Consultation on Children’s Centre · Consultation on Children’s Centre Targeted Support Services in Corby 2020 – Analysis Report 4 Consultation, Equalities and Accessibility

Consultation on Children’s Centre

Targeted Support Services in Corby 2020

Consultation Analysis Report

February to March 2020

Author: Consultation, Equalities & Accessibility Team, Business Intelligence, Northamptonshire County Council Owner: Children First Northamptonshire, Northamptonshire County Council

Consultation on Children’s Centre Targeted Support Services in Corby 2020 – Analysis Report

2 Consultation, Equalities and Accessibility Team v1.0

Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 3

2. Consultation Methodology ................................................................................................... 4

3. Summary of Feedback ........................................................................................................... 6

3.1. Questionnaire feedback .................................................................................................. 6

3.1.1. About the respondent............................................................................................... 6

3.1.2 Parents/carers feedback ............................................................................................ 7

3.1.3 Professionals feedback ............................................................................................ 18

3.1.4 Feedback from other interested parties .................................................................. 23

3.1.5 Demographic information ........................................................................................ 25



1. Introduction

In February 2017, the model for the delivery of targeted Children’s Centres services changed

from being outsourced to becoming a Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) delivered

Service, with the exception of those located within Corby. Cabinet agreed at the time to

continue the operation of the targeted Children’s Centre offer in Corby. These services in

Corby have been provided under contract by Corby Community Interest Company at four

sites.

At Cabinet in January 2020, permission was granted for a further contract to be developed

on the same terms and conditions to the existing supplier for the period up to 31st March

2021. Delegated authority was also given to the Director of Children’s Services, in

consultation with the Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education to procure and

award the new contract for Children’s Centre Services in Corby commencing 1st April 2021.

The exact financial implications are to be determined upon reprocurement, however it is the

expectation that delivery will be within the existing annual budget envelope.

In 2018/19 Corby Children’s Centre (CCC) had approximately 800 individual children

accessing their services during the year. In summary CCC deliver:

Outreach and sustained engagement through 1:1 and group work. Approximately

800 children and 600 parents have been engaged with through this work.

The provision of early intervention services for parent and children during pregnancy

and the first 2 years of child life through 6 monthly course (Groups supporting 1001

days agenda course and Great Expectations).

The provision of early intervention services for families regarding domestic

abuse/alcohol abuse and mental health Solihull Programme and Time Out for You.

Contact with all children with SEND in Corby that are known to NCC to enable access

to all early years services

A community hub, building social capital and cohesion providing a variety of services

either themselves or in partnership with other local services.

A basic skills course and volunteering course to help parents take up employment

opportunities.

The purpose of the services is to enable children and families to access appropriate support

as early as possible, to help them maintain their quality of life, prevent any problems getting

worse and reduce the demand for specialist support service and potentially reduce the

number of children coming into care.

In September 2019, following an internal review by the Strategy and Commissioning

Manager, and in consultation with NCC’s Leadership Team, it was determined that the

impact of financial reductions were unknown and so it was agreed to maintain the service at



current levels in order to allow time for further exploration about the impact of the service.

This would also allow for a broader, formal consultation and service delivery review to take

place. This consultation was therefore not regarding a budget reduction but focussed on

informing the reprocurement of services. The feedback from the consultation will help give a

better understanding of people’s views on the current services and inform service delivery in

the future.

The consultation was held between 17th February 2020 and 29th March 2020. This report is

an analysis of the information and data gathered during this consultation. It should be noted

that from Monday 23rd March central government placed the UK into ‘lockdown’ due to the

COVID-19 pandemic. Although the consultation was still available online most children’s

centres were closed during the last few days of the consultation and even where ones

remained open there was minimal activity and footfall. So the lockdown may have impacted

the number of paper questionnaires being physically collected or returned to the children

centres during the last week of the consultation. Consideration has been given to the

number of responses received compared to the usage statistics available and it has been

deemed unlikely that the reduction in attendees during the final week of the consultation

has made any significant statistical difference to the final results of the consultation.

This consultation was conducted by Children First Northamptonshire and the Consultation,

Equalities & Accessibility Team based within NCC’s Business Intelligence team, and was

carried out in compliance with the Council’s Consultation and Engagement Policy and

Statement of Required Practice.

