CHANGES to the day service currently being delivered at the Alloa Family Centre have been voted through by the Labour administration this week.

Though the SNP opposition had called for a postponement to allow more detail about an informal consultation to be provided, the motion was knocked down and the paper carried.

The centre currently provides a day care service to children who do not access their own local nursery.

But due to the considerable expansion and investment in the last two years in early years learning and childcare across Clackmannanshire, the number of children using the day care service at Alloa Family Centre has decreased significantly.

Staff will move to local nurseries to allow childcare and family support to continue, but at their local nursery rather than at the family centre.

Labour councillor Graham Watt, the social services spokesperson, said: “It is important that children have access to nurseries in their local community wherever possible.

"We now have capacity in our nurseries for all the children currently being provided with day care at Alloa Family Centre. This change will mean families will access our nurseries, allowing us to expand the range of parenting support services we provide at Alloa Family Centre for the families who need this.” 

Labour councillor Janet Cadenhead described the changes as a "super way forward" in the hopes that children from deprived backgrounds will be able attend nursery at the same time as all others.

The centre provides a range of services to meet the needs of families with children aged 0-8 years. In recent years, the focus has been refined to ensure services cater for families most in need, including those who are affected by family substance misuse, domestic violence, poverty and parental mental health issues.

These latest developments are a progression of the previous changes and are said to be in line with the council’s wider moves to a cluster/hub model of service delivery, following a period of consultation with service users. 

However, the consultation itself was questioned by the SNP opposition who asked for clarity both at the meeting at Kilncraigs yesterday (Thursday), and earlier this year.

It was proposed the paper, outlining the changes to the provisions, be deferred so that it may be confirmed how service users were questioned and what questions were actually asked.

However, their motion was opposed and defeated by the Labour and Conservative members.
 

"No negativity"

In the report presented to council, it was said that feedback from parents regarding the move has been very positive with comments such as: "As a single mum I will be able to get back to work and off benefits and support my family.”

Others included: "That’s great the nursery will get to know my wee boy and his special needs earlier," and: “[It] would be amazing to get them in nursery together as it will give me so much opportunity to get a part-time job and back to work.”

In debate, Ellen Forson, SNP councillor for Clackmannanshire South, said: "This paper still does not answer the questions I asked back in June...And I find it hard to believe that no concerns were raised by any families involved.

"It seems 100 per cent were in favour. I've never seen a consultation were 100 per cent of the people questioned were for it."

Kenny Earle, Labour councillor in the same ward, said he had shared Cllr Forson's concerns about the "milk and honey" statements produced by the consultation.

But having visited and spoken to those in the family centre, Cllr Earle said he observed "no negativity" about the changes.
 

Services

Alloa Family Centre’s outreach service delivers a range of parenting supports including baby massage groups, parent and toddlers, young parents groups, Mellow Parenting, practical cookery groups as well as working with the integrated mental health service on Living Life to the Full groups, building self esteem and stress management. The service also recently undertook successful work with Polmont YOI to look at parenting the impact of being a parent on young dads.

All groups run by Alloa Family Centre and parenting programmes are designed to help parents identify positive ways of dealing with challenging situations and behaviours.

The outreach service also works to support parents in their homes through a range of work including practical supports for managing children’s behaviour in the home, home safety, the skills required to run a family home, including cooking skills and budgeting.

The service works closely with a range of partners in health including speech and language therapy and clinical psychology services, housing support, integrated mental health, money advice, education and the third sector. 

The Alloa Family Centre also provides an assessment and contact service working with families in an intensive and highly focused way. The assessment part of this service is targeted at families who require very specific intensive interventions to support parenting capacity assessments, linked to permanence planning and are often referred for this service by the Courts or the Children’s Hearing System.

The service also covers the increasing number of supervised contacts, which are also often at the direction of the courts of the Children’s Hearing System. 

The contact service is used on a daily basis, including the weekends. The Family Centre has been the venue of over 2000 supervised family contacts in the last year and is the main family contact centre in Clackmannanshire.