housing matters could be provided.  She called on stepping up communications in sharing the good news. 

Peter Haylock noted there was significant increase in the number of users to the Hubs over the last two years because the Hubs had done a lot of e-marketing including the banner of the Hubs at the bottom of Children Services’ emails.  Despite physical posters and leaflets were less effective nowadays, he agreed to pick up promotion with the residents’ associations.

ACTION: Peter Haylock

Echoing the need to step up promotion of the Hubs at residents’ meetings, Benito Brown (Resident) asked whether the Hubs would help families with children being excluded from schools.   Peter Haylock responded that while the Hubs could support families with children being excluded from schools and a youth club would be developed to meet this need, the Hubs would not offer education provision for the excluded children as this was taken care of by the academies.

In this connection, Jacqui McShannon invited the two residents for a tour visit of the Tudor Rose Family Hub.

On promotion of the Family Hubs, Councillor Alex Sanderson (Deputy Leader) noted that ads about the Hubs’ services around housing, health and education would be targeted at families in the areas.  The Hubs would also ensure their constant presence at the TRA meetings and collect residents’ feedback for service improvements.  

RESOLVED

That the Committee noted the report.