2. Consultation Methodology

The following outlines the public consultation methodology used to generate the material /

data for analysis.

Due to the breadth of potential stakeholders, a base questionnaire was devised. The

questionnaire was designed to:

Inform customers and stakeholders of the current service delivery, demands, and

performance and the consultation proposal.

Seek views on the current service delivery to understand what is considered to be

working well and help identify potential areas of improvement.

Gain an understanding of the demographics of respondents.

A number of qualitative and quantitative questions were asked to gain an understanding of

respondents’ views. There were different sets of questions depending on whether the

respondent had used the children’s centre services as a parent or carer, if they had

professional experience of the children’s centres, or if they were responding in any other

capacity. The questionnaire was made available on a dedicated internet web page on NCC’s



Consultation Hub, https://northamptonshire.citizenspace.com, which is where all of the

Council’s consultations are published. Paper copies of the consultation documents were

available upon request and made readily available at the four Corby children centres under

consultation.

During the consultaton period the questionnaire underwent two minor changes. The first

change occurred on the morning of the 18th February. This was the second day of the

consultation. An error was identified with the online version of the questionnaire. Question

10 (the second set of statements asking parents/carers respondents of their satisfaction with

services) read correctly however a typographical error in the options provided meant the

options read incorrectly, with the word ‘dissatisfied’ presented instead of ‘satisfied’. This

was immediately corrected. Response levels were reviewed at the time which showed only

two responses. We deem that due to the low response rate, the statistical error is minimal

compared to overall response rate of 259 parents/carers who would have viewed that set of

questions.

The second change to the questionnaire was with the paper questionnaire. Upon early data

entry of the initial paper questionnaires it became apparent that some parent/carer

respondents did not understand or fully follow the instructions of the questionnaire, as

there were several occurances of what was clearly parent/carer respondents completing the

professional question set in addition to their own parent/carer questions. Once identified, a

decision was made to split the question sets on to two separate paper questionnaires – one

soley for parent/carers and one soley for professionals to avoid any further confusion with

the paper copies. These stakeholder specific questionnaires were put in place from 11th

March onwards. The professional question responses that were clearly incorrectly answered

by parent/carers have been excluded from this analysis. This had no impact on the online

version of the questionnaire because of the question logic in place which directed

respondents to the appropriate section of the questionnaire depending on the capacity in

which they were responding to the consultation.

Promotional materials, i.e. posters, were placed within the children centres and staff actively

promoted the consultation amongst attendees and invited them to participate in the

consultation. Commissioning officers also held two informal drop-in sessions at Pen Green

between 9am and 1pm on the 11th and 12th March. This enabled face to face user

interactions between service users and commissioning and quality assurance officers.

Service users could discuss any concerns or questions they had and also provide verbal

feedback. The officers spoke to many parents and carers during these sessions and directly

enabled 12 people to complete the questionnaire. Other service users said they had either

already completed the questionnaire or took a paper copy away to complete and return at a

later date. It is noted that the informal drop-in sessions coincided with the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic, and although the children centres remained open at this time,

attendance levels were lower than usual.

https://northamptonshire.citizenspace.com/



Details of the consultation and a web link to the online questionnaire were circulated

electronically to the individuals and organisations signed up to receive notification of the

Council’s consultations, which includes County Councillors; local MPs; District, Borough and

Parish Councils; and to all of the 1,000+ members of the county’s Residents’ Panel. The

consultation was also promoted to third sector organisations, health partners, and other

identified stakeholders.

The consultation was publicised via Northamptonshire County Council’s social media

accounts. Respondents were given the opportunity to participate through these social media

sites, although no direct responses were received or could be attributed via this method.

An email address was published to help respond to queries or receive feedback.

3. Summary of Feedback

This is a summary of the feedback received. It is recommended that it is read in conjunction

with the full consultation results, which can be found in the Appendix. All of the unredacted

feedback received has been shared with Children First Northamptonshire so all of the

responses received can be considered in their entirety.

A total of 458 questionnaire responses were received, generating feedback that included

some 303 comments from the different groups of respondents.

