Hampshire County Council’s Services for Young Children is reviewing the service it provides following changes to government policy and reductions in funding. We currently work to support childcare settings to develop high quality provision and ensure that young children achieve the best possible outcomes. We will continue to offer professional support to settings with less than good quality and will help childcare providers who are at risk of closure to keep open or help to develop new provision where there is a childcare need. We are also planning to continue to offer our Area Inclusion Co-ordinator and Portage home visiting services for children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). Finally, our children’s centres will continue to operate as normal and deliver a range of high quality services to parents
We are reviewing our Childcare and Family Information Team outreach service which may change from April 2015. Families who are looking for childcare will still be able to have help from Hants Direct or can search on the website as usual and we are looking at how our children’s centres can support parents to help them find childcare and how our Area Inclusion Co-ordinator service can help to find childcare for older children with SEN.
Our Early Communication Support Service is also under review and we are looking at ways of ensuring that speech and language support is available for parents and children through our local children’s centres and early years education providers. This support will be in addition to that provided by the NHS.
We will keep you informed as our plans develop and seek your help in further shaping them.
Hampshire Childcare and Family Information 