Agenda item

Introduction by Aileen Wilson, Community Family Support Manager (Area 3), followed by presentations from

(a)  Diane Preston, Lilies Nursery Managing Director

(b)  Catherine Smith, Early Years Programme Manager

(c)  Caroline Wragg, Family Nurse Partnership Supervisor

(d)  Selina Thomas, Health Visiting Manager

(e)  Aileen Wilson and Pat Smith, Community Family Support Manager (Area 5)

(f)  Jo Bradley-Fortune, Groundwork

(g)  Lisa Ash, Targeted Family Support Manager

The Committee received presentations, regarding Children and Families’ services available from the City Council (NCC) and external partners, as follows:

Aileen Wilson and Pat Mills (Community Family Support Managers, NCC);

Diane Preston (Managing Director, Lilies Nursery);

Catherine Smith (Early Years Programme Manager, NCC);

Caroline Wragg (Family Nurse Partnership Manager, Nottingham Citycare);

Selina Thomas (Health Visiting Manager, Nottingham Citycare).

The main points were as follows:

•  the Vulnerable Children and Adults Directorate (formerly the Family Community Teams) aim is to register, reach and achieve a sustained contact of 65% and over to achieve a ‘good’ outcome in Ofsted inspections;

•  2 areas currently needing improvement in the Broxtowe, Aspley and Bilborough Children’s Centre Group are:

o  ‘teenage parents’ (registering, reaching and sustained contact), with the key risks to achieving the over 65% target being the frequent change of contact data and a reluctance by teenagers to engage due to a fear of being judged by the Children Centre;

o  ‘under 5’s in workless area’ (register and reach), similar risks as above, with proposed remedial action of an improved quality of registration data and subsequent contacts to identify learning, training and work support needs at the earliest stage, an increase in adult learning provision in the centres and schools and an improved pathway to training and employment providers already funded to support this target group;

•  West Area currently deliver 26 open access sessions plus support and, when possible, 11 midwife clinics to promote Early Help;

•  Lily and Co Limited Day Nurseries was commissioned by NCC in April 2013 to provide childcare in 3 Children’s Centres in West Area (Minver Crescent, Amesbury Circus and Broxtowe) and, since April 2014, from Aspley Community Centre (formerly ACTC);

•  each Centre provides full day care for children aged 6 months to 5 years and opens 8.00am to 6.00pm 51 weeks a year, only closing for 1 week at Christmas. The main reason for this is to allow working parents and parents accessing further and higher education to leave their children in a welcoming, safe environment where they feel happy and secure, so that the parents can achieve the best possible outcomes in their studies or careers;

•  the Centres also offer places to children who are eligible for the 2 Year Early Learning Programme and those accessing Nursery Education Funding, and they also have 2 full-time equivalent respite places (usually allocated to children who have been referred through Social Care, Health Visitors or the Children’s Centre team;

•  Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an evidenced based programme, developed in the US over 30 years, which targets teenage parents and shows significant improvement in maternal outcomes in pregnancy, an improved economic sufficiency and greater outcomes in school readiness. The programme also influences short term health outcomes of increased breast feeding rates and a reduction in smoking, together with a spacing of second pregnancies. Longer term outcomes were evidenced, such as reductions in criminal activity;

•  the FNP is one of only two programmes evidenced to be effective in safeguarding children, as cited by The Lancet in 2012;

•  FNP was adopted by the Department of Health in 2007 as an early intervention preventative programme and has been developed to include the delivery of the ‘Healthy Child Programme’. The FNP programme is currently being delivered in over 100 sites in the country and outcome results, from National research, are due to be released in spring 2015;

•  locally, FNP has been provided by Nottingham CityCare across the City for the past 7 years, with over 350 clients completing the programme. Expansion has taken place and now 2 teams of Family Nurses work out of Children’s Centres in Broxtowe and Bestwood;

•  the service is currently offered to 225 women under 19 in their first pregnancy, approximately 40% of the eligible population;

•  a recent Big Lottery award will fund a further 2 Nurses, increasing coverage to 100% in some areas of the city, including West Area, and currently, 26 clients in West Area are participating in the programme;

•  in 2010 the Government set out its vision for the future of health visiting in England, including expanding and modernising the Health Visitor Service by March 2015. In early 2011 this was supported by publication of the ‘Health Visitor Implementation Plan 2011-15 – A Call to Action’, further highlighted as a priority area in the ‘Operating Framework for the NHS in England - 2012/13’;

•  in response, the City’s ‘Health Visiting Implementation Plan’ was created, aimed at transforming the early support offer to families in Nottingham City, and in particular in West Area;

•  as part of the Plan, Nottingham CityCare Partnership (NCP) has a target to expand the number of Health Visitors from a baseline of 69.4 whole time equivalents (WTE) in 2011 to 154.7 by March 2015 (an increase of 123%). When the Plan was created, it was acknowledged that Nottingham had the largest requirement for an increase in workforce throughout the East Midlands region;

•  The NCP includes NHS England, Health Education East Midlands and Higher Education Institutes, all of which thoroughly support the plan for increasing the workforce and modernising the Health Visiting Service delivered to children and families within the City;

•  as at 30 October 2014, there were 99.58 WTE Health Visitors in post against the target of 154.7 and, with further recruitment from the new 2015 graduates, plus any oversupply from neighbouring providers, it is anticipated that there will be an additional 35 Health Visitors working in the City from January 2015. For West Area that will mean approximately an additional 10 newly qualified Health Visitors.

RESOLVED to note the presentations.