What are Family Hubs?
Family Hubs will bring together lots of different services for children and families to make a single ‘front door,’ making it easier for families to get the help they need at the right time. Family Hubs will offer help and support to families from pregnancy up until age 19 (or 25 for young people with special educational needs and disabilities- SEND) with great Start for Life (the critical 1,001 days from conception to age two) services at their core. Flying Start has been delivering services in Luton since 2016 and we are excited to be part of Family Hubs.
Family Hubs provide a welcoming and inclusive way into services, either online or face to face, removing the need to explain more than once, to multiple people, what you need support with. Flying Start is a key part of the Start for Life offer for families.
Family Hub Start for Life Leaflet (0 to 2 years)
How you can help shape services:
We need the help of local residents who use our services currently or may in the future to make sure that Luton’s Family Hub is designed to meet the needs of our local community.
One of the ways we will do this is by establishing a parent/carer panel (or a name to be decided by the group). The parent/carer group is the place where families and carers will work together with local service leads and commissioners to help design and evaluate services. This will help to ensure that families are at the centre of service design and delivery across Luton.
The parent/carer group will report back to our Family Hub Programme Manager which will ensure that families have a direct line to those leading local decision making.
The purpose of the parent/carer group is to:
- Ensure local families/carers play a key role in designing and continuously improving family services.
- Enable the voice of local families/carers including those whose voices are often not heard.
- Ensure Luton’s Family Hub is designed for inclusion and meet the needs of the diverse communities that live in Luton.
We want to ensure that the Family Hub parent/carer group is representative of Luton’s diverse communities. We are welcoming all families but with a particular focus on those who are pregnant/partner of an expectant parent and with children up to age 2.
The different ways you can be involved – you can choose as many as you wish
- Become part of the regular Parent Carer Voices sessions (which include activities for children). These will be held termly face to face with an additional option for an evening virtual meeting. Together we will discuss what’s on offer and shape the services for the Luton’s Family Hub – longer term this group will be led by a parent (with support) and include a range of professionals at times, as well as parents.
- Be part of a group of families who we contact when we would like help producing leaflets, posters, social media posts, which will be accessible for the communities in Luton.
- Be part of a WhatsApp group where messages and information can be easily shared.
- Become a Flying Start Volunteer and support the delivery of sessions at Flying Start/Luton’s Family Hub, being a key member of the team.
- Become a focus group member and we will contact you to discuss specific topics.
- Sign up for Luton’s Family Hub newsletter and be part of the annual satisfaction survey.
What are the benefits for you?
- You will help shape how services for families are delivered and be a valued part of Luton’s Family Hub development.
- You will meet new people in your community and have the opportunity together to build Luton’s Family Hub so that it meets the needs of families from Luton.
- You may want to join for your own personal development, or to share your experiences of accessing services for families in Luton and how they could be developed/improved.
- We can support with paying for travel expenses to attend face to face sessions or focus groups, with prior discussion.
If you are interested in any of these opportunities to be part of Luton’s Family Hub development, please contact us at: familyhubs@eyalliance.org.uk
Alternatively complete the volunteer registration form stating what you would like to be involved with: www.flyingstartluton.com/volunteering-registration-form
Find out more about Family Hubs here
