Get involved

Welcome to the engagement and involvement page. Here you’ll find the activity to date to consult and engage with children and young people, parents and partners, to shape future family hubs for Nottinghamshire.

Within this section you’ll also find out about current opportunities to get involved in for the development of our Family Hub Networks across Nottinghamshire.

If you live or work in Nottinghamshire and are expecting a baby or are a parent or carer, we are keen to hear from you.

We will be creating parent and carer panels in each district, if you want to get involved or find out more please get in touch:

•    Ashfield FHAshfield@nottscc.gov.uk
•    Bassetlaw FHBassetlaw@nottscc.gov.uk
•    Broxtowe FHBroxtowe@nottscc.gov.uk
•    Gedling FH.Gedling@nottscc.gov.uk
•    Mansfield FHMansfield@nottscc.gov.uk
•    Newark and Sherwood  FHNewarkSherwood@nottscc.gov.uk
•    Rushcliffe FHRushcliffe@nottscc.gov.uk

Embracing local partnerships

Family Hub Networks will be successful if we have the right services working together for the benefit of families.  

We are always looking for potential delivery partners especially across the local voluntary and community sector. We also want to team up with organisations which help to improve emotional health and wellbeing and services who support children with additional needs; parents and carers tell us these are their top two priorities.

If you want to find out more, please get in touch. Una Daniel - Family Hub Development Manager at una.daniel@nottscc.gov.uk  

What have we done so far to engage families and workers?  

Autumn 2023 Consultation

To help shape future proposals, the council asked local families and professionals for their views to help develop effective Family Hub Networks. A consultation exercise ran from October to December 2023.

We received 708 responses, and the largest proportion of responses were from parents and carers (73%). 36% of parents and carers had children under the age of 5 and 38% had children of school age, and 30% of respondents had children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

82% of respondents agreed with the proposal to change Children’s Centre buildings to become Family Hubs. This means that the proposal to change Children’s Centre buildings to Family Hubs will now be discussed at Cabinet in February 2024.

Here are some of the comments we received:

  • "Sounds great to me"
  • "Brilliant Idea and overdue"
  • "Very encouraging for this proposal. Families need continued help to meet the changing needs of children"
  • "These services are important, I am pleased to see the expansion to cover the older range of children and hope the hub will be successful in supporting those that need it"
  • "So long as the service that is currently provided isn't impacted negatively, then it's a great idea!"
  • "A good idea, assuming the early years support continues as it was - have been invaluable for support for my youngest two"
  • "Fathers need to be engaged as equal parents"
  • "More help for young children and families that are sufferers of mental health more places to go and more help to be accessible"
  • "I think this is a good idea as it doesn’t feel like there is much support for families with children over the age of 5 or if there is it isn’t very well advertised".

Spring 2024 consultation

A further consultation activity took place from January to April 2024 through a series of mini surveys with young people, parents and carers and professionals. 

Professionals suggested a range of areas for developments including improving school links, mental health support, communication between services and more rural and leisure services. Enhanced support for SEND and better coordination among services are also suggested to improve family and community wellbeing. 

Parents and carers want to see more groups for young children, safer and cleaner environments in some areas, better access to health services including mental health support, addressing antisocial behaviour and increasing SEND provision. 

Young people told us they want to see more activities, more bus stops, better parks and sports facilities, free Wi-Fi, more youth clubs, a cleaner environment and anti-vaping measures. 

Branding update

Our new Family Hub Network branding has now been finalised. Thanks to those of you who told us your preferences and shared your ideas. We are now starting to update our publicity, webpages and social media.  We hope that these images will eventually become a well-recognised trusted brand for services that families associate positively with. 

What's next?

We will keep assessing the feedback from the engagement activities to identify themes and opportunities to ensure that the development of family hubs reflects the needs of children and young people, and parents and partners.

Be sure to revisit this page for further updates and to find out more about future events and engagement opportunities. We encourage you to get involved in any of the engagement activities if you live or work in Nottinghamshire.

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