Frequently asked questions

What are children's centres?

Children's centres provide multi-agency services that are flexible and meet the needs of young children and their families. The core offer includes integrated early learning, family support, health services, outreach services to children and families not attending the centre and access to training and employment advice. Children's centres are models of multi-agency and partnership working.

What are the aims of the children's centres programme?

The government intends that the provision of good quality integrated services should have broad and lasting impact on children, their parents and the community. Children's centres contribute towards the government's commitment to: the best start in life for every child; better opportunities for parents; affordable, good quality childcare; stronger and safer communities. The children's centre programme is based on the concept that providing integrated education, care, family support and health services are key factors in determining good outcomes for children and their parents.

The concept itself is not a new one. Children's centres are about building on existing good practice, rather than starting afresh. A significant number of families with young children already benefit from good quality integrated services. Children's centres enhance these services and extend the benefits to more families - bringing an integrated approach to service delivery to areas where it is most needed

What services will be provided in children's centres?

Children's centres aim to provide the following services to children under five and their families: early education integrated with full day care, including early identification of and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities; parental outreach; family support, including support for parents with special needs; health services; a base for childminders, and a service hub within the community for parents and providers of childcare services; effective links with jobcentre plus, local training providers and further and higher education institutions; effective links with Family Information Services (FIS), out of school clubs and extended schools.

Contact your local children's centre to find out what services are offered.

Who manages children’s centres?

The government has passed a duty on all local authorities to create a specific number of children’s centres and ensure that they are providing the core offer. Early years provide universal services and a range of support services to enable them to achieve this. In addition early years provides each children’s centre with funding so that they can provide locally identified services that meet the needs of their local community. Each children’s centre has a local steering group that meets regularly to monitor and review its service offer. In addition to these local steering groups, early years has a central steering group made up of partners from health, job centre plus, voluntary sector and children’s centre representatives, that meet to monitor and review universal services.

Why do I have to give my details when I attend activities at my local children’s centre?

Early years have to provide key statistics for the Department for Education, on the usage of our children's centres, that cater for 8,400 children under five years of age. So that we can provide data that shows we are reaching the required number of families, we must take basic data from you to store on our database. The type of basic information we require will be your name, address and contact details, the names, ages of your children.

In addition to the basic information, we may ask you to provide more detailed information that helps us to monitor the effectiveness of the services we provide.

We operate within the Data Protection Protocols and use your information accordingly.