By Victoria Mckeown-
A multi-million pound investment aimed at alleviating the challenges faced by Vulnerable families and “hidden children” has been announced today by children’s minister Vicky Ford at the Early Intervention Foundation’s National Conference.
The announcement comes with the creation of a national centre to improve early education and health services , as well as an investment of almost £4.4 million to extend Covid-19 response programmes run by major children’s charities. The claims and steps taken by the Children’s Minister and the Department Of Education are quite major, further examination of their application and successes will be made.
The achievement of the multiple goals are to be made practical by creating a National Centre for Family Hubs that will improve families’ access to vital services across the country. Many interconnected plans are contained within the various aspects of the announcement.
The Department Of Education have taken grand steps to help vulnerable people in these difficult times, efforts that don’t appear to be fully appreciated, if the several moans by education union and bodies are considered about insufficient funding to schools is to be considered.
The Children’s minister, working in close collaboration with the Department Of Education has gone very far for vulnerable children in terms of investment. An abundant provision of financial support for vulnerable and disadvantaged children includes a£160 million to support remote education and access to online social care via laptops, tablets and 4G routers.
Over 340,000 laptops has so far been delivered to support disadvantaged children. The department Of Education told The Eye Of Media.Com : ”our approach to device allocations means they are more effectively aligned to the number of students schools typically have self isolating, ensuring that as many children benefit from receiving a laptop this term’
‘if a school is fully closing for a sustained period, their regional Commissioner will work with them to ensure they receive enough devices , they should contact the D&E’s service team who will discuss their need
The Regional Schools commissioner will work with schools that are concerned about any disadvantaged children who do not have devices at home when their school is closed or when their children are self-isolating.
The Regional Schools Commissioner will work with them to ensure they receive enough devices for all disadvantaged children in year 3 to 11 who do not already have one’.
Tutoring Programme
A huge injection of £350m for the National Tutoring Programme to help the most disadvantaged children catch up from time missed of their education has also been made available to help vulnerable people.
The Department also said that ”schools will be able to access heavily subsidised tuition from an approved list of tuition partners. £7.6m for a Vulnerable Children National Charities Strategic Relief fund
Teachers will be able to register eligible students onto the scheme,
who will then be able to receive the academic support they need outside the classroom. All these efforts are being made because the vulnerability of children and teenagers to unsafe home environments, physical abuse, self-harm and drug use, has accompanied school closures during the pandemic.
The more vulnerable children are at home, the more prone they are to grave dangers. However, with all the huge cash spent on vulnerable children, it is important to ensure the children are making good use of them for their education, otherwise they potentially become a waste of money. Vulnerability must not exclude accountability.
The heavy sums spent on laptops will need to produce some results, evidence that parents or guardians of vulnerable people are making sure it is serving useful purpose of academic development.
Coalition Of Charities
The Department Of Education also confirmed that a coalition of charities sustaining the ‘See, Hear, Respond’ programme launched in June is to be supported with an extra £4.2 million until March 2021.
It’s goal? To support vulnerable children who fall below the threshold for statutory support and early help, including those in need of crisis support due to the pandemic The .new centres will provide extra help by offering a range of professional services, including midwives, health visitors, GPs, schools or social services to families that are referred to them.
Children’s Charities
The partnership is made up of national children’s charities and community-based organisations and has reached more than 39,000 vulnerable or ‘hidden’ children whose usual support networks of
friends, extended family or out-of-school activities have been impacted by national and local pandemic restrictions.
The extra funding is hoped to reach an estimated 15,000 more children and young people, as well as 11,000 parents and carers that have also been impacted by the restrictions
caused by the pandemic..
Children’s Minister Vicky Ford(pictured) said:
”This pandemic has caused unparalleled challenges for us as a country, but it has been particularly
difficult for many vulnerable families who need the most support. This funding will expand the vital service provided by the See, Hear, Respond partnership, which has already helped find and protect
39,000 children who may otherwise have remained ‘invisible’ without it.
We must go further, not just tackling the most urgent and immediate issues but also looking at our vision for the future by improving the resources that already exist.
We promised to champion family hubs and the plans set out today will help make sure even more families and children can access the
early health and education services we know can have a lifelong impact”.
The Minister will also confirm a further £190,000 for the NSPCC’s helpline which provides advice to adults who have concerns about the welfare of a child.
An evaluation innovation fund will also be announced, inviting suppliers to work alongside family hubs to design and deliver robust evaluations of their effectiveness and value for money.
This will allow national and local organisations to understand which models work effectively so they can be replicated, as well as integrating the best range of family services.