The programme works with parents from pregnancy and provides support for children until their fourth birthday. Involvement with Sure Start helps to ensure our children flourish at home and do well when they get to school. The programme aims to improve:

  • The ability to learn by encouraging stimulating play, improving language skills and the early identification and support of children with learning difficulties;
  • Health by supporting parents in caring for children and promoting children’s health and development;
  • Social development by supporting the development of early relationships between parents and children, good parenting skills, family functioning and early identification and support of children with emotional, learning or behavioural difficulties.

Our wrap around approach co-ordinates, streamlines and add value to existing services for young families in designated areas. All our programmes:

  • Involve parents;
  • Avoids stigma;
  • Ensures lasting support;
  • Is sensitive to families’ needs;
  • Promote local families’ full participation.

Core programme elements are:

  • Outreach and home visiting services, to make contact as early as possible in a child’s life and draw families into using other services;
  • Family support including befriending, social support and parenting information, both group and home based;
  • Good quality play, learning and childcare experiences for children (both group and home based);
  • Primary and community health care and advice;
  • Speech language and communication support;
  • Support for all children in the community recognising their differing needs.

 

Our Sure Start provides a complete service through antenatal and post-natal programmes. Early years’ education ensures our young children have high-quality learning experiences before they start school. Gaps between more affluent children and their peers emerge before the age of four, so efforts to support children’s learning in the early years is vital for children from areas of disadvantage.  Saol Úr Sure Start is a programme for all families living within the Upper Springfield, Falls Park and Whiterock wards. The programme delivers at a local level through a network of local statutory agencies and community-based voluntary organisation working in the fields of health, early education and family/parenting support.

Maternity Services

Local pregnant women can access our service through referral (NIMAT) or by self-referral, initiating their journey with Sure Start. This journey includes antenatal services, hypnobirthing, and antenatal education. Our programs actively promote key messages to assist pregnant women and introduce education on infant mental health and baby brain development, led by our midwife and speech and language therapist. Additionally, we offer crucial support services for both mothers and fathers as they prepare for their new arrival.

During the antenatal period, we advocate for the use of the Belfast Baby Lullaby Book and App. This reinforces the importance of singing to a baby before birth, as babies can already hear and recognize their mother’s voice while in the womb. Singing to a baby, aids in building bonding and early brain development.

In the postnatal stage, we provide support related to feeding and breastfeeding through our feeding support worker. After a baby’s birth, one of our primary focuses is to support women’s mental health. This support takes place through a variety of means, including home visits, one-on-one sessions, and group-based settings.

Speech and Language

Sure Start embeds speech, language, and communication from before the baby’s birth until the child begins their educational journey to nursery school. Communication plays a central role in ensuring a healthy and happy life. Speech and language input permeates all our teams, events, and activities within our project.

We initiate this process during the antenatal stage, educating expectant parents about the development of a baby’s brain before and after birth. We clarify how loving relationships and attachment wire a child’s brain for learning and making positive life choices. Our baby groups provide parents with the time and a safe space to foster the parent-child bond.

Our postnatal and childcare staff undergo speech and language training to assist parents as their child grows and participates in play programs. We emphasize that play is crucial for a child’s development and serves as the foundation for future communication skills. We consistently instruct parents on how to facilitate proper language development and prevent potential issues. Our staff actively promote key speech and language messages throughout all our programs, especially our monthly messages, such as “Changing time is chatting time” and “Anytime is chatting time.”

Notably, there has been a significant increase in children requiring additional support for communication and learning, possibly due to the impact of pandemic lockdowns.

Childcare

All our childcare services promote and support a child’s development, starting    from when a baby is born and through their early years. Each programme is not just a service for families to come along to it is about building relationships, educating the parents, supporting and empowering the family.

We provide four parent and child programmes each day focusing on different aspects of child development The most popular programmes included tumbling toddler, baby sensory, baby messy play, toddler sensory, sing, sign and rhyme and story time. The services’ outcome ensure that each family has a positive learning experience which helps with their child’s development.

Our children only services include our developmental programme for 2–3-year-olds which is a service for children in their pre year to school access. The programme focuses on constructive play in group settings to enhance children’s social and emotional development, to build on their language and communication skills and to encourage imagination through play. The programme has an emphasis on engaging with parents, providing a joint care, learning environment, and supporting a seamless transition from home.

Family Support

Family support is a core service which helps build the main foundations to developing relationships with families to gain the best outcomes. Our team provide daily home visiting, telephone support, accompanied visits and centre-based support to provide support to families.

Our multi-disciplined family support team provide support services to individual families who may be experiencing difficulties within the home and or family. We assist with other services in areas relating to housing, welfare advice support, form filling, education, health problems, debt and parenting roles. The team aims to build relationships, promote good outcomes for children, reach our community’s most disadvantage groups and offer the best possible bespoke support!  

Our minority ethnic support worker provides one to one support to families who have moved into the area or are living in the area and English is not their first language. The team supports users learn English language through local classes in Whiterock Children Centre. This is an area of work that can have many obstacles because often the families are only getting settled, starting to learn some English, meeting friends and starting to engage in services and uprooted from their own country.

 

We continue to provide families in need with 400 food parcels, support with gas and electric to help people over the particularly hard times. We also supported families to access 50 grants through the Building Block Emergency Fund and Family Fund.

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Feedback from Parents on sure start services

The Sure Start Team

Manager: Siobhan Meehan

Email: s.meehan@usdt.co.uk

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