Parent & Carer Advisory Group Meeting 4th March 2025

What a fantastic Parent and Carers Advisory Group meeting we had at Bellingham Family Hub!

Over 20 parents and carers came along to share their thoughts and give feedback on Family Hub services and all attendees have been contacted by the reception team to receive their voucher.

We started by thinking of ways we can improve access to information for parents and carers, and we talked about the best way to reach families in Lewisham.

With over 30 suggestions the group decided that the ones that should be prioritised.

These are:

• Display posters in the community ie, Leisure Centres, Libraries, Soft Play, Cafes, Supermarkets and GPs etc
• Promote our Social Media Accounts
• Add information about Family Hubs in the ‘Red Book’
• Ask Midwifery to give out information at Antenatal Midwifery appointments

The group also reviewed the upcoming Parent and Carer feedback questionnaire. All the suggestions have been added to the questionnaire which will go live soon.

Nearly everyone who attended the group wants to carry on providing feedback and sharing their thoughts and ideas. It was decided that this could be done alongside our Stay & Play sessions. We will do this by providing families with questions we want to ask and the dates when we will attend the Stay and Play sessions, so you can have think about the feedback you want to give before the session. A member of the Advisory Group aims to visit a Stay and Play session twice a term to hear your views.

These feedback sessions at Stay & Plays will run alongside the more formal Parent and Carer Advisory Group meetings. If you would like to be a part of the more formal sessions, please contact Lou at lou.neville-ball@lewisham.gov.uk.’

One thing we didn’t have time for at the meeting was to name our Virtual Family Navigator. If you have visited our website recently you might have noticed that we have a chat bot that you can ask question 24 hours a day.

We would like your help to give our Virtual Navigator a name , if you have a suggestion please let our reception team know next time you are in a Family Hub or share any suggestions with jo.cooper@lewisham.gov.uk. We will be sharing all suggestions on our social media sites and parents and carers will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite one.

We will be creating blog posts after every Advisory Group to provide updates on the topics covered, so do keep an eye out for future posts!