Service Mapping
Please help us capture the true picture of what is happening in the three boroughs to
tackle child poverty.
Below is a list of services that tackle child poverty that we are aware of. These have
been broken down into three categories:
-
Child poverty initiatives
Asset Mapping
Financial assistance
Please can you review this list and identify any gaps by adding these onto the flip chart
paper which will be in the ‘mapping’ section in the Isaac Newton Centre on the day of
the Engagement Summit.
Child poverty initiatives
Bayswater Families Centre (Westminster)
The Bayswater Familes Centre provides support to homeless and refugee families living
in temporary accommodation in the W2 area of London. The Centre operates a dropin/open door policy. The Bayswater Families Centre offers a wide range of services to
homeless families living in Bed & Breakfast, hostel, or temporary accommodation in the
Bayswater & Paddington areas.
The Centre offers a daily Drop-in supervised play facility, Early Learning Sessions for 35 year olds concentrating on basic English. The drop-in staff also provides crèche
services for classes throughout the day. There is an After School Club which runs 3
afternoons a week for vulnerable children attending local schools offering homework
support, access to computers, sports, drama groups, arts and crafts activities and trips
and other activities during the school holidays. The advice team provide information and
guidance on housing issues, welfare benefits, employment, more intensive social work
interventions and practical support on baby equipment, food, clothing & household
equipment.
Children Centres (Triborough)
The Children’s Centres provide a range of services for children aged 0-5 years, including
childcare and early education, health services for children and their families, family
support including help with parenting skills and helping parents get back into
employment. Support services include:
 Play sessions
 Early learning and childcare
 Smoking cessation classes and support
 Health visiting
 Dental and oral advice
 Drop ins
 Breast feeding support groups (available in community languages)
 Family learning
 Adult education classes and training
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Individual support through home visiting
Parenting support
There are 12 Children’s Centres across Westminster, grouped into the three main
localities – South, North East and North West. Parents in each of the three geographical
areas have access to all children’s centre services.
Eat Sleep Learn Play! (Westminster)
This is a grant scheme aimed at families with young children who are living on a low
income. It provides essential household items to enable children to Eat, Sleep, Learn
and Play in their own homes. To be eligible for this initiative parents must live in the
London borough of Westminster and have a child under the age of 36 months or are 28
weeks pregnant or more and receive one or more benefits (listed) and need one or more
of the following:
 Cooker
 Fridge
 washing machine
 dining table and chairs
 kitchen equipment
 high chair
 cot, beds
 books & toys
 pushchairs
 storage solutions.
If a parent fits these criteria they may be eligible for a Save the Children Eat Sleep Learn
Play! Grant.
Family Outreach Team
The family outreach team work in and out of the Children’s Centres. They take referrals
from health visitors and other professionals to support parents and children in the home.
The aim is both to provide advice and guidance and to signpost to the services offered
at the children’s centres.
Family Recovery Programme (Triborough)
This programme is an integrated multi-agency team who will persistently support and
intervene with families who are at risk of losing their children, home and/or liberty. In
doing this, the aim is also to improve the experience of the families and their
communities.
The programme works intensively with families spending around 12 months with a
family, with 3 weekly review meetings to ensure the team can be responsive to change.
The families are also asked to attend every 6 weeks with the expectation that they are
fully signed up to the plan. The adults and children are each given a lead professional
as their single point of contact The team are co-located so they can provide a wide
range of support and share information to meet the needs of the family.
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Pimlico Toy Library (Westminster)
The Pimlico Toy Library is a children’s charity and encourages children to learn through
play. Families with children up to the age of 8 years are encouraged to join the library.
Children with disabilities are encouraged to visit the toy library and find out if it meets
their needs. The library provides a safe and guided environment so children and
parents can interact with others within the community. The cost is £20 for a family to
join the library, £1 per play session and 50p to loan a toy and sessions include the
following:
 Six drop-in play sessions a week for 0-5 year olds all year round
 Toy loan for 0-8 year olds.
 Monthly Saturday play and toy-loan sessions for 0-8 year olds.
 Monthly arts and craft sessions.
 Special events (e.g. music workshops, shows, special visits, etc.) for 0-8 year
olds during school holidays.
