Cllr. David Thomas: Ensuring every child has the best start to life

Earlier this year Torbay was chosen by the government as one of 14 trailblazer local authorities to lead the way in delivering ambitious improvements of the services we deliver for our families. This led to us setting up a Family Hub in each of our three towns.

These Family Hubs are a new way of bringing together all the support a family may need. This is from pregnancy through to young people turning 19. The support goes up to 25 years old if they have special educational needs or disabilities.

Our Children’s Services team have been developing what services are delivered in these hubs in partnership with local parents and carers. The voluntary and community sector have also been helping us. This has ensured we are meeting parents and carers needs and those of their children.

I recently spent a day visiting all three of our Family hubs, it was great to talk directly with families who were getting so much out of theses excellent facilities – A real One Stop Shop for the whole family.

If you don’t know where our Family Hubs are, they can be found at Zig Zags in Torquay, The Beehive in Paignton and The Barn in Brixham. More information about what activities and groups are taking place, along with advice and support can be found at www.torbayfamilyhub.org.uk

Our Family Hubs are now working with a range of partners and practitioners to bring all services together with families to deliver the first ever Baby Week here in the Bay.

We want to ensure that every child has the best start in life. That’s why we’ve joined the National Baby Week Partnership. With this national week we want to highlight the importance of the first 1,001 days of a baby’s life.

Baby Week starts on Tuesday 14 November and throughout that week the Family Hubs are bringing together local organisations and services. They will be hosting a range of free and low-cost events for all parents, expectant parents and carers and their children.

The Baby Week will also be focusing on dads and father figures. Which is why next week we are launching the DadPad app. This app is an essential guide for new dads and dads-to-be. The app provides knowledge and practical skills to help them support their family. Helping their babies get the best start in life. So if you have a son, brother, uncle or friend who is about to become, or is a Dad with a newborn, then let them know about this app and the support they can get here in Torbay.

All the events and activities that are taking place during Baby Week are being pulled together and you can see them all online at www.babyweek.co.uk/eventbrite_category/torbay/

Changing the subject, I wanted to let you know that at our next Cabinet meeting on November 21, we will be discussing a range of ongoing projects in Torbay. As well as talking about the future of Oldway, the Cabinet are also looking at our Housing Strategy and what we want to achieve in this area from now to 2030.

The papers for Cabinet will be released on our website around Monday, November 13. Here you will be able to see more detail on these and other topics. And don’t forget, our Cabinet meetings, along with full Council and Planning Committee are live streamed on YouTube. To make sure you don’t miss these meetings, when you are next on YouTube find the Torbay Council channel and subscribe.