3.1. Questionnaire feedback

3.1.1. About the respondent

Respondents were asked what their main interest was in the consultation. A total of 440

respondents answered this question, with respondents being able to select one answer

option. The most frequent respondent type was parent and carers, with 60.4% selecting this

answer option, followed by Corby children’s centres members of staff (15.7%). The

respondents who identified themselves as ‘other’ listed several answers, some of which

were repetitions of the answer options presented. Those comments that were not already

presented included grandparents or other family members, retired professionals, former

employees, representatives of a charity, education workers, students, childminders, and

members/ trustees of a Community Interest Company.



Respondents were then asked in what capacity, if any, they had used Corby children’s centre

services within the last three years. In answering this question respondents were then

directed to the question set most relevant to them i.e. parent/carer or professional

respondents. A total of 259 (57.9%) respondents identified themselves as either a parent or

a carer, and when compared to the number of people accessing services this can be

considered a good response rate that infers robust statistics with regards to the feedback

received. A further 132 (29.5%) respondents identified themselves as a professional, and 56

(12.5%) respondents identified themselves as not using the service within the last three

years but still had an interest in participating in the consultation.

3.1.2 Parents/carers’ feedback

The following section is a summary of the questionnaire feedback provided by parents and

carers.



Respondents were asked if any of their children have a diagnosed disability. Of the 252

parent and carer respondents who answered this question 25 (9.9%) stated that at least one

of their children had a diagnosed disability.

These respondents were then asked to provide further information about the nature of the

disability. Although 25 respondents answered ‘Yes’ to the previous question a total of 31

respondents answered this question. A variety of disabilities were identified by respondents,

with Autism Spectrum Disorder being the most frequently mentioned, with nearly half of

respondents to this question (45.2%) selecting this answer option. This was followed by

learning disability (35.5%); and physical disability and global development delay (both

29.0%). The least selected answer option was sight impairment, with only one respondent

(3.2%) selecting this answer. 19.4% of respondents stated ‘other’, and said Down Syndrome,

Rett Syndrome, or that they were awaiting diagnosis or were unsure which box to tick.



Respondents were then asked which of the Corby Children’s Centre services they have used

within the last three years. Drop-in sessions and group sessions were by far the most

frequently accessed service, with 85.3% and 76.3% respectively of the 245 respondents who

answered this question selecting this option. The least accessed services were the volunteer

courses and volunteering (5.3%) and SEND groups (5.7%).

Parent and carer respondents were then asked to rank the services they had used in order of

their helpfulness, with one being the most helpful and seven being the least. If respondents

had not used a service they were asked not to rank it.

The online questionnaire was able to ensure respondents could only select one ranking for

each service, however, many of the respondents who completed the paper versions of this

questionnaire either did not fully understand the question or did not fully comply with the

instructions and ranked two or more of the services as number one or simply ticked several

of the answer options, and in doing so invalidated their response. As these incorrect answer

types were inconsistent with the many online responses and not inline with the purpose of

the question, we have had to exclude these incorrect responses to this specific question

from the paper questionnaire submissions within this analysis. However, where a paper

questionnaire respondent only ticked one response, we have taken that in good faith to

mean they give that service a ranking of one as the respondent indicated that they clearly

rated it above all others, so we have included these responses within this analysis.

There were a total of 153 valid responses to this question, and for the purpose of analysis,

each rank (i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on down to 7th) has been allocated a weighting to signify

how important it is to the respondent, with weightings proportioned appropriately between

1st to 7th rankings.

When reviewing the number of respondents and the weightings given to each service, three

services were regarded as the most helpful by the respondents (i.e. the combined totals of



ranks 1st to 3rd). These were drop-in sessions (84.4%), group sessions (83.5%), and SEND

groups (83.1%). The following table lists the services in order of helpfulness.

Ranking (%)

1st to 3rd 4th 5th to 7th

Drop-in sessions 84.4% 11.9% 3.7%

Group sessions 83.5% 2.9% 13.6%

SEND groups 83.1% 0.0% 16.9%

1:1 sessions including Family Visiting 72.9% 4.4% 22.7%

Volunteer course and volunteering 71.7% 0.0% 28.3%

Information, advice and guidance services 70.7% 26.2% 3.1%

Training sessions/Adult Education 41.3% 16.9% 41.8%

However, this listing shifts slightly when reviewing just the 1st placed ranking answers, and

shows that although drop-in sessions, group sessions, and SEND groups are considered of

great help to respondents, when the 2nd and 3rd place rankings are removed and just the top

1st place rankings are analysed, then group sessions are clearly seen to be the biggest help to

parents and carers, as can be seen in the following table and graph which lists responses of

just the 1st placed rankings.