 A staff of qualified Toy Librarians help parents and children enjoy their time
together through play.
 Choose to borrow from a large selection of toys, including big items like bikes,
tents, and slides.
 The loan of toys for parties
Employability Project
Details to follow from Monika P
Connecting for Care (Triborough)
The hub model has been designed with patients to connect professionals from primary,
secondary and tertiary care, to encourage:
• Shared learning and development, including co-creation.
• A whole person approach to caring for families.
• Patient, parent and professional confidence in the provision of child health services in
primary care settings.
The Child Health General Practice Hub Model has the patient’s voice at its heart. It will
improve experiences and outcomes for children and their families by increasing
access and drawing paediatric expertise and community support into primary care,
where children’s and families’ needs are known and can be managed well.
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St Quintin Centre for disabled children & young people (RBKC)
The St Quintin Centre is a state of the art centre offering groups and support for disabled
children, young people and their families. The Centre is open seven days a week,
and offer term-time support from birth to five years old, and afterschool, Saturday and
Holiday club support for 5 - 18 year-olds.
St Quintin centre for Disabled children provides support and care for families who have a
Disabled child or a complex Health need.
Having a disabled child has a huge impact on the family. Many families become isolated
from their families and friends, relationships suffer as the parents learn to cope with their
new challenges, parents often have to give up work to look after their child, housing is
hard to find and is expensive if adaptations are required.
The centre provides a one stop resource and supports children from 0-18yrs. We
provide care and advice to support their child and offer opportunities to their children
which brings a little normalisation into their world offering events and activities that all
child want and enjoy.
Play Association – (Hammersmith & Fulham)
The Play Association is a voluntary organisation and provides support to existing and
emerging voluntary and community sector play providers to develop and improve the
quality of play provision. We work to support local play and playful organisations by
providing free resources and opportunities for them to improve the quality of their
provision. We seek to ensure Hammersmith and Fulham has a large range of quality
play provisions for children and young people to access. We do this by representing our
colleagues in play at borough partnerships and seeking further resources to be allocated
to play.
Play Service (RBKC)
The Royal Borough’s play service runs breakfast, after school, and school holiday play
centres in schools across the borough for children between five to 13 years of age. Play
centres are staffed by a senior play worker, a deputy play worker and a team of play
workers. The play centre provides a varied programme of activities and the Play and
Youth Services support the integration of children into mainstream provision where
appropriate. The families and children who have differing needs will receive support from
the Play Inclusion Officer, who will carry out assessments to ensure that the child's
needs are met when using play services. One-to-one additional support can be made
available through Social Care Children with Disabilities Team.
Health Works (RBKC)
Health works is a health partnership project led by Dalgarno Neighbourhood Trust in a
unique voluntary sector consortium of three community anchors and seven BME
organisations. The organisations in the partnership will enable this project to have
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enormous reach into a wide range of BME communities, especially targeting the most
disadvantaged individuals in the Royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Kensington & Chelsea Social Council (RBKC)
Working to support locally focused voluntary and community organisations serving local
residents who run various schemes to support families who may be living in poverty
Food Bank (H & F)
Details from Monica P.
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Asset mapping
Child Protection Team
Dealing with issues possibly passed on by health visitor, social worker etc.
Family and Schools Together (FAST)
Children & parents attend 8 weekly after school sessions – these sessions are aimed at
improving children’s achievement, behaviour but also improving the relationships
parents have with their children.
Family Nurse Partnership
Provide support to 1st time teenage mums until the child is 2 years old aiming to give the
child the best start to life.
Food deserts
Making fresh fruit and vegetables/ healthy food accessible for all families living in the
area at as low a cost as possible.
Family Information Service
Westminster Family Information Service (FIS) is a free, impartial information service for
parents and carers of children and young people aged 0-19 (up to 25 years for those
with additional needs).
The Family Information Service provides free, reliable, impartial information and advice
on childcare and a wide range of other services for children, families and young people
in the City of Westminster. The service is a comprehensive source of information,
available to ensure that informed choices can be made. If you are a parent or carer and
are unsure who to go to for advice
Health Visiting
Providing support to parents on a variety of different issues regarding their new born
child. Supporting the family in many ways to avoid issues spiraling, eg Child Protection.
