THE consultation on improvements to children’s public health services, children’s centres and support for families has begun and Thurrock Council would like to hear from those who use and work in the services
Following the announcement of the Council’s ambitious plans to integrate services, parents, young people and professionals are being asked to have their say on the proposed services.
Through a mixture of children’s centres, health centres schools and community-based services, the help and support offered will be more joined-up and family centred.
Views are specifically being sought on the health services for children and young people aged 0-19, children’s centres and support for families in need of additional help.
As part of the consultation, a number of drop-in sessions, presentations and question and answer sessions have been arranged across the borough. There will also be a session designed for those aged 10 to 19 as well as one for children and young people with disabilities.
A dedicated survey for parents and professionals and one designed specifically for young people aged 10 to 19 have been published online.
Portfolio Holder for Education and Health, Cllr James Halden, said: “As we move forward with these important improvements to services, I want to make sure everyone has their say.
“In this extensive consultation process, we want to hear from local residents – especially parents, carers and service users – young people aged 10 to 19 and professionals working with families.
“I hope everyone has their say on how these vital services are developed.”
For full details on how residents can have their say on the consultation, please visit thurrock.gov.uk/children. The consultation ends on 4 December.
I really find the timing of these changes as strange as Thurrock is seeing a massive increase in numbers of children moving into the new build sites around the area.
For one the thought of losing Aveley Childrens centre makes no sense in the past few weeks Aveley Primary School were preparing for the delivery and yesterday saw two cranes lifting two portable classrooms into place to cover the numbers of children coming into the area from the Belhus By pass new builds, so as the school numbers grow TBC want to adopt a cost saving and service reducing system that will be at the detriment to the users.
I don’t see anywhere in an already congested Aveley or a building suitable to take in all children’s services as the proposal reads ‘under one roof’, without it becoming a watered down service.
It is my belief that for the size of the children’s centre, the number of ‘drop in’ visits made by many of the children’s services including speech and language and health visitors are amazing and all very well organised, the outreach services run from the centre are very good too add to this the number of activities that go on there, there are not many days when the rooms are not busy, the centre staff are very obliging and always supportive and helpful, our family have used the centre for a variety of reasons recently and we doubt the quality of service can be bettered by moving all services together, as it is it supports the community very well the way it is.
All services using the centre have the abilty to make appointments to service consultants at other venues is the only way forward.
LONG LIVE the CHILDREN’S CENTRES they are the lifeblood of the community and will only get busier as numbers grow in Thurrock.
It seems TBC have other ideas of how to use budgets, penny pinching on essential services and buying into out of area wind farms (£15m quoted) is surely not what local authorities are about we are the tax payers and deserve our money spent on us.