Family Hubs

(asked on 26th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress has been made on developing a national centre for Family Hubs.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 3rd March 2021

Families play a critical role in caring for and educating their children; and the COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the need for cross-government collaboration to provide support to families. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education is driving forward this government’s focus on improving outcomes for families’ and has appointed a Departmental Policy Adviser on families.

On family hubs, the department is investing over £14 million and is taking steps to champion this approach. We expect to have completed the procurement of a National Centre for family hubs by March 2021 and for the centre to be up and running by spring 2021. We are also investing in an evaluation innovation fund, and work to develop data and digital products to help professionals collaborate and plan with families in the early years.

To support and strengthen families, and to ensure children have the best start, the department has:

  • launched an Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, on 15 January 2021;
  • announced that the Adoption Support Fund (ASF) will continue for a further year up to March 2022 (£185 million has been made available through the core ASF to help pay for essential therapeutic services for over 65,000 adoptive and eligible special guardianship families since 2015);
  • launched the cross government special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) review to strengthen the support available to children and young people, and their families;
  • continued to deliver 30 hours childcare places to nearly 350,000 children in January 2020, with over one million disadvantaged two-year-olds having benefitted from 15 hours free childcare since the entitlement began in 2013;
  • commenced reform of the early years foundation stage to improve outcomes for all children at age five, especially disadvantaged children, and to reduce the workload so practitioners and teachers can spend more time teaching children;
  • introduced the Nuffield Early Language Intervention to 40% of primary schools in the 2020-21 academic year to address the education recovery needs of reception-age children;
  • continued to work with voluntary and community sector partners and deliver online resources to help parents engage in home learning activities with under-fives to support early language, literacy and numeracy development, and parent and child mental health and wellbeing, and to support children with SEND;
  • worked in partnership with Public Health England, the Local Government Association and the Early Intervention Foundation to secure improved early language outcomes for disadvantaged children through effective integration of local services;
  • spent more than £18 billion since 2011 – and another £2.4 billion this year – through the pupil premium to tackle educational inequality;
  • supported families through free school meals (FSM) - under the benefits-related criteria there are currently around 1.4 million pupils eligible for and claiming FSM, saving families around £400 a year for each child. In addition, the Holiday Activity and Food programme will expand in 2021 so that disadvantaged children across England will be offered free healthy meals and enriching activities over the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays through a £220 million investment.
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