Bolton: Family hubs to be set up after multi-million pound funding boost

Bolton is one of 75 authorities across the country set to receive a slice of a £301.75m  over the next three years.

The funding will establish hubs to  provide a range of services for families which government hopes that this will develop into a universal service, similar to Start Well Centres.

Bolton director of children’s services Bernie Brown said: “There’s a start for life offer, which is a strategy for early years and early year education, particularly on that broader engagement with parents around the support for children from pre-birth through to birth and early years.

“A significant amount of money is targeted at parenting programmes and that infant/parent mental health support.”

The hubs will be based in all areas of Bolton either on the site of Start Well Hubs, schools or other alternative centres and will offer community midwifery, birth registrations, public health nursing, infant feeding facilities and infant and family mental health services.

Harvey Nursery in Great Lever was the last council run nursery in Bolton

Of the £350million spent across the 75 boroughs, £81.75million will be spent on the hubs themselves with £10million on a Start for Life offer £50million for parenting programmes and £10million for infant parent mental health support.

There will also be £50million spent on breast feeding support and £10million for workforce pilots in some areas.

Addressing the children’s services scrutiny committee Ms Brown said: “We know that we’ve got a real challenge in recruiting carers and educators across the piece - and more broadly public sector workers so a focus on how we can invest to encourage people more effectively into the early years sector.”

She described it as “one of the most exciting programmes we’re going to deliver on in the next few years.”

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But this comes more than £500,000 was cut from Start Well budgets in January this year.

The £500,000 cuts were made as part of £37.2m slashed from council budgets for the 2021-23 period.