Ranking (%)

1st

Group sessions 59.6%

Drop-in sessions 41.5%

SEND groups 35.6%

1:1 sessions including Family Visiting 34.8%

Training sessions/Adult Education 23.0%

Volunteer course and volunteering 15.2%

Information, advice and guidance services 10.9%



When considering the number of respondents who answered this question, it should be

noted that although many have used and consider the group sessions (47 respondents) and

drop-in sessions (40 respondents) the most helpful service, a much larger proportion of

respondents (34) ranked drop-in sessions as the 2nd most helpful service, compared to group

sessions (17 respondents). 1:1 sessions were regarded by far as the least helpful service by

the majority, with 30 respondents ranking it in 7th place, compared to the next service

regarded as the least helpful (drop-in session) with just 6 respondents ranking this as 7th. Full

details of response rates can be viewed in the Appendix and the following graph

demonstrates all of the weighted rankings.

Respondents were asked which of the four Corby Children’s Centres they have used within

the last three years. There were 244 responses to this question, with Pen Green being

highlighted as the most frequently used by respondents, with 92.6% of respondents saying

they have accessed services at the centre. The least used was Woodnewton Learning

Community (16.8%).

It is recommended to the Commissioning Managers that the response rates to this question

is considered in relation to the known usage numbers of each centre.



When respondents were asked what time of the day is most suitable for them to use the

services, the majority preferred access during weekdays, with weekday mornings being the

preferred time, with 81.0% of the 237 respondents who answered this question saying this

was their preferred time. This was followed by weekday afternoons (65.0%). The least

popular time was weekday evenings, with a little under a quarter of respondents (23.6%)

preferring this time slot.

Respondents were then given a list of 14 subjects regarding the services provided and were

asked to rate them using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is 'very dissatisfied' and 5 is 'very

satisfied'. For ease of completion the 14 subjects were split into two questions each listing

seven subjects. A total of 245 respondents answered these two questions. Many

respondents said that they were ‘very satisfied’ with all of the aspects of the services. The

aspect of the service the majority of parent/carer respondents were most satisfied with are

the skills and experience of the staff (97.5%).

The following table lists the aspects of the services in order of satisfaction, with the most

satisfied being at the top, and shows the combined percentage totals of satisfaction (i.e.

where the respondent answered 4 or 5) and dissatisfaction (rated 1 or 2). This is followed by



a graph showing all of the feedback, presented in the order it was asked on the

questionnaire.

Satisfied (%) Dissatisfied (%)

Skills and experience of staff 97.5% 1.7%

Quality of services 95.9% 1.7%

Access to information, advice and guidance 95.4% 2.9%

Access to resources 94.1% 3.3%

Access to universal and drop-in provision 94.1% 2.9%

Localness 93.4% 1.7%

Ability to access services without stigma 92.5% 2.1%

Ability to reduce isolation 91.9% 3.0%

Signposting to more specialised services 86.4% 3.4%

Range of services available 86.0% 2.9%

Flexibility of opening times 85.1% 4.1%

Access to support services e.g. Citizen's Advice

Bureau 79.6% 5.4%

Training and Adult Education opportunities 78.4% 3.9%

Access to translators and interpreters 78.3% 4.7%



Parent and Carer respondents were then invited to provide any other comments which they

would like to make about Corby Children’s Centre Services. There were 131 responses

submitted which covered a range of subject areas. In common was consistent statements

about the children’s centres services being vital and essential; that they were thankful for

having the centres, and in the case of Corby as a place, the Pen Green Centre is cited as

being of necessity and is part of the fabric of Corby and the community.

Respondents expressed their own personal experiences by giving examples of support

received. They mentioned issues of safeguarding support, the value of the staff and the

range of services and activities on offer, and the chance to meet others in similar situations.

Respondents felt that the centre that they use provided great opportunities for them and

their children and wider families. Some said that the services on offer helped them

understand and learn parenting skills which they had not experienced from their own

parents. They were helped with varied support i.e. breastfeeding, play, and in particular,

parents with low self- esteem or those who were vulnerable were assisted with specific

support often not available elsewhere.



