Childrens Centres Consultation Launches

The council must ensure children’s centres support the needs of children in Slough, can reach those who require more targeted support, are affordable and deliver value for money, whilst remaining accessible and consistent in the range of provision based on an assessment made on borough-wide needs for early care provision. 

The consultation is open to all Slough residents, and the council welcomes responses both from those who use the children’s centre service and those who currently do not. It is important to hear your views about the key issues the council should consider when designing the borough’s future children’s centre service.

There are three proposed options that residents are invited to comment on.

Option 1: (Recommended option)   

To create a new three centre model by closing seven of the existing 10 children’s centres to establish a new model of delivery serviced by the existing centres at Penn Road, Chalvey Grove and Romsey Close.   

This option would see the three retained centres operate on a north, south and east locality basis. This option would include the maintenance of directly delivered early education and childcare from Chalvey Grove and Romsey Close. Stand-alone early education and childcare would also be maintained at Yew Tree Road.

1. Option 1 is the recommended option for Slough Borough Council as it would enable a new way of working to be introduced and embedded. 
2. Allow alignment to current locality-based approaches elsewhere in Children’s Services and at Slough Borough Council. 
3. Provide Slough Children First with a greater role for and involvement from partners and the potential for commissioned based services. 
4. Enable the development of an integrated family network and family hub model as a wider strategy for Children’s Services in Slough.
5. Provide Slough Borough Council with an improved family and early help offer. 

Option 2: 
 

To create a new two centre model by closing eight of the existing 10 children’s centres to establish a north and south locality model serviced by the existing centres at Penn Road and Chalvey Grove, respectively. This option would include the maintenance of directly delivered early education and childcare from Chalvey Grove. Stand-alone early education and childcare would also be maintained at Yew Tree Road. 
 

Option 3: 

To create a new single centre model by closing nine of the existing 10 children’s centres to establish a boroughwide model at Chalvey Grove.

 A comprehensive consultation pack has been produced, explaining in more detail the options and reasonings behind them.

Have your say!

• Fill in the survey online at: https://slough.citizenspace.com/corporate/childrens-centres-consultation

• Email Childrens.Centres@slough.gov.uk if you have any questions.
• Visit a drop-in session.

Councillor Christine Hulme, lead member for children’s services, lifelong learning, and skills, said: “We are very proud of our children’s centres and all of our hardworking staff, who are, as always, committed to providing a great service for our children.

“However, this service has developed to deal primarily with younger children and their families.

“We recognise as our community needs change, there is a need for us to broaden our offer with more targeted support for a broader age range of children and their families.

“Recent events in Slough involving older children demonstrates our resources need to support all our children and our intention is to develop our children’s centres into a family hub model, which has been successfully implemented in other local authority areas over the past few years.

“When children’s centres were originally established, they were exclusively targeted at providing support for children in their early years.

“Going forward we intend to develop a model that provides services for children from 0 to 19 (25 with SEND), whilst retaining an Early Years’ service on some of our sites.

“Having fewer of the old style children’s centres would mean we can develop comprehensive family hubs at those that remain, providing a much wider range of services to more children and young people and their families. 

“We would encourage all residents whether they currently use the children’s centres or not, to let us know their views via the survey and have a say on the future of children’s centres across the borough.”

The children’s centre team will be hosting drop-in sessions where residents can ask questions and get help filling in the online survey if they need it.

The dates for the drop-in sessions are:

February

Thursday 9, Penn Road Children’s Centre, 10-11.30am, Penn Wood School, Penn Road, SL2 1PG.

March

Monday 6, Vicarage Way Children’s Centre, 12noon-2pm, Vicarage Way, Colnbrook, SL3 0JY.

Wednesday 15, Yew Tree Road Children’s Centre, 4-6pm, St Marys School, Yew Tree Road, SL1 2AR

If you cannot access the internet at home or need help to complete the survey, you can visit your local children’s centre for a paper copy.

Residents are invited to read the full consultation pack before filling in the consultation survey. Visit https://democracy.slough.gov.uk/ieIssueDetails.aspx?IId=43743&PlanId=0&Opt=3#AI45631 more information is also available here: www.slough.gov.uk/childrenscentreconsultation

Responses will be analysed, and an outcomes report will go to Cabinet later in 2023.