Advisory Board – Minutes of Meeting
Date: Wednesday 17th June 2015 Venue: SANDHILLS COMMUNITY HOUSE
Date Minutes Agreed :Signed:
Print Name:
Organisation:
Present:
David Wood CAB Manager (Chair)
Hazel Jeffrey LB Children’s Centre
Rosemary Brown LB Children’s Centre
Eileen Branney CBC - Childcare Development
Vicki Drummond VCA Works Club Manager
Lucy Benton 0-19 Team Nursery Nurse
Sarah Flint CBC - Children’s Centre Teacher
Emily Winch Speech & Language Therapist
Paula Day CBC - CC Development Officer
Marea Rawlings St George’s Lower School
Helen Grantley-Smith SEPT 0-19 Health Visitor
Yetunde Agega Jobcentre Plus Work Coach
Marielle de Winter SEPT 0-19 Team
Action Required1. / Welcome & Apologies; Introductions
· David welcomed everyone to the meeting and all present introduced themselves.
· Apologies were noted.
· All present at the meeting briefly introduced themselves
2. / Matters arising from previous meeting
· No points were raised from the last minutes
· David confirmed that he has spoken to Sheila Pembroke regarding receiving feedback on the outcomes achieved by partners but no further response received yet.
· Hazel confirmed that the Childminder drop-in sessions at The Moorings can continue and that there are also training sessions taking place.
4. / Leadership & Governance
Hazel presented a synopsis of her Co-ordinators report and attendees requested that this be sent out with a copy of the minutes. Main points were:
· Registrations for Q4 stand at 73%, which is a 6% increase. 110% of children from our highest Lower Super Output Area are registered.
· 60% of children from our highest LSOA have engaged with us at least once during the last quarter
· 84% of children who are eligible for Two Year old Funding have taken up this option which represents an 11% increase.
· We only have limited details available for figures relating to our target groups due to some limitations on the CBC reporting process. For workless households we have 147 parents registered which is up 17% on previous figures.
Staffing – one member of staff is currently on long-term sick leave. Maria is leaving us on 13 July so we will be looking to recruit to that position. Our latest timetable has had to take into account these changes owing to us having fewer staff available.
Training – we have had staff trained in the following: Mental Health First Aid; Growth Monitoring. We also have staff booked onto, or waiting for, the following training: Breastfeeding; Best Start training.
Volunteers – we currently have 3 volunteers working with us with a further 3 coming on board soon.
Parent Information day– this was held on 22nd May in response to parents concerns about contract changes resulting in less universal services being available to them. 11 parents attended and a list of questions was drawn up which Hazel has responded to. The parents are meeting again in July to see how to move forward and a Parents Forum is being set up.
We currently have 36 case files which includes 3 Child Protection & 3 Child in Need cases. We were able to close 52 cases last year and 56% of these met outcomes with 19% partly met.
Partnership Working– we are now supporting the health team with two Bumps, Birth & Baby Stuff courses each week. Feedback from these has been good and it is a helpful route into the Children’s Centre services with parents attending the Baby Brasseries & other sessions.
Clinics – three Child Health Drop-in Clinics are being held weekly across Leighton Buzzard which staff are attending. We took the decision to stop running our Playtime Rhymes session alongside the Southcott clinic as this was not working but Family Workers still attend with the Toy Library & provide information to families.
We now attend the Baby Brasserie in Toddington on a fortnightly basis. Attendance at this session is poor & feedback received implies that it is not very welcoming so as from September we plan to use the Village Hall instead and make it more of a social group. Eileen Branney asked if NCT support was possible for Toddington. This may already be happening but Hazel will find out who covers this area & make contact with them. There was a discussion about the provision of hot drinks as the Children’s Centre & Health have differing policies around this.
Healthy Minds course – this is being delivered by MIND and aims to improve confidence for parents with high anxiety or other mental health issues. Parents from the Nurture Group & the Freedom Programme are attending the course.
The local Twins & Multiple Births group is at risk of folding. Hazel is in liaison with the group regarding their being able to use the Children’s Centre site for this free of charge.
Fun Day - this is being held 4th July 10-12 at St George’s Lower School, and will be an opportunity to highlight the fact that we are under new management. Eileen suggested that we could email out the flyer to pre-school settings.
Yetunde asked how people could get onto the Freedom Programme and was advised that they need to be referred via Homestart or on an EHA. David Wood will send copies of a leaflet held at the CAB to Yetunde & Vicki.
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5. / Service Delivery Plan
This is not yet fully written as we are waiting for target figures from the local authority which will be available early July.
We are meeting the following requirements:
· Registrations for Q4 achieved the target figure, and the target figure for the number of workless households has been met
· Parent Champions were taken on
· We have increased our engagement figure to 53% in LSOA 609
· An employment & training board is in place & we have the JCP Advisor attending the centre monthly
· We have met the requirement for school readiness with 84% of eligible children taking up the Two Year Old Funding
· For “protecting children & keep We also provide 1:1 parenting support for Child Protection & Child in Need children.