Homework Clubs/breakfast clubs
Allow parents to work longer hours as their child is being looked after safely at these
clubs. Eg, If parent has children between ages of 7-13 years, WCC offers free
Homework clubs in the some libraries (during term time only). These provide friendly
surroundings, a wide range of books, staff to provide with help and assistance and
several computers with printers to help with homework/ learning.
Home Start
Home-Start is a national family support charity that helps parents to build better lives for
their children. An allocated volunteer will visit once a week for two hours, and will spend
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time listening and talking to parents, playing with the children and providing whatever
support the parent needs to cope more easily. Their vision is to provide parents with
whatever support they require to ensure their child gets the best start in life. Families
can be referred via GP, health visitor, health and social care professionals or self refer.
In my back yard (Westminster)
Provides a voice for local residents. 15 local residents act as the community voice and
aim to address issues raised by local people – runs for 6 months.
Integrated gangs unit
Encouraging young people into education and not to get involved in gangs/dangerous
behaviours.
Integrated Locality Teams ‘Early Help Service’.
The locality teams include professionals with backgrounds in health, social care,
education welfare, youth work, early years, play and parenting support. By integrating
our services at locality level, we aim to make supportive services more accessible and
responsive at an earlier point, both to provide advice and consultation, as well as direct
interventions.
Job Centre Plus service within Children Centres
A JCP representative is present in the Children Centre’s providing advice on CV writing,
interview techniques for parents. This is all provided while the child is in the centre. It is
Informal but more formal/ practice sessions are available.
Local wardens (community safety)
Protecting the local people from environmental factors in their area.
Midwives
Provide advice, care and support for women and their partners and families before,
during and after childbirth.
Neighbourhood watch
Where people come together to make their communities safer
Newpin Family Centre (Westminster)
The main objectives of the Newpin Family Centre are to break down destructive family
patterns, to raise the self esteem of individual parents who are suffering from
depression. We aim to inspire parents to recognise the value of consistent good practice
in caring for children, and to raise their own self confidence through their experience in
the Centre. The centre provides both parents and children with new skills via a range of
services including weekly parent support groups, parenting programmes (based on the
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Mellow Parenting Family Play Programme – PEEP), family play and support drop ins 3
times a week for any parent or carer in the community. No referral required.
Parenting Schemes (positive parenting, Triple P 2-12, Triple P Teen) *1
A number of courses run for parents across the 3 boroughs – from helping you with
teenagers or very young children, to giving children a sense of his or her community.
They run across the borough at varying times.
Play services
This type of service is central to ‘place’ and how people feel about a place. Will have an
effect on health and wellbeing of residents. (Eg, in Westminster The Playhut, Sparkle
Time & Pimlico Toy Library).
Protection Wardens (community safety)
Focus on anti-social behaviour/crime which will have an impact on how safe/confident
residents feel in the area. Connection with living in crime – growing up to commit crime.
Schools
Teachers and classroom assistants can pick up on child poverty issues and either deal
with them within the school setting or refer to other services.
School Nurses
Deal with a variety of different issues ranging from child protection to vision screening to
hygiene. All in the interest of promoting the health, wellbeing & protection of all children
& young people.
Social Workers
When doing home visits, social workers will be able to identify signs of child poverty and
child protection issues and know how best to manage this.
Troubled Families Programme
Supporting families and helping to reduce risk factors in area.
2 year old offer (Westminster)
A limited number of free early education places are available to children aged two to
enhance their learning opportunities and support low income families. Applications are
accepted from Westminster residents with children over 20 months. The scheme seeks
to improve the home environment by providing families with an essential household item
from a defined list. Families may be eligible if the parents live in Westminster, meet a
low income threshold, are in receipt of certain benefits and have a child under 3 years
old.
*Mentioned in the ‘Tackling the causes of child poverty’ conference as a key service for helping to address CP
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Advice Services
CAB, World’s End Neighbourhood Advice Centre, Staying First etc.
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Financial assistance
Decent Homes Grant
May be eligible to grants to repair home if fit the eligibility criteria.
