Stockport Council secures Family Hubs Transformation funding

Stockport Council has been awarded funding from the government’s Family Hubs Transformation Fund to help it improve its services for children, young people, and families.

Stockport is one of 12 local authorities to be allocated a share of the £12 million funding pool over two years until March 2024, which will enable it to bring services together under a family hub model that can provide joined-up, whole-family support services, for families with children of all ages (0-19) or up to 25 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Family hubs are a ‘front door’ to a range of early help, public health, and wider support services offered by the council.

The move towards a family hub model aims to allow professionals to spend more high-quality time working with the families who need it and can lead to:

• For families and children – better access to early help services, professionals and support; better relationship with professionals; and improved experience of getting help
• For professionals – improved ways of working and interprofessional collaboration; improved working relationships with families i.e., ‘team around the family approach’), including connections between professionals and across services; improved data-sharing.
• At a local commissioning and delivery level – improved partnership working between services; improved governance and decision-making at authority level; clearer and/or shared funding arrangements across services; improved needs assessment, planning and commissioning and delivery of services.

Stockport Council’s vision to move to family hubs aims to transform access to family help and support and build on the established integrated services locality model, widening co-location of teams within the community and outreach opportunities through additional public sector and Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) partnerships.

Cllr Mark Hunter, Leader of Stockport Council, said:

“We know that a child’s experiences from conception to age five play a critical role in their development. This funding and investment will have a hugely positive impact on the lives of children, young people, and families in Stockport and help to meet their needs. Building on the high quality of our Children’s Services, recognised with last week’s Good Ofsted rating, the Family Hubs Model will provide a single gateway for families to access support, making sure that they are offered the help they need as quickly as possible.”

Family hubs are a key part of The Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days, commissioned by the Prime Minister, and chaired by Rt Hon Dame Andrea Leadsom MP, which was published by the Department for Health and Social Care in March 2021.