Parents discuss the economy and services designed to help them with Polly Toynbee

The afternoon session involved an in-depth discussion with Polly Toynbee as part of a wider documentary, "Whose Economy". Polly's discussion centred on the support available for families and the ways in which these services can be made to work best, building upon the work done in our Membership Seminar 10/09/08 with Ed Miliband.

Discussion of Children's Centres

Polly: Who would you trust instinctively to talk about your children’s potential problems?

Bev: I wouldn’t go to the children’s centre. It’s lovely, but children are rarely allowed to do anything in there – no noise, no playing - most parents don’t know it’s there.

Polly: Do you feel parents don’t have a say?

Kerri: We will talk to each other more than we would to a professional.

Bev: We know one another, can build up trust, and find out through talking to each other when you do have problems.

Sharon: The Children's Centre don’t pay attention to the parents committee.

Bev: They know the parents that will stand up for themselves. When they see us, they think “trouble”.

Gail: I was a parent rep to get the funding for Blayton and Winlaton for Sure Start, I was on the executive committee. Have been involved for years. But I gave up [because I got fed up – and also because of my son]. In the beginning it looked [like it would be] brilliant, but when it was built, it was built in the wrong place, designed wrong – even now, the roof leaks constantly.

Wendy: I feel there was a real issue in the way children’s centres were set up. They didn’t start with what was going on with the community, instead they started with new buildings and new people in the posts. I’ve been clear I don’t think that should happen. We’ve got a strong parent voice [in Avonmouth] – we want parents to be able to influence their building.

Polly: The idea with Sure Start in the beginning was that it should grow up from local community.

Wendy: It was, but they pulled out – if they’d gone in within the community and built on what was going on there it would have been better.

Penny: After a while I found you couldn’t approach them. They would say, “anything you say will go on a report” – and it put you on your guard. I felt I needed to use it [the Children’s Centre]. It was in the next road – when we first got married I needed help with knowing what to claim for etc, but eventually I was told I was too capable and asked why was I coming here? They put you as low priority. If I’d been a drug addict I would have been high priority!

Ann: Isn’t it true that one of the things you’re all saying is that everyone needs help at some point?

Penny: Everyone should be equal, but we all need different things.

Discussion of what parents did with Big Wide Talk to instigate change in their community

Ann: As a first line, you can help each other. The space to talk – that’s very important. A lot of children’s centres have to have a schedule for what happens, a whole range of activities which doesn’t allow for that [space to talk].

Gail: They should have cafes, kitchens – a training kitchen for people to pick up skills. We used to have one but then they demolished it. It was the hub of the place, pensioners came in, those on drugs etc.

Ann: You have to give people solutions. You have done successful things: Looking Out Looking In I thought was a big success - why has that not gone forward?

Wendy: It’s getting people to think outside the box [that’s hard].

Polly: Well, it’s something that doesn’t fit people’s categories – they want a particular result from the money.

Kerri: We showed them how it fitted, enabling parents and achievement. We ran an exhibition for 2 weeks with just over 1000 children attending; it was highly successful. We then had a cocktail evening to follow, to show the powers that be what had happened. They said they had already set the budget so they didn’t have anything left to give us to carry it on. We didn’t get councillors to come to the cocktail evening. That was one problem. It was meant to be an introduction to Bristol City Council. Big Wide Talk paid for most of it with its own funding. Bristol City Council contributed £5000 (and later another £5000). At the point that we invited the Council in to look at the results, people had a sense of achievement, it was hitting the ECM outcomes - you can go to any budget to get support for them. The amount of money we were looking for was peanuts – we could have done it again for £20,000. It delivers first line family support, family learning. Could come out of Extended Schools budget and nobody would have noticed.

Polly: [I've found that it's the] parents [who are] community activists, they’re the natural founder for that sort of thing – any activism comes from parents getting together. Money should come to a central hub. Actually making the ideas at the top happen on the ground is very difficult, to roll it out across the nation.

The economy

Polly: The economy going to get worse. Next year is going to be horrendous. There will be a big divide between people in terrible trouble, and those who are doing all right with their stable jobs. Could be a fairer sharing of the pain and the gain than we hear about politicians talking about.

Penny: When you're just barely above the poverty line everything seems to stop – free school meals, prescriptions; there are no grants for heating, or to get college education.

Kerri: We entered into an IVA some years ago - as long as I have money coming in, I will have a fixed budget every month. So I am very privileged. So many people won’t have that same security.