Coronavirus: Children's minister sets out £4.4m fund to support children impacted by pandemic

Addressing online delegates at the Early Intervention Foundation’s (EIF) National Conference, Ms Ford announced a £4.4m investment to extend Covid-19 response programmes run by major children’s charities.

She also set out plans to create a National Centre for Family Hubs and Integrated Services aimed at improving vulnerable families’ access to integrated health and education services. The successful contractor for the Centre is due to be announced in March 2021 with the aim of it being ‘live’ by May.

The Centre will support areas and councils to set up new hubs by drawing on existing best practice. Suppliers will be invited to work alongside family hubs to design and deliver robust evaluations of their effectiveness and value for money. This will help national and local organisations understand which models work most effectively and can be replicated, as well as the best way to integrate a range of family services.  

An extra £4.2m will go to a coalition of charities to continue the ‘See, Hear, Respond’ programme until March 2021. The programme, which was launched in June, supports vulnerable children who fall below the threshold for statutory support and early help, including those in need of crisis support due to the pandemic.

It has reached more than 39,000 vulnerable children whose usual support networks of friends, extended family or out-of-school activities have been impacted by pandemic restrictions. It is hoped that the additional funding will reach an estimated 15,000 more children and young people, as well as 11,000 parents and carers in need of extra help.

Ms Ford acknowledged that the pandemic has caused ‘unparalleled challenges’ for the country and has been particularly difficult for vulnerable families.

‘We must go further, not just tackling the most urgent and immediate issues but also looking at our vision for the future by improving the resources that already exist,’ she said.

‘We promised to champion family hubs and the plans set out today will help make sure even more families and children can access the early health and education services we know can have a lifelong impact.’

Long term funding 'crucial'

Shadow children and early years minister Tulip Siddiq told delegates that, despite the huge challenges that children and young people are facing during the pandemic, they were being treated as an ‘afterthought’ in policy making.

As recovery from the pandemic is planned, she said that Government should learn from past mistakes and stop ‘slashing’ council funding while still expecting good outcomes.

‘Over £2billion has been taken out of children’s services since 2010 and the result is cuts to local authority budgets. I saw this firsthand when I was a Labour councillor in Camden before I became an MP,’ she said.

‘Leading children’s charities have argued, quite rightly, that this decade of “salami slicing” left us unprepared for when Covid-19 hit. The cash injections we have seen this year have been necessary, of course, but they don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the funding gaps that have developed. Recent analysis by the sector has confirmed that it is the areas where unemployment and deprivation is highest that have seen the largest falls for children’s services over the last decade.

‘A serious concern of mine, and one I know that the EIF has at the centre of its mission to address, is the fact that the relentless cuts to council budgets from central Government have inevitably led to a focus on crisis management rather than preventative measures that will stop problems ending up at crisis point.’

EIF chief executive Jo Casebourne said that, while children are least likely to be affected by the Covid-19 virus itself, the direct impact on their lives is ‘enormous and wide reaching’.

‘This generation of children must not have to live with the knock on effect of the pandemic for the rest of their lives,’ she said. ‘Long term investment in early intervention remains crucial and if we do not invest now the outcomes for the most vulnerable children will be much worse in the long term.’

Dr Casebourne added that delivering high quality, evidence-based early intervention is vital in order to make sure that support provided to families will make a difference and give children the best start in life.