It was felt that children of all ages benefited from the bespoke intervention or from support

of the group work being offered. Together as a family i.e. a whole family approach, they

were able to explore and learn new skills and coping mechanisms in a non- judgemental

manner. This in turn, respondents said, built confidence and life management strategies.

Young parents and isolated parents in particular felt able to access specific support i.e.

counselling, feeding, educational skills etc which aided them as parents. Specific support for

newly arrived families into the country was also mentioned as important.

Respondents said that the staff and professionals were good at listening and understanding

their needs. They considered them to be knowledgeable, helpful, adaptable and supportive.

Some respondents described the staff as “amazing” and “a credit to the centre and the

Council”.

Respondents stated that children’s centres were a safe and welcoming place where

invaluable services were being offered, and this was reflected in their children wanting and

liking to come to the centres. Respondents valued opportunities that first time parents were

given in talking to other people with similar experience, for example peer to peer support.

Respondents made specific references to centres being vital to providing mental health and

wellbeing services. They mentioned the significance of the centres in their mental health

recovery work, such as the work provided to help people with managing their post-natal

depression recovery. Respondents stated that the children’s centre services provide them

with reassurance in their parenting and family wellbeing, which in turn saved lives.

When mentioning SEND support services, respondents were strongly advocating the need

for the centre, for the specialist support provided and for the range of professionals

available to them.

Respondents also mentioned other services which they and their children enjoyed. This

included baby massage, messy play, and drop in services.

Respondents cited the uniqueness of the Centres and said similar support was not available

in other areas of the county. Respondents commented on the sense of privilege they felt in

having access to children centres like these. A few respondents travelled to the centres from

Kettering and other places from the county in order to access activities which were not

available in their locality.

Respondents said the centres also give a chance for parents and children to socialise and

make friends. Often, respondents said that they experienced isolation and the centres gave a

place for them and their children to meet others and to belong to an extended support

network.



Some respondents took the opportunity to highlight gaps or possible improvements in

service provision. They suggested:

Changes in opening hours including opening on weekends, and or into late evening

and / or in the school holidays.

Increasing the range of groups on offer.

Access to more educational toys.

Developing specific groups aimed at certain cohorts, i.e. for fathers or for partners.

Organising more regular meetings with advice agencies such as Citizen’s Advice.

Improving the timings allocated to services i.e. increasing length of time; time of day

for the activity etc.

Developing more services for children with additional needs.

Creating more services for children aged under one.

Developing a booking facility i.e. to secure place at a session.

Developing more capacity for a dynamic mental health service which includes an

increase in trained mental health workers, an increase in the availability of mental

health specialist clinicians; and creating more mental health space areas within the

centre i.e. a crisis café.

Comments also referred to the central government’s responses to COVID 19 and the

negative effect this may be having on vulnerable families. They said that some people may

not meet the central government’s defined eligibility definition. They felt that the NCC has a

responsibility to help meet the welfare, wellbeing and safety needs of those borderline

vulnerable families at a time of national crisis.

Respondents also commented on NCC’s financial management and the services provided in

the children centres being under pressure to continuously having to provide more services

for less. A few said that children’s centres needed more resources and staff in order to offer

more services. They felt that services in some areas needed to be extended to children who

were five years old or older. They explained that children’s centres were a lifeline for

vulnerable families who have multiple and multifaceted needs and so flexibility needs to be

built-in for families with complex needs and requirements whose children reach the age

thresholds.

Some respondents said they welcomed the new unitary councils that would replace NCC.

The below WordCloud demonstrates the most frequent words respondents mentioned

whilst answering the above question:



Parent and carer respondents were asked to provide their postcode to help us gain an

understanding of where respondents live. A total of 194 valid postcodes were submitted,

including four from out of the county. We have not provided further details within this

report to ensure respondents’ anonymity is retained but have shared this data with Children

First Northamptonshire. However, the below LSOA (Lower Layer Super Output Area

boundaries) map helps to demonstrate respondents’ locations from within the county, and

demonstrates that the majority of respondents live within the Corby area, with some

travelling from further afield in order to access the services.



3.1.3 Professionals’ feedback

The following section is a summary of the questionnaire feedback provided by professionals.

As mentioned in section 2 of this report, the professional question responses that were

clearly incorrectly answered by parents/carers have been excluded from this analysis.

