Consultation: Help us develop services for children, young people and families

Overview

At West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) there is lots of work happening together to review our early help offer for children, young people, and their families, and to look at how we can strengthen this work to ensure there is the right preventative support available to those who need it.  

Our focus on the early help offer is about how together with other organisations such as health, voluntary sector and community organisations, we can ensure families can access timely and helpful support. This includes information, advice and guidance on a range of topics – this may be advice on newborn support and development, vaccinations for children, mental wellbeing advice for teenagers to name a few examples.

We are currently seeking your views on: 

• Establishing local Family Hubs with the aim of ensuring that families with children, aged between 0 to 19 and or young people aged up to 25 with SEND, can access help, advice and support they need for a wide range of services much more easily. This includes exploring different ways to make services accessible – for example building an informative website and creating in-person ‘hubs’ which looks to provide a space/ location where various services are available for families in one place. Family hubs are being considered for the Daventry area, Northampton area and the Towcester area. The planned location of our first Family Hub is The Forum, Moat Lane, in Towcester. The locations for other family hubs is yet to be decided. 

• A proposal to move the activities and services of the Towcester Children’s Centre. Currently the service is provided at The Community Centre, Islington Road, Towcester, and it proposed to move the service into a new Family Hub which will be located within The Forum, Moat Lane, Towcester.  

• Further information which will help develop the new delivery model for our 0 to 19 Public Health Nursing Services. Building on the recently undertaken needs assessment we want to understand what families and young people would like from these services so that we can develop a local service specification which we will further consult on too.  We see the 0 to19 service being delivered hand in hand with our Family Hubs development programme.

Why your views matter

Across West Northants, there are some excellent services which provide early help support, for example, our schools, health colleagues, voluntary sector, libraries and others. However, the needs of children and families that require help and support continues to increase and it is essential we meet the needs of our population and streamline how people can access this support. Underpinning all is the focus on how we deliver local services and ensure that we provide support, for the right issue, and at the right time and ensure that children and young people are protected and kept safe. 

We want to hear from anyone who has a view about how we can develop our offer to children, young people and their families in West Northants. In particular, we would like to make sure that we are capturing the views of families who will be using the service as this gives us helpful information. 

Related Document

The following provides further information on Family Hubs

• Frequently asked questions about Family Hubs

How to take part 

Please tell us your views by completing this online questionnaire through the link below. You do not have to answer all the questions or give us feedback on every section.

Alternatively, you can email or send your comments in by post using the contact details below.

If you have any queries, comments or would like a copy of this questionnaire in another format you can contact us by email or post. Our contact details are as follows:

Email: familyhubs@westnorthants.gov.uk

Postal address:

• Consultation Response
• Rebecca Wilshire 
• Director of Children's Services
• West Northamptonshire Council
• The Guildhall 
• St Giles' Street
• Northampton
• NN1 1DE

The consultation will close at midnight on Sunday 28 April 2024.

What happens next

We will review all feedback and use the information you give to direct future work on services for children and families. Your feedback will be part of reports with other people’s feedback, so you will not be personally identified.

For information about how consultation and engagement responses are managed, please see the consultation and engagement privacy notice.