A scheme to support families in Caerphilly County Borough has been handed £685,000 for an expansion.
The extra Welsh Government funding for the Flying Start programme in the Valleys is part of a wider £1.8m package which will also benefit the Merthyr and RCT areas.
Flying Start is a Welsh Government programme which supports families with children up to four years old that are living in some of Wales’ most deprived communities. Since a pilot programme six years ago, it now operates in all 22 local authorities, with 18,000 children under the age of four and their families being helped.
The programme includes free part-time childcare, parenting support, intensive health visiting and early language development. It supports families to look after their children’s health and wellbeing, working in partnership with primary and community healthcare.
The Welsh Government wants to double the number of children being helped by Flying Start from 18,000 to 36,000 by 2015.
Deputy Minister for Children and Social Services, Gwenda Thomas, said: “Supporting children in the early years is a priority for the Welsh Government and it is vitally important that we continue to prioritise the needs of the most disadvantaged and protect the most vulnerable against poverty and marginalisation.
“We are prioritising early years support because we know that that is where we will make the most impact and we know we can make a real difference for children and families. Our increased investment in Flying Start is an exciting opportunity for us to build on all this good work right across the country.
“Our efforts to prevent poverty start with targeting investment to give children the best possible start in life and early intervention to make sure that children have the opportunity to learn, develop and play. Pre-school years are crucial to a child’s development and it’s essential that we identify and deal with any potential issues that can arise during this time to prepare children for school and later life.”
It would be interesting to know, considering the size of this pot of public money available to local Council`s, how much? and in what way? Caerphilly CBC have ensured that the people of the most deprived ward in Wales St. James in Caerphilly town have benefited from this money?.
Considering, whatever the financial position of householders, and, whatever level of financial deprivation suffered by householders, in St James`s and all other ward in the Borough they will all have to pay some council Tax this year, as part of the Welsh Assembly decisions taken over the Christmas Holidays, even those, on the least possible levels of benefits. This will certainly contribute even further to the deprivation the children of the ward already suffer substantiating the need to spend even more money on fighting the scurge of Child Poverty.
It really is time local and National Politicians took a reality check before agreeing huge pay increases to well paid, well off, public servants, and then robbing the poor to help pay for it. Disgraceful, perverse, odious, and totally unacceptable.