Professional respondents were asked, on average, how many times they had made a referral

to Corby Children's Centre services per year within the last three years. Of the 121 valid

responses to this question, the majority of professionals (59.5%) said they have made an

average of more than ten referrals per year within the last three years.



As with parents and carers, professional respondents were given a list of 14 subjects

regarding the services provided and were asked to rate them using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1

is 'very dissatisfied' and 5 is 'very satisfied'. As mentioned above, the 14 subjects were split

into two questions each listing seven subjects. A total of 123 professional respondents

answered these two questions. Many respondents said that they were ‘very satisfied’ with

all aspects of the services. As with parents and carers’ responses, the aspect of the service

the majority of professional respondents were most satisfied with are the skills and

experience of the staff (99.2%); they also regarded the quality of services as highly (99.2%).

Six of out of the top seven services professionals were satisfied with also appeared within

the top seven services listed by parents/carers, with the only exception being the ability to

reduce isolation, which was placed eighth by parents/carers and third by professionals.

The following table lists the aspects of the services in order of satisfaction, with the most

satisfied being at the top, and shows the combined percentage totals of satisfaction (i.e.

where the respondent answered 4 or 5) and dissatisfaction (rated 1 or 2). This is followed by

a graph showing all of the feedback in the order it was presented on the questionnaire.

Satisfied (%) Dissatisfied (%)

Skills and experience of staff 99.2% 0.0%

Quality of services 99.2% 0.0%

Ability to reduce isolation 97.5% 0.8%

Access to information, advice and guidance 97.5% 0.0%

Access to resources 95.8% 0.0%

Localness 95.8% 0.0%

Ability to access services without stigma 95.0% 0.8%

Signposting to more specialised services 95.0% 0.0%

Access to universal and drop-in provision 93.3% 1.7%

Training and Adult Education opportunities 89.7% 0.9%

Flexibility of opening times 89.1% 0.8%



Range of services available 88.2% 0.8%

Access to support services e.g. Citizen's Advice

Bureau 81.1% 2.7%

Access to translators and interpreters 64.5% 10.3%

Professional respondents were then invited to provide any other comments which they

would like to make about Corby Children’s Centre Services. There were 60 responses

submitted. Many of the respondents commented about Pen Green and its work for families

and children in Corby.

All the comments were positive about the importance of children’s centres to children and

families. They said the centres make a difference to families, providing early help and

support which is essential for the whole family. They said children centres are family focused

and make an enormous contribution to the lives of many, especially those families and

people who are vulnerable and/or awaiting assessment or diagnosis of conditions such as



SEN etc. Professional respondents said that the services were brilliant and gave families long

term support.

Respondents stated that the services provided were a lifeline and that children’s centres are

a vital hub for the community. They felt they provided good resources in a safe, stimulating

and welcoming environment and are crucial places for children and families to play, learn

and socialise together.

Professional respondents appreciated that children’s centres are also available for partner

organisations to use and therefore enable much needed local and national support services

to be taken directly to the population e.g. NHS clinics; breastfeeding etc.

Respondents stated that staff had a wealth of knowledge and experience. They said that

staff were professional, were good advocates, and were dedicated and kind. They

considered staff to be specialists in their field and provided good guidance and were able to

signpost effectively to other services in the public, voluntary and private sector.

Some of the respondents said that they valued the opportunity to refer, network and liaise

with the range of professionals who use the Centres. They felt this helps staff and

professionals to strive and have passion for the services. Respondents added that staff

attitude and motivation is positive which translated into better, more proactive services and

advice for vulnerable people with multi-faceted issues and concerns.

Many of the professional respondents commented about the specific services provided i.e.

perinatal mental health services; resources for pregnant and postnatal women in Corby.

They said that these services were best provided within children’s centres settings. Others

valued the opportunity for professionals to hold confidential family discussions there.

Respondents said the children’s centres service was a “gem” and was unique within

Northamptonshire. They said that Pen Green was recognised as a place of excellence where

it was possible to gain qualifications. It provides good national and international training and

research opportunities, which in turn ensures staff are highly qualified and motivated.

A few respondents highlighted the issues children’s centres have experienced as the

outcome of gradual reductions in funding. As a result of financial constraints, they felt fewer

universal services/ prevention services are available. Respondents said that the variety of

drop-in services open to all have been cut or lost altogether. However, respondents did

point out that the services that are currently provided continue to be of good quality. They

further added that if the services were not available than there would be an increase or

strain in other areas of public services which would need to pick up long term issues, i.e. the

children’s centres provide distinctive prevention services which aided savings to the overall

public purse.



