Barwell Sure Start Centre plays an important part in our local community. It provides help to families who need it, access to books for young children (especially important after the closure of the village library in 2016), a place for parents (new or experienced) to connect with others and form peer support networks, and opportunities for both children and their parents to learn and develop relevant skills. There are also many parent volunteers who have been able to build up skills and training that have helped them, or will help them, return to work when their children start school. This can be a real issue for parents (particularly mothers) who have taken time out of the workplace to raise children, and we feel that our local Sure Start Centre plays an important role in tackling this.
Our Sure Start Centre also plays host to Health Visitor clinics and other medical professionals - these services are also now at risk of being moved out of the village stranding those families for whom transport is an issue and increasing barriers to access.
Closing the centre would be a heavy blow to our village. Barwell has already lost it's library and post office, now we face the closure of the Sure Start Centre and the loss of all but one of the village's parent and child groups with it. If this closure goes ahead the nearest centre to our village will be a walk of an hour and half - far too long for families with small children and pushchairs. A large proportion of our village do not have access to a car and cannot afford to take yet another bus on a weekly basis. Travel will pose a serious barrier to accessing early years services and will prevent families with young children from getting the help that they need.
We are also concerned that the proposals indicate a move to online advice rather than in person guidance from staff. We feel that this ignores the many families in our village and across Leicestershire without internet access at home. As previously mentioned we have already lost our library - there is nowhere in our village for those without computers to access the internet. Again travelling to do so involves taking another costly bus trip or walking for 90 minutes.
Barwell needs it's Sure Start Centre to remain open. Parenthood can be very isolating and overwhelming, and the connections made with other parents through the Sure Start centres help to prevent issues growing and becoming worse. If we lose our Sure Start centre we run the risk of leaving parents, particularly new parents, in a vulnerable and lonely position with no obvious way to get help - and that is how problems get worse. As recently as 2014/15 (while deciding whether to close our library) the Council themselves described Barwell as an area of deprivation within Leicestershire, and noted that 1 in 5 children did not have access to books at home. Barwell is exactly the kind of community that Sure Start centres are there to help - and we refuse to let the County Council take this vital service away from us!
The public consultation currently taking responses can be found here. Please have your say and tell the Council to keep the 24 Sure Start centres under threat open!
https://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/earlyhelp
