Article: Support for families
Article Body
There are a broad range of support services available to children, young people and their families in Barnsley. Many of these are delivered by the council, but others are provided by local voluntary agencies.
There are 20 children's centres across the borough, which provide child care, family support services, parenting groups and other activities, advice, support and sign-posting to other local services. Contact Early Childhood Services on 01226 775977 for enquiries about local services connected to children centres.
Barnardo's Family Centre located at Priory Campus, Lundwood, provides a range of support services and a family group conferencing service, which is now available to families boroughwide. (Telephone: 01226 770619)
Family Action provides bereavement support services to children experiencing separation and loss across the borough (Telephone: 01226 289933).
Home-Start Barnsley provides access to volunteer support for families where at least one of the children in the household is under five years. (Telephone: 01226 245985)
For details of other voluntary support services for children and families contact Voluntary Action Barnsley (01226 320100).
Our user friendly guide, 'Challenge and Change - Benefits for Families with Children at School', gives parents information about the different types of support available to families and tells them how they can access it. It offers advice on free school meals, school trips, travel, social security benefits, tax credits, education maintenance allowance, as well as how to get help if a person is thinking of returning to work. The main aim of the guide is to make sure parents don't miss out on help that is rightly theirs. Please note, this is a large file and may take a while to download.
Our Safe Parenting Handbook is a really useful guide for parents, providing information about a wide range topics from bed wetting and smacking through to internet safety and child protection, plus many more, and offering some really helpful advice and tips for being a successful parent. There's also a Polish Translation of the Safe Parenting Handbook.
If you have a child with a disability, special educational needs, learning difficulties, or complex health needs, our One Path, One Door Strategy sets out what Barnsley is doing to ensure they are offered better life chances. You can follow the progress we're making in our strategy reviews for March 2010 and November 2011.
From 1 April 2011, local authorities have a duty to provide breaks from caring to families with disabled children, supporting them to continue to care for their children at home and allowing them to do this as well as possible. A range of breaks have to be provided during the day, at night, at weekends and during the school holidays, in the child's home and elsewhere. Local authorities also have to prepare a Short Break Services Statement for parent and carers. The purpose of this is to give information about:
- the range of short break services provided in the local area
- how eligibility for short break services will be assessed and
- how the range of services are designed to meet the needs of parent and carers in the area.
The Barnsley statement has been prepared and agreed. It will form the basis for the planning, development and commissioning of short break services for the year 2011/12 and beyond and will be reviewed annually to make sure that it is up to date. We've also produced a summary version of the Short Break Services Statement.
Consultation in respect of this statement took place with families and professionals during Summer 2011. The key messages from this consultation have been included in the final statement.
Our Family Support Strategic Framework sets out how the Barnsley Children and Young People's Trust and its partners plan to develop and deliver services to support parents/carers, their children and young people, pre-birth to nineteen years of age. It embraces the principles and objectives outlined in the Children and Young People's Plan (2009-2012).
The framework is based on the 'Think Family' approach which highlights the impact of parents and family circumstances on the outcomes and life chances of children and demands a more family focused approach from agencies working with adults and those working with children and encourages early intervention to prevent 'problems' becoming entrenched.
If you're a carer of any age in Barnsley, there are lots of
services across the borough that have been developed specifically
to support you. They can offer you a wide range of information and
advice to help you in your role as a carer. Many of these
services
are available in your local community and have been set up by
voluntary organisations and other carers who may be in a similar
situation to you. The Carers' Information Guide tells you all about
the support on offer and how to access it.
Equalities impact assessments
- Equalities impact assessment of the family support strategic framework
- Equalities impact assessment of One Path One Door (strategy for children and young people, and their families, who have additional, special or complex needs relating to health and/or disabilities, special educational needs (SEN) or learning difficulties)
How to contact us
Service Manager, Fieldwork, Localities and Family Support
Directorate for Children, Young People and Families
Postal address: PO Box 634, Barnsley S70 9GG
Telephone: 01226 775656 from 8.45am to 5pm, Monday to
Friday
Email: cypf@barnsley.gov.uk