Petition details
Re-open children’s centres
I am a local parent of three using childminder services across the borough. Without children’s centre availability across the borough, children and their parents will suffer.
This Petition ran from 26/09/2020 to 07/11/2020 and has now finished.
17 people signed this Petition.
Council response
Thank you very much for your request for a petition to be hosted on the council website. Like you, I value the wide range of services delivered through our children and family centres, as you say, these services are vital for our families during these very difficult times.
I am delighted to be able to tell you that there are no plans to close children and family centres for the winter. I am also delighted to be able to let you know that we are continuing to fully fund all our early years education and childcare settings. We are closely following DFE advice to ensure that all eligible childcare settings and child minders receive the same funding as last year. These services are also crucial for families and I am delighted that we can maintain this funding.
Our children and family centres cannot offer services in exactly the same way as before the pandemic. In 2019 15,900 children and 15,411 parents and carers used the services they offered. In total there were over 250,000 contacts by children and family centres: 138,924 contacts with children; 112,945 contacts with parents or carers.
Five centres have remained open since before the first lockdown began. Seven centres had to temporarily close from March to August whilst we got to grips with making all our workplaces Covid secure. The remaining seven children and family centres re-opened on September 1st 2020, with additional measures in place to mitigate the risk of the spread of infection. The activity timetable and other useful information about our 12 children’s centres is available at this link. All twelve children’s centres are continuing to remain open during the current second lockdown. During the pandemic, temporary closure of two weeks may be required by Public Health if staff become ill with Covid-19
You mention children, parents and carers in your request and the way that Covid transmission occurs. We are closely following local and national Public Health advice and guidance on delivering services through our centres. The Council has to also consider the safety of all the professionals who work in children’s centres. All council services must ensure that the required infection control procedures are in place to protect the public, our staff and colleagues from partner organisations.
Many people work in children and family centres: council employees, health professionals, employment professionals and front-line workers handling cleaning and disposal. These staff will all be exposed to infection in the same way as children, parents and carers. It is therefore necessary for children and family centres to continue to implement the measures required locally and nationally to help prevent any local spike in infections.
Compliance is overseen by the Back to Business Board for the
council. Children and family centres must follow these council
requirements. The necessary risk assessments mean that fewer people
than previously can access children and family centre services at
the moment. In practice this will mean that session attendance will
be at lower levels than before. This is because group size for
universal sessions must be smaller to meet regulations for the
second lockdown. Residents will be aware that most centres operated
a booking session pre-Covid to ensure numbers met the then health
and safety regulations. The same approach will be used during the
ongoing situation. We are asking parents to book to attend the
sessions before they arrive by contacting their local
children’s centres. All contact details are available on our
website:
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/childrenscentres
Please do get back to me if you have any further queries.
Regards,
Christine McInnes
Divisional Director, Education and Partnerships