Issue - meetings

To receive the Starting Well Update Report.

The Deputy Statutory Director of Public Health provided the Board with an update on the starting well strategy priority. Members heard that ensuring that all children and young people in Telford & Wrekin achieve the best start in life had been a Health & Wellbeing Board priority since September 2021. It was noted that whilst it was important that every one of our children has the best start in life, poverty and disadvantage created significant challenges and inequalities for many families.

Members of the Board heard that the Telford & Wrekin Best Start in Life Early Help (BSIL) Board was established in July 2022 to steer the agenda, providing governance and oversight that ensured effective partnership planning and improved outcomes and narrowed inequalities. The BSIL Board had three key priority work streams, agreed through partnership engagement, JSNA intelligence and evidence of local demand and pressures on services. These were the start for life and family hubs programme, healthy weight and social emotional and mental health. The Deputy Statutory Director for Public Health advised Members that as two of the priorities had been discussed earlier in the meeting, the focus of the update would be family hubs.

The Family Hubs transformation had progressed across Telford & Wrekin with the opening of the Oak Family Hub in January in Oakengates, alongside the Silver Birch Hub in Sutton Hill and Walnut Hub in Woodside, which opened in August. The Deputy Statutory Director of Public Heath informed Members that Phase two of implementation continued with Hadley Children Centre based at HLC, and Dawley Children Centre based at Dawley Town Hall, which would become the fourth and fifth Hubs. Phase three of the transformation would focus on hubs in Wellington, Donnington and Newport. The Board heard that the next steps involved developing a website that would link the family hub offer with Live Well Telford, the SEND offer and the youth community offer provided by the council.

Members of the Board thanked the Deputy Statutory Director for Public Health and commended the officers involved on the progress of the family hubs transformation.

RESOLVED - that the Board note:

a)     the programme updates on the starting well priority in terms of: Family Hubs implementation, the Healthy Child Programme and the development of the partnership’s Early Help Strategy

b)     the collaborative work being undertaken across the Integrated Care System to reduce child mortality.