Family Fund
Aimed at families across the UK who are raising a disabled or seriously ill child or young
person aged 17 or under. You can apply to the Family Fund if:

You live in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales.

You are the parent or carer of a disabled or seriously ill child or young person aged
17 or under.

You have evidence of your entitlement to one the following: Universal Credit, Child
Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Income
Support, Incapacity Benefit*, Employment Support Allowance*, Housing Benefit
and Pension Credit. If you do not receive any of the above, further information may
be needed to complete your application.

You have permanent legal residency in the UK and have lived in the UK for six
months
Quids for Kids (Hammersmith & Fulham)
This service is aimed at expectant mothers, unemployed people, students, teenage
parents, young people, people starting work or returning to work, parents using
childcare, lone parents, and those caring for a sick or disabled child & to provide them
with financial assistance where possible. Call them, visit or look online.
Working Families (Hammersmith & Fulham)
This service helps parents and carers to combine paid work and caring responsibilities.
They provide a free Legal Helpline that gives parents and carers legal and in-work
benefits advice, as well as helping them to negotiate the flexible hours they want.
Furthermore, work with employers to support them in creating workplaces which
encourage work-life balance for everyone.
Services Offered:
- Free newsletter
- Dedicated helpline
- Publications – including ‘From Child to Adult: a guide to disability, transition and family
finance.
- Informative website
You can get in contact with the service through telephone, e-mail and via post but this is
not a drop-in service. FREE SERVICE.
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Healthy Start
With Healthy Start, you get free vouchers every week to spend on milk, plain fresh and
frozen fruit and vegetables, and infant formula milk. You can also get free vitamins. You
qualify for Healthy Start if you’re at least 10 weeks pregnant or have a child under four
years old and you or your family get:
 Income Support, or
 Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, or
 Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, or
 Child Tax Credit (but not Working Tax Credit unless your family is receiving
Working Tax Credit run-on only*) and has an annual family income of £16,190 or
less (2013/14).
You also qualify if you are under 18 and pregnant, even if you don’t get any of the above
benefits or tax credits.
Statutory Maternity Allowance
Maternity Allowance is available through Jobcentre Plus to some people who are or
have been employed but don’t qualify for SMP. You could get either £136.78 a week or
90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower). It’s paid for up to 39 weeks.
You can claim Maternity Allowance as soon as you’ve been pregnant for 26 weeks.
Payments can start 11 weeks before your baby is due.
Statutory Maternity Pay
If a pregnant woman pays National Insurance Contributions and has been employed by
the same employer for a certain amount of time before the baby is due, she may be
entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay - SMP (paid for by her employer). SMP is paid for the
first six weeks at 90% of her average gross weekly pay and then for 33 weeks either at
the same rate as she has been receiving or at the standard rate of around £124 per
week (whichever is lower).
Pregnant Women + grants
Pregnant women are due grants and are eligible for free prescription, free dentist
appointments. They are not always aware of this money to help them provide the best
start for their baby.
Sure Start Maternity Grant
A Sure Start Maternity Grant is intended to help you pay for the immediate needs of a
new baby if you are getting a specified benefit or tax credit. A Sure Start Maternity
Grant is paid from the Social Fund as a lump sum, and you do not have to pay it back –
apply through JCP/ DWP. It is not limited by a budget and everyone who is entitled will
get a grant. The grant is £500 in respect of each baby for whom an award is made.
You are only eligible for a Sure Start Maternity Grant if:
 the baby you are claiming for is the only child under 16 in the family (except as
explained above);
 you or your partner are getting Universal Credit, Income Support, income-based
Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance (income-related),
Pension Credit, Working Tax credit where a disability or severe disability element
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is included in the award or Child Tax Credit at a rate higher than the family
element; and where one of the following applies:
you or your partner are pregnant and expecting a baby within 11 weeks,
you or your partner have had a baby in the past 3 months,
you or your partner have a dependent child or dependent young person who
is pregnant and expecting a baby within 11 weeks or who has had a baby in
the past 3 months,
you are the responsible parent of a new baby, claim within 3 months of
becoming responsible and are not the partner of the child's mother at the date
of claim
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