SUPPORT will be offered to North-Eastern families, thanks to the roll-out of Family Hubs in local communities.   

Seventy-five UK areas will benefit from £300 million investment up to 2025, with new hubs offering support from conception to age 19, or up to 25 for children with special education needs and disabilities.  

Investing and supporting families helps with children’s educational attainment, wellbeing and life chances, while improving wider outcomes including poor mental health and unemployment.

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Hubs will bring together wraparound services that can make a huge difference to people who need extra support – including advice on getting into work, relationship building and stop smoking services.  

To fast-track delivery of these services, 14 local authority areas will receive extra funding. These trailblazers will lead the way, supporting other local authorities to improve family services, so these can be rolled out across the country. 

Three local authorities will receive funding to accelerate their family hubs programmes. County Durham, Sunderland and Northumberland received funding for perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships, infant feeding support and parenting support. 

This builds on the Prime Minister’s ambition to deliver on the 2019 manifesto commitment to champion Family Hubs.  

Children, families and wellbeing minister, Claire Coutinho said:  “Having children can be really tough as well as bringing so much joy. All families, from time to time, will need a helping hand.

“Family hubs bring services together helping parents, carers, children and young people to access the support they need more easily.  

“Parenting advice ranges from support with breast-feeding and mental health to guidance on how to give children a head start on their learning.”  

Peter Fonagy, chief executive of the Anna Freud Centre, said: "Family Hubs make a positive difference to parents, carers and children by providing a single access point to services that can help them during challenging periods. We know how important early intervention is in improving physical, mental and emotional health outcomes for young people, and in helping to build a strong foundation for them to prosper in later life.

“We are proud to lead the National Centre for Family Hubs, which provides a national platform for the implementation of family hubs in local areas, and to be able to extend support to more areas across the country."