Early Years

The Early Years Team aims to:

• Encourage and facilitate families with children under 5 to participate in a range of support activities
• Develop parent involvement and participation
• Provide quality childcare to enable parents to be involved in activities and encourage quality play
• Provide training and learning opportunities for parents for their personal development and development of their skills as parents
• Develop and manage the use of the Denton Island Children and Family Centre
• Provide access for parents to the range of support services as the designated Children's Centre for Newhaven

• Providing a range of shared activities for families and children under 5 including: Pop In & Play, Jitterbugs, Young Mums, Pop In & Weigh, Lick It & Stick It, Socatots, Twins and Multiple Birth Group, cooking groups, freedom creche and Chill & Chat involving 678 parents and 782 children
• Working on long term financial sustainability to maintain and develop a consistent and comprehensive programme of activities to meet needs identified by parents including maintenance of 7 regular weekly groups plus additional short term activities
• Implementing a parent involvement strategy to ensure the inclusion of the 'hard to reach' families
• Supporting parent involvement through monthly parent forums, bi-monthly steering group meetings, nursery parent forum and fundraising group for additional activities involving 19 parents
• Delivering training courses supporting 20 parents in Early Start parenting and basic skills programme, numeracy and fundraising
• Facilitating fortnightly Toy Library visits with an average of 190 users per quarter by parents and childcare providers
• Delivering monthly employment outreach by the JobCentre Plus and NewCEP as part of the protocol of joint working to enable parents to access support in preparation for employment and accessing training
• Delivering support sessions from Citizens Advice Bureau particularly around debt and money advice
• Hosting Midwifery services delivering 1,196 appointments in dedicated Midwifery and Health Visitor room from which the PCT offer antenatal, postnatal and Health Visitor support
• Supporting the launch of the Childminders Network in June 2006 with a dedicated coordinator
• Providing a mobile creche service: 27 childcare activities provided in locations other than the Children & Family Centre to support parent involvement
• Supervision, training and support of a pool of 18 sessional creche workers, and delivery of high quality of provision
• Providing creches to support parent involvement in training and activities in the Children & Family Centre for 656 children
• Achieving satisfactory Ofsted inspection for 84 places at the the Denton Island Children and Family Centre across the Nursery and Centre July 2006
• Maintaining bi-monthly meeting of the Providers Network : 8 meetings for the year attended by an average of 4 schools and 6 nurseries
• Supporting the 22 fortnightly drop-in meetings of the Havens Childminding Association - an average of 6 childminders and 13 children attending
• Providing a training bursary for 4 professional courses and 32 short courses for local providers
• Providing 15 local childcare providers with training in Highscope, child protection and paediatric first aid
• Providing a resource grant for local providers - 15 grants awarded to 15 different providers including 2 childminders
• Early Years library with 300 books, DVDs to promote new ideas and good practice for parents and childcare providers with an average of 76 users per quarter
• Provision of school holiday activities for children up to the age of 11 at the Children & Family Centre through Family Fun & Activity Days, sports and arts activities at Ashington Gardens Peacehaven, Newhaven Fish Festival and September Fete
• Supporting the fundraising group activities in running sponsored events to finance parties, outings and social events for families
• Conversion and equipping of the kitchen to make it suitable for teaching community cookery sessions
• Completion of works for high level opening windows, storage cupboards and storage sheds
• Funding applied for to develop the garden with parent involvement
• Activities at the Children & Family Centre have involved 5,725 adults and 2,268 children in this year

Steering group:

The Local Advisory Group for the Denton Island Children and Family Centre held 6 meeting during the year and included representation  ESCC Children's Services, Grays Infant School, Meeching Valley School. Homestart, ESCC Library Service, NewCEP, Children & Family Centre Parent Forum, Denton Island Nursery Parent Forum, Sussex Downs and Weald PCT, childminders and childcare providers.

• Parents are involved in the development of activites through the monthly meetings of the Parent Forum
• Two parents were supported ion attending the Centre Steering Group
• Informal feedback is gathered from all Children & Family Centre users and formal input gathered through comments book and session evaluations
• Centre service provider meetings are held on quarterly basis