What are Children First Hubs?
Children First Hubs are a key part of the district wide Early Help offer providing a range of services for families in the Wakefield district including targeted support to families with complex or multiple issues:
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School attendance problems
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Have a child who needs help
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Domestic abuse
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Employment and debt problems
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Health problems
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Crime and Anti-social behaviour problems
Children First Hubs offer short term packages of support (outcome focused interventions) where a need has been identified by the key worker, for example, parenting support. The Hubs also provide support to practitioners such as Teachers to further develop their skills around being the lead for Early Help support.
There are four Children First hubs which are based within the areas of;
- Wakefield Central and North West
- Wakefield South East and Featherstone
- Normanton and Wakefield Rural
- Castleford, Pontefract and Knottingley
Headlines
- In 2018/19, just over 1100 new cases were opened to the Children First hubs, a further 2,800 cases were closed in the same period.
- Around 33% of all open cases were open to the Central/North West hub during 2018/19.
- The largest age group being supported by Children First hubs are 5 to 14 year olds.
- Over 35% of those supported are boys aged 5 to 14 years.
- Just under 47 % of all open cases in 2018/19 were children from the 30% most deprived areas in the district.
How many children have been supported by Children First Hubs?
In 2018/19 there were around 1,100 new referrals into service in the same period.
Changes are being made to the system to enable us to look at the reasons why children are referred into the service. The dashboards will be updated as soon as this information is available.
In 2018/19 2,800 cases of children being supported by Children First Hubs were closed as they no longer required targeted support.
Where do children live who have been supported by Children First Hubs?
Around 47% of children being supported live in the 30% most deprived areas in the district and 16.5% of children live in Wakefield West (9%) and Normanton (7.5%) wards.
What are the demographics of children who have been supported by Children First Hubs?
The gender breakdown shows that for girls and boys the largest age range to be supported by the hubs are 5 to 14 year olds.
What are the reasons for cases closing?
The following dashboard shows reasons why cases were closed.
Some work has been completed recently on the way that the data is recorded, this will make future reporting more accurate and detailed. The dashboard below will be updated as soon as this data is available.
Resources and evidence