OXFORDSHIRE’S early intervention hubs are already improving the support given to young people and their families, six months after opening.

That is the verdict of council bosses who oversaw the reorganisation last September as part of efforts to save £18.3m from the council’s children’s budget over four years.

The seven hubs – in Littlemore, East Oxford, Abingdon, Didcot, Bicester, Witney and Banbury – are designed to bring together all the services supporting children and families, and will be central to turning around the lives of the 800 most troubled families in Oxfordshire.

The council hopes that targeting children for support early will bring down drug and alcohol use, teenage pregnancies and school exclusions, and tackle youth unemployment.

Early intervention manager Tan Lea said: “It’s too early to say how successful this has been in terms of outcomes, but in terms of the reach of services and engagement with schools, children and young people, we’re getting very positive feedback about the work we’re doing.”

The hubs mean that for the first time, experts in different fields, including drug and alcohol teams, youth offending managers, family support staff and youth workers, are based in the same building, giving families one place to go to for help.

Among the services they offer to families referred to the hubs by other agencies are parenting classes, one-to-one sessions, play therapy, counselling, mentoring and outreach work in the wider community.

At open access sessions any young person can turn up for advice and support. The Littlemore hub, which is based at Oxford Academy, works intensively with about 60 families and about 100 children attend the open access sessions.

At the Blackbird Leys satellite centre, in Blackbird Leys Road, children aged nine to 12 who have to look after ill parents or relatives have started an art project to help build their confidence and self-esteem.

Working with community health worker Emma Titcombe, they have created highly decorated shoes as part of a project with the Ashmolean Museum. They will go on display at the Museum of Oxford next month.

Community worker Gillian Williams added: “One thing that is really fruitful, and we have seen so far, is that we have been able to engage the parents of young people who are causing concern for people around them, as well as the young people themselves.

“In the past, there may have been services around the young person engaged, but the whole family was not involved in the same way.”

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