Family Hubs
What are Family Hubs?
Family Hubs are ‘one stop shops’ where families can access up to 25 important services including parenting support, perinatal and infant mental health, housing and debt advice and youth provision. Family Hubs are a Conservative government initiative, launched by the Department for Education in November 2021 with the aim of strengthening families, preventing family breakdown and supporting separating families to reduce parental conflict.
At the heart of Family Hubs is early intervention and ensuring every child has the best Start for Life. As such, Family Hubs provide core services for children aged 0-2, but unlike Sure Start or Children’s Centres which focus on young children, Family Hubs support families with children aged 0-19 (or up to 25 if Special Educational Needs and Disabilities). The idea is that families will access support when their child is young, and then be connected into a system of support which they can draw from as their child and/or family grows.
75 Local Authorities were successful in bidding to receive a portion of the £12 million government transformation funding. You can access the full list here to see if your Local Authority is one of them.
The National Centre for Family Hubs VCFS Implementation Toolkit
Why should faith groups get involved in Family Hubs?
All 75 Local Authorities receiving transformation funding have a minimum expectation to ensure they have agreements in place to ‘signpost and connect families to relevant voluntary, community and faith sector and peer support offers’ as well as a strategy to grow voluntary, community and faith sector involvement in the family hub network.
We have identified three key areas for partnership between Family Hubs and Churches/Christian organisations:
- Connected Partners - through signposting and referral
- Co-hosts - through the use of their buildings
- Commissioned Partners - through running specific services for the Hub or using their premises’
Timeline
Over the last 3 years of Family Hubs
First Commission Meeting
During the Commission’s first ever meeting, Commissioners identified supporting vulnerable families as one of the key areas to work on.
Commission Meeting
In our Commission meeting on the 30th of March, we were informed by Dame Andrea Leadsom MP about the intention that faith groups are and integral part of the delivery of Family Hubs.
Family Hubs Funding Announcement
In April 2022, 75 local authorities were named by the Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care as eligible for a share of £302 million to set up the Government’s flagship Family Hubs and enhance start for life services as part of the government’s levelling up drive. Family hubs are one-stop-shops where families can access important services, including parenting programmes, support with perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships.
Commission Meeting
At our Commission meeting we brought representatives from the Department for Education and National Centre for Family Hubs together with Commissioners and leading Christian family support charities to discuss and agree to work together on engaging churches and denominations in the roll-out of Family Hubs.
Family Hubs Webinar
We ran a webinar on September 22nd in collaboration with the Gather Movement and the National Centre for Family Hubs to inform and inspire over 120 church leaders to engage with their local Family Hub Team. You can watch the webinar here.
What is ChurchWorks doing?
We work closely with the National Centre for Family Hubs to provide support for Local Authorities looking to connect with the VCFS sector.
Work we’ve done so far includes:
Faith & Policy Brief
We worked with the National Centre for Family Hubs to develop a Faith & Policy Brief for Local Authorities, supporting them to partner with faith communities.
National Faith Leaders Meeting
The ChurchWorks Secretariat chairs online meetings, bringing together faith leaders and National partners to share best practice.
Initial Consultations
We advise local authorities wanting to know more about how they can connect with the faith sector
Connecting local authorities with churches
We make warm introductions through our network of churches
Equipping churches
We assist churches to reach out to their local authorities. Watch our webinar with Gather & the National Centre for Family Hubs from Sept 2022 for ideas and resources
Gathering stories
We find and share stories where local authorities and churches have developed strong partnerships
Presenting at meetings and events
We speak at events and network meetings to to raise awareness of how churches can be key partners in Family Hubs implementation
How can you get involved?
If you are a church, Christian organisation or Local Authority and want to find out more about how to create effective partnerships between Family Hubs and faith communities, we’d love to hear from you.