Walsall families are set to benefit from the development of a network of family hubs offering help and support for a range of children’s services including infant feeding, mental health support, health visits and parenting classes.

The hubs, which will be launched in early summer, will integrate all the services and support for children aged 0-19 (0 to 24 for children with special educational needs and disabilities), their parents and carers.

This will include physical places, a virtual offer and outreach services. Councillor Stacie Elson, Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services at Walsall Council, said: 

“Developing Family Hubs in Walsall is a great opportunity to build on our integrated locality work and the work we are doing with our voluntary and community partners to connect families with sustainable support.

“Family Hubs will provide a universal ‘front door’ to families in Walsall, offering a ‘one-stop shop’ of family support services across their social care, education, mental health and physical health needs, with a comprehensive Start for Life offer for parents and babies at its core.” 

Michelle McManus, Director of Transformation and Place Development for Walsall Together, added: 

“We are really pleased to be one of the areas who successfully secured funding to implement family hubs.

“Lots of hard work has already been going on across the partnership to enable us to further strengthen our integrated services and focus on giving all children in Walsall a best start in life.

“Walsall has large areas of deprivation and the cost of living crisis is having a real impact on our communities.

“The sooner we can make access to support and advice easier the better the outcomes will be.” 

The work will align to the work being done as part of Walsall’s Children and Young People Strategic Alliance focusing on ‘The best start for life: a vision for the 1,001 critical days.’ 

This sets out six action areas designed to help make things easier for busy parents and carers: 

•    seamless support for families: a coherent joined-up Start for Life offer available to all families
•    a welcoming hub for families: family hubs as a place for families to access Start for Life services 
•    the information families need when they need it: designing digital, virtual and telephone offers around the needs of the family 
•    an empowered Start for Life workforce: developing a modern skilled workforce to meet the changing needs of families
•    continually improving the Start for Life offer: improving data, evaluation, outcomes and proportionate inspection
•    leadership for change: ensuring local and national accountability and building the economic case

The types of support included within the Family Hubs will include parenting, perinatal mental health, parent-infant relationship, breastfeeding and home learning environment.