PACT Children's Centres
Children’s Centres are a key Government initiative supporting families, particularly vulnerable families living in areas of disadvantage where children may be living in poverty.
We successfully manage a number of Centres on behalf of local authorities; developing and delivering a range of flexible programmes in diverse ways to meet local needs and the ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children’ agenda.
Our Stakeholder Strategy ensures that key agencies, professionals and users are fully involved in helping to shape and deliver services. Our staff ensure services are delivered at an appropriate level where personal growth and development encouraged. Our knowledge base, values and principles ensure interventions, guidance and support are well grounded in theory as well as practice.
What the Children's Centres Offer
Each Centre offers a slightly different programme which is tailor-made for the community in which it sits.
Centres offer:
• breastfeeding support
• advice and information on health topics
• working parents groups
• support to teenage parents
• groups for fathers
• basic adult education courses
• tasty healthy eating courses
• parenting courses
• access to computers
• crèches
• counselling
• information and sign-posting to other services
We are able to access telephone language translation services, a number of our staff speak a range of Asian languages, which ensures we are able to reach ethnic minority families and, where appropriate, we ensure leaflets are translated into languages such as Polish.
Other specialist programmes we offer at specific Centres include:
• The Freedom Programme for victims of Domestic Abuse along with specialist 1-2-1 work to address the issues arising following the end of an abusive relationship. We also run a programme for primary school aged children who have lived in homes that have experienced domestic abuse. This works with the child but also the school and parent with care.
• Babysitting Course which aims to provide siblings who are left in charge of younger brothers and sisters with the skills to stay safe. A secondary effect of this is to change the perspective of parenting for these youngsters reducing their desire to become teenage parents.
• Young Mums to Be course is aimed at teenage parents and those at risk of becoming young parents to prepare them for the arrival of a child and the changes required in their lives. It looks at issues like housing, income, parenting and discipline and has close links to antenatal care.
Drop-In sessions
Centres offer open access drop-in sessions for all parents/carers and their children. As well as opportunities for play and exploration, each drop-in has a clear focus to promote and encourage parents to develop their own skills and confidence and to support their children’s learning and development.
Staff working in our Centres provide a carefully structured programme of activities, model good practice and are always on hand to give guidance, advice and support. Though these sessions may seem informal and indeed they are, outcomes are carefully planned to ensure that families and children may experience and explore a range of ideas and learn about concepts that may be new to them.
Developing skills
PACT services and programmes are aimed at supporting and facilitating individuals in a way that is enabling and empowering. The activities on offer, from jewellery making, story-telling, introductions to computers and the internet, to basic adult education and parenting courses, all are designed to encourage the exploration and development of new skills, build confidence, develop a sense of self-worth and ultimately to enable individuals to progress and move forward positively in all aspects of their lives.
Age related play
Play boosts a child's self-confidence in many ways so our Centres plan their termly activities both around meeting the five key outcomes set by the Every Child Matters agenda as well covering the following essential skills:
• Exploration
• Movement
• Imagination
• Creativity
• Socialising
• Problem solving
• Language
When planning child focused activities our staff calculate in many different factors. First the child’s age and stage of development - play becomes more complicated as a child grows older. Personality matters too - an enthusiastic child will get stuck in to toys immediately while a passive child may hold back.
Creating a perfect balance of play
Some children prefer to spend most of their time with creative play, some with imaginative play and others with active play.
Each type of play contributes in its own way to all-round psychological progress. PACT encourages families to follow a balanced diet of play by offering a regular change of play activities which they can continue to use both at home and at our Centres.
Outreach support
A key element of our programmes is our one-to-one work with individual families, often in their own homes. Targeted work focuses upon housing, debt and parenting issues and is unique to PACT Centres in the areas where we work. This vital work ensures families are enabled in securing and maintaining a tenancy and given guidance in developing positive relationships to support their children’s holistic development.
Children's Centre Outreach support referral form
Multi-agency Working
Children’s Centres work in partnership with service users, as well as a wide range of professionals and agencies across the voluntary, statutory and private sectors, to provide services for children and families.
Our work is open and transparent and we are committed to partnership working to deliver cohesive support programmes that meet the needs of local families and make best use of available resources.
Examples of our stakeholders are:
• Children’s Centre Programme Manager
• Childcare Development Officer
• OCIS Information Officer
• Midwife
• Health Visitor
• Connexions Personal Advisor
• County Councillor
• Housing Manager
• Head teacher of school
• Childminder
• Homestart
• Adult Learning
• Jobcentre Plus