· Health & Well-being – the Baby Brasserie is held twice a week; Ragdolly Annas & Sunshine Softplay are regular sessions for physical activity; we also host regular sessions relating to diet & oral health
In May the contract monitoring meeting was held where the Q4 data was discussed and we have achieved the targets set out in the previous 3 year contract with Action for Children. From 30th June the local authority will be able to provide Children’s Centres with new data & they will be setting our new targets. This has meant that for the first 3 months of the new contract we have been working blind but receiving the full data will clarify targets & highlight any gaps. David expressed concern that the Children’s Centre had been given a sum of money without full knowledge of their targets. Paula advised that she is now pushing to get the data & that the targets are likely to be similar to what we have had previously. We could begin to write our Service Delivery Plan with the knowledge we already have.
7. / AOB & Information Sharing
· Sarah has now been back from her maternity leave for three weeks. She is running the Terrific Two’s Group on a Thursday which runs for 4 weeks and on Monday she will be running a transition group at Leedon. During November there will be a four week Bookstart group for families with English as an additional language – this will take place at the library.
· Vicki is running work clubs for the unemployed which assist with writing CV’s, job matching, training and preparation for interviews. This is open to all economically inactive people. Drop-in sessions run throughout the Central Bedfordshire area. In July there is a course on interview skills being held in Leighton Buzzard which is suitable for anyone thinking of going back to work.
· Marielle – Their CQC inspection is due in the week commencing 29th June so they could be coming to the brasserie at Leighton Buzzard. They will know the inspectors timetable on 29th. A start date for the Bumps, Birth & Baby Stuff group in September is still to be agreed – this has now been finalised & will start on 10th September.
· Helen – Toddington mums are going to the Houghton Regis clinic at present for the Bumps, Birth & Baby Stuff course but wanted to know could they come over to Leighton Buzzard if necessary. A Children’s Centre worker is attending the clinic at Toddington whenever possible to keep up the contact with parents & to get registrations.
· Emily is continuing to run the rolling programme of Speech & Language courses. These are fully booked and well attended. Emily is looking at changing the sessions as from September to include a Small Talk course. The Talk Together at Home project is popular for families who don’t want to come into the centre and the 0-19 team refer families into this. Four families are currently receiving home visits. There is a monthly drop in held at the Children’s Centres play sessions, which are very popular. Emily will be delivering summer sessions at the Children’s Centre which are based on book sharing.
· David raised the issue of the Advisory Board meeting format going forward. Children’s Centres do have a requirement to have an Advisory Board which should also include parents/service users. The current format covers items such as finance, targets & information sharing and David wanted to know if the attendees felt this was beneficial to them. Now that the Children’s Centre is under St George’s Lower School management their governors need an involvement & they have set up a sub-committee.
· Eileen felt that she comes to the meeting in an advisory role rather than to share information & that the role should probably be to govern what is going on. It was agreed that we all need to read the terms of reference prior to meetings & refer back to this to establish what our role is. Paula will resend a copy of the CBC guidance on what an advisory board is about so it can be sent out to Advisory Board members.
Marielle felt that information sharing is done more at a local level but the Advisory Board can be the only opportunity to share this wider to other partners. It would be useful for the 0-19 team to be involved with health aspects of the Service Delivery Plan, which may assist with us achieving our targets.
Vicki felt that a lot covered in the Advisory Board meeting is not relevant to other people attending but the general feeling was that there is some value in information sharing to help others to understand what the Children’s Centre is doing. Emily commented that signposting between agencies is aided through meeting each other at the Advisory Board meetings.
Sarah suggested a focus on one area of the Service Delivery Plan at each meeting would be useful e.g. registrations, health
It was agreed to keep the Advisory Board meeting the same but as part of the preparation we send out the latest version of Service Delivery Plan well in advance which will enable people to input at the meeting. / 5
8. / Date and venue for next meetings:
Wednesday 9:30-11:30 30th September
St George’s Lower School
Wednesday 9:30-11:30 2nd December
St George’s Lower School
Actions Required - to be reviewed at next meeting / Person responsible / Date completed
1 / Hazel to check with NCT to see who covers Toddington area & discuss support for Brasserie / Hazel Jeffrey
2 / Marielle to look into issue regarding provision of hot drinks at Brasseries / Marielle
de Winter
3 / Summer Fun flyer to be emailed out to pre-school settings / Rosemary Brown / 22/06/15
4 / David to send copies of Homestart leaflet to Yetunde & Vicki / David Wood
5 / Paula to resend copy of CBC Guidance for Advisory Boards / Paula Day