Wandsworth Council,
Consultation Team“Participation People are running a further engagement group at Yvonne Carr, this Friday the 25th January between 11am - 12pm. We’ve asked Antonia, and her team to talk to as many people as possible about your ideas to help make Early Years Service even better.
They have been running engagement groups across Wandsworth for the past 2 weeks. We understand that not everyone may not have had the information about how to get involved so we’ve asked them to do this additional session on Friday.
Alternatively, Antonia would love to speak to you, 1-2-1 for 15-20 minutes about your views and ideas. That can be on the phone, Skype, FaceTime, What'sApp or face to face. If that’s of interest, please let her know as soon as possible. You can contact Antonia and her team via email: info@participationpeople.com; or phone: +44 (0) 3333 556438.
Below is a message from Cllr McDermott, based on some of the questions people have asked at previous groups, including:
Which centres are closing?
Why don’t I know that centres are closing?
What are the reduced hours?
What about childcare?
Cllr McDermott has given us the following answer.
Can I offer you firm reassurances that we have absolutely no plans whatsoever to close, Yvonne Carr Children’s Centre, York Gardens Children’s Centre or any of our 12 children’s centres in Wandsworth. We aren’t proposing that Children’s Centres will have reduced opening hours and we remain committed to investing in early childhood services, including Children’s Centres. We are continuing to widen the range of affordable childcare in Wandsworth but if you need help with finding a childcare place please contact Liz Hickson, Lead Childminder Development Officer on 020 8871 6223.
At Yvonne Carr we are proposing to widen the range of services available, enhancing the Children’s Centre offer and having more things that families and children over 5 can take part in.
We want to make sure that many more two-year olds living locally can take advantage of all of the 15 hours of free childcare and nursery provision that’s on offer. To do this, we need to expand the nursery that currently operates from the shared children’s centre building at York Gardens to create an integrated Children’s Centre and nursery so that we can create more places for these children. Our aim is to provide these extra nursery places under the same roof as the baby clinic, heath visitor service and parenting classes which we know are well received and well used by local residents.
What this means is that we may need to find a new home for the popular stay and play sessions. It is important however that this is provided at a site nearby – and one that is certainly within walking distance.
We think it may be possible to do this in a local school or library, with the paramount aim being to keep these services locally so that we can provide stay and play in this part of Battersea.
Looking forward to the future, the regeneration of the Winstanley Estate will see the development of a new children’s centre in a modern, brand new purpose-built space that will enable the nursery and other services for families with young children to all come back together again under one roof, whilst at the same time providing additional outreach services to the wider local community and a range of opportunities for the whole family. The plan is to open this new enhanced children’s centre in 2023.
Please rest assured that our goal is to increase access to early learning places for two-year-olds and to expand the number of venues where we provide early years opportunities like stay and play.
I should also stress that the recently held public consultation did not propose that families living near York Gardens would need to go to the Yvonne Carr centre on the Patmore estate to access these children’s services nor indeed, as some were claiming, that the plans were to close Yvonne Carr altogether. On the contrary the changes proposed there are about widening the age range of children able to access services there and to help us offer other related services that support local families.
There are two Children’s Centres, Hillbrook and Franciscan, that are very close together and we have proposed to bring the management of these together so that at Franciscan we offer more targeted services like parenting groups, opportunities for parents and children aged 2 to take advantage of all of the 15 hours of free childcare and nursery provision that’s on offer including being able to stay, play and learn together, an offer that is already working well in some of the other Children’s Centres in Wandsworth whilst widening the range of universal services on offer at Hillbrook. We haven’t made any decisions yet but we are committed to the principal that no children presenting with their parent / carer are turned away.
We are now evaluating the results of that consultation and we will continue to talk to local groups and organisations as part of this ongoing public engagement. The recommendations arising out of the consultation will be discussed at the Children’s Services and Education Overview and Scrutiny Committee on February 7th 2019. No decisions will be made ahead of this meeting, which members of the public are welcome to attend.
The groups being delivered by Participation People are to provide a space to come together to develop ideas about what’s best for Early Years provision in Wandsworth. Thank you to everyone who completed the consultation questionnaire, attended a consultation meeting and who has given us their views. If your not booked on Friday’s session at Yvonne Carr please get in touch with Participation People so we can hear about your ideas.
Cllr Sarah McDermott
Nightingale Conservative Councillor
Lead Member for Children's Services
Wandsworth Borough Council
Participation People also want to make sure you have the chance to speak to the Council directly about the consultation because some people coming to the group sessions have wanted to talk about their worries that Children’s Centres are closing or to give feedback about the online consultation that closed on the 3rd December 2018. So, Rachel Egan Assistant Director Early Help will also be at Yvonne Carr on Friday so that you can tell her your views.
If you want to:
Ask questions
Give you views about the consultation
Tell the Council how much you value Children’s Centres
Tell the Council they should keep investing in Children’s Centres, then come along and speak to Rachel.
They’ll be a space for you to meet with Rachel at Yvonne Carr and all of the groups that are planned.
To make sure you get a spot and we can support you the best we can, please book your spot here: https://goo.gl/forms/G9cj51pmGVQQW5df2
Thank you to everyone who has taken part in a group and given their views. This will help make early years even better.”
