Sure Start: Norfolk County Council - Community trust plans to boost centre services

The way Sure Start children's centre managers and staff face up to the funding cuts and reorganisation programmes that are sweeping across the country may depend on whether they see change as an opportunity or a threat.

In a deprived corner of the Norfolk coast, the decision by the county council to put its children's centres on the market has been welcomed as a door opening, rather than a door closing. 'This is an opportunity for us,' says Andrew Forrest, chief executive of the Great Yarmouth Community Trust, which was set up ten years ago as a successor body to the town's trailblazing Sure Start partnership.

Under the commissioning plan for Norfolk's 54 children's centres, drawn up by the county council, the Priory and Greenacre children's centres in Great Yarmouth are among a group of 26 lots to be put on the open market. The trust is committed to bidding for them and is working on plans with head teachers to translate progress made on raising foundation stage profiles into improved school attainment.

The council, which lost nearly £30 million in government grants this year, serves a county often seen as wealthy, but which in fact has pockets of high deprivation, which account for it being ranked as the sixth-most-deprived county in the country. Great Yarmouth is the only district in Norfolk to be rated among the 50 most-deprived local authorities.

The thinking is that savings of around £6 million will be made through combining management teams across centres while protecting frontline services. Eighteen children's centres are being put on the market as single lots. They tend to either be bigger centres serving areas with high levels of deprivation, or centres that are integrated with school sites or located where it does not make sense geographically to link them with another centre.

There are ten lots for which the council is not tendering, but these will be required to meet a new service specification and look for efficiencies. The tender process will be launched this month (August). There will then be an evaluation process, which will focus on quality and value for money, and final contracts will be awarded in December with the centres beginning to operate under their new management next April.

RETAINING SURE START ETHOS

Alison Thomas, cabinet member for children's services at Norfolk County Council, says, 'We need to restructure the management of these centres to ensure they provide best value for money. We really value our children's centres and know they play a tremendously important role in early intervention work, supporting parents of young children and providing advice and guidance on health, care, education and support services.'

Mr Forrest takes a positive view of the situation. 'The principle of Sure Start is our core business; it is at the heart of our ethos. We are moving towards the commissioning process and will be looking to apply to take on the lead agency role, on the front line with families.'

The trust is anticipating that the tender process will require applicants to make projections for future developments. Norfolk County Council has made it clear that under the Government's revised goals for children's centres, each centre needs to reach at least 600 children, focus on the disadvantaged, aim to increase voluntary and community sector involvement and increase the delivery of early intervention and prevention programmes.

'We are looking to build partnerships with local schools,' says Mr Forrest. 'In particular we want to see how we can extend the birth to five-year-old support for families up to age 11. We are looking for a range of other funding for that as a voluntary sector organisation.

'We are trying to extend the foundation stage profile, where in Yarmouth it is low. The FSP has increased over the past two years but is still below the national average. Attainment at every level within the town is low. It still comes as something of a shock to me to say that Great Yarmouth has the lowest number of adults with A level/Level 4 qualifications among all districts in the country.'

The trust wants to work on some of the social issues for the children and families so the schools can focus on the teaching.

Mr Forrest says, 'One of the issues is that the children are always trying to catch up, and some of them never make it. Family life can for some be quite chaotic. What we are trying to do in the schools is create a safe social environment to support the children emotionally so the teachers can get on with the teaching. We are starting to talk with the head teachers about a partnership where we can support the emotional learning of the children to release the teachers to focus on English and maths.

'We now have a ten-year history of working like this and we have a history of developing innovative partnerships. Ten to 12 years ago, a lot of regeneration programmes looked at continuing Sure Start and talked about a development trust model that was sustainable, but never really committed to that model.

'Here, in Great Yarmouth, right from the beginning there was an absolute determination that this is what we wanted to do. It was incredibly brave and foresighted, but we are now one of the biggest development trusts in the country. It would not have happened except for those parents right at the beginning who said this is what we want.'

PRIORY AND GREENACRE CHILDREN'S CENTRES

Priory and Greenacre children's centres already operate as two sites run by a combined management team, and families in the town have equal access to either centre.

The centres work with disadvantaged families and have a 60 per cent reach. Their health visitor service has a 99 per cent reach. All their children are classed by the local authority as disadvantaged.

Their services include:

• outreach to local traveller sites

• inclusion teams working with families with SEN children

• work with teenage parents

• dads' groups (one for teenage dads)

• a parent and infant mental health service across the borough which helps parents form strong early attachment

• learning package for parents with two-year-olds - at home and in the centres, so parents can access learning while their children are being cared for at the centres and take resources such as storytelling baskets home

• support for migrant families.

Aside from council funding, the children's centres get funding in kind from the health budget through the provision by the primary care trust of specialist teams covering midwifery, health visiting and psychology.

COMMUNITY TRUST

From its home at the Priory Centre the trust delivers services to the whole community and runs five social enterprises. Its services include:

• two children's centres: Greenacre and Priory

• Priory day nursery

• Priory creche

• parent/infant mental health services

• an employment agency

• adult learning

• the community nutrition service for Great Yarmouth and Waveney

• Work with people over 50

• Priory Research Services

• Priory Marketing

• Priory Cafe, including a buffet service

• The Priory Centre, as a community, learning and conference centre