Other gaps and issues that respondents said are that they felt staff at the Centres are often

standing in for other shortages in social care and health provision; and that funding

reductions are making it harder to support families in need as services have been

continuously depleting.

Professional respondents said that service user feedback is used to develop the service. This

they said helps to evolve the services on offer by making them still of relevance to children

and their families.



Similar to parents and carers, professional respondents were asked to provide their work

postcode to help us gain an understanding of where organisational respondents are based. A

total of 103 valid postcodes were submitted, including two from out of the county. As with

parent/carer responses, we have not provided further details within this report to ensure

respondents’ anonymity is retained but have shared this data with Children First

Northamptonshire. However, the below map helps to demonstrate respondents’ locations

from within the county, and demonstrates that the majority of professional respondents are

based within the Corby area.



3.1.4 Feedback from other interested parties

The following section is a summary of the questionnaire feedback provided by those

respondents who said they had not used Corby Children's Centre Services within the last

three years as either a parent, carer or in a professional capacity.

Whilst the consultation was focused on those individuals and organisations that either

currently have or have had a direct relationship with the Corby Children’s Centre services

within the last three years, feedback from interested parties who wished to share their views

was also welcomed. These respondents were provided with an open question that invited

them to share any comments they would like to make. A total of 24 respondents provided

comment. Respondents who made comments were, on the whole, referring to the Pen

Green Centre.



These respondents consistently said the Centre was a beacon of excellence and a “gem” for

preventative and multi-agency work in childcare services. They said that it was a powerful

and vital tool for supporting families with complex family circumstances. Again, these

respondents described the service as a lifeline and made comments that it was a duty of the

Council to provide such children the best start in life and felt it was imperative that the

Council should retain such an outstanding service. Some respondents suggested that the

Council should be making more of an investment in the centres. Respondents also said that

children’s centres were well placed to divert the strain away from other more acute public

services i.e. the Council or the NHS. A few respondents said that the centres were the

operating heart of the community and were the “eyes that keep children safe”.

Respondents expressed that the services offered were to the most isolated and vulnerable

members of the community and if this was to be removed, then they felt there would be a

huge gap in services. A respondent commented that there were ways to introduce a sliding

scale of charging for services if required with no charges for those families who are referred.

Another respondent said that children’s experience and use of services would then put them

into a better position to transition with confidence into education. A respondent also

commented that the children’s centre provides real promises of long term improvements i.e.

over a 10 to 20 year period, to the social and educational achievement of children and their

families. Another said that services such as breastfeeding services are essential and need to

continue.

A few respondents said that the staff were fantastic and were highly skilled and devoted in

their work. They thought staff acted in a professional manner, displaying courage and

honesty. They also made reference to the volunteers who supported the services as being of

great value too.

A respondent said that they were impressed by the website and the excellent support the

centre offered. Another they said that they had no experience of the centre but they would

like to try it.





3.1.5 Demographic information

Equalities monitoring questions were asked of parent and carer questionnaire respondents,

although not all respondents chose to complete this section of the questionnaire.

From the available completed responses, the vast majority of the individual respondents

were female (97.0%). The most frequent age given by respondents were those aged

between 20 to 49 years (94.0%). A little over one in five (21.6%) respondents were either

currently pregnant or had had a baby within the last 6 months. A total of 45.2% of

respondents were married; with 19.7% co-habiting / living together; 2.6% in a civil

partnership; and 28.1% being single.

Other identified equality monitoring information provided by respondents demonstrated

that 21.1% were disabled, with mental health being highlighted as the most frequent

disability and mentioned by 93.1% of respondents who listed a disability. The most frequent

religion identified was Christian at 36.2% with 43.4% of respondents choosing ‘None’ and

16.6% selecting ‘Prefer not to say’. Predominantly respondents identified themselves as

either White British (85.7%) or White Other (10.0%), with 3.5% saying they were from

another ethnic background.

Full statistics of the responses is available within the Appendix.

Documents

Consultation on Children’s Centre · Consultation on Children’s Centre Targeted Support Services in Corby 2020 – Analysis Report 4 Consultation, Equalities and Accessibility