Agenda item - Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategy: Starting Well Update

Report of the Director of Public Health (copy attached)

35.1    The report was presented by Bernadette Alves, Sarah Colombo, Emma Smith, Vaness Sharp and Joanne Templeton.

35.2    Members were told that starting well is one of the 4 ‘wells’ within the local Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategy, and that the Board has requested regular updates on performance against each of the ‘wells’. Starting Well is a complex area as it covers different groups with differing needs. However, it is of paramount importance as many of the foundations for a healthy life are established in childhood.

35.3    Immunisation/Vaccination.

·         This is a wide-ranging programme including early childhood vaccination and also teenage programmes such as HPV

·         There was excellent community work during the Covid pandemic to encourage community uptake of the Covid vaccine. This work has been built on to encourage greater take up of other immunisation and vaccination programmes, employing a non-judgmental approach, recognising access or cultural barriers to uptake, delivery appropriate messaging to specific communities etc.

35.4    Health Visiting and School Nursing.

·         There are around 12,700 contacts per year with babies, children and parents

·         Surveys record high levels of satisfaction with the service

·         We have achieved stage 2 UNICEF baby friendly standard accreditation and are working to achieve stage 3

·         There is an enhanced support offer available for vulnerable families

·         A new SEND specialist health visitor has been appointed

·         School nursing operates as a multi-disciplinary team supporting a wide range of needs

·         School nurses work directly with children and young people

·         The services received referrals from other services

·         There is a confidential text services where young people can raise concerns about their physical or mental health

·         The service has high levels of user and parent satisfaction

·         There has been a successful post-Covid build back of services.

35.5    Early Years Work in Relation to School Readiness.

·         Services are outperforming the England average

·         We work really hard to support quality in early years settings – and almost all local providers are rated as good or better

·         Support starts early with a focus on babies right through to helping with transitions to and from schools

·         There is a particular focus on children eligible to receive free school meals

·         There has been successful promotion of the offer of free childcare hours and take up has improved

·         The services helps train staff to best support children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

35.6    School Attainment for Children in Care.

·         Local performance is better than the national average

·         There is bespoke support on offer for all children in care

·         There is a focus on encouraging all partner agencies to have high expectations of the potential of children in care.

35.7    Family Hubs Transformation Programme.

·         The programme was successful in securing time-limited funding

·         There has been a major restructure of early help hubs into a family hubs model

·         There is a focus on capturing quality data and sharing data amongst partners so families do not have to tell their story multiple times

·         There has been a focus on refurbishing and redecorating hubs to ensure they are fit for purpose

·         There has been a focus on workforce development, with a joint model of practice across the system

·         A strength-based approach has been successfully adopted with a shift in focus to family needs away from meeting service requirements

·         There has been a focus on consultation and co-production

·         We are looking at how to build on the success of family hubs, particularly in terms of building closer links between the hubs and VCS organisations that provide essential support across the city

·         A family hub strategy is in development

·         There has been a 71% increase in referrals to family hubs – this is excellent news, although it presents challenges in terms of workload.

35.8    Healthy Weight.

·         There is lots of work with schools to encourage physical activity

·         Work is ongoing to ensure that health eating and physical activity offers are accessible to all

·         The most recent Safe & Well At School survey includes questions on healthy weight, so we will shortly have valuable additional data to drive improvement.

35.9    Self-Harm.

·         The core school mental health service is good, and there have been effective initiatives including offering themed group activities

·         There is an increasing focus on how to best support neurodiversity

·         More work needs to be done to understand why there are high rates of self-harm in the city

·         A toolkit to support schools in dealing with pupil death has recently been released

·         A recent pilot on addressing harmful sexual behaviours in young men is currently being evaluated by the University of Sussex.

35.10  members asked a range of questions on issues including:

·         The role of social media in self-harm

·         What can be done to help young people deal with anxiety about climate change

·         Ensuring that there is good take-up of workforce training, particularly given that much of the workforce is part-time.

35.11  RESOLVED – that the report be noted.

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