West Lancashire children and family wellbeing services

Monday 1pm to 2.30pm, Eavesdale Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Tuesday 10am to 11.30am, Grove Neighbourhood Centre, Burscough

Thursday 1pm to 2.30pm, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Meet and network with other new parents to share your experiences of caring for your baby together.

The sessions will:

• provide information about your child's ages and stages of development, particularly the growing brain and your crucial role in supporting this
• provide you with opportunities to play together and encourage positive play and interaction between you and your baby
• help you with any issues around bonding, connection and communication between you and your baby
• bring you together with other parents to prevent you from feeling socially isolated which is often a reality for new parents

Friday from 10am, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Volunteer led support is still available by telephone 01254 772929 and there are also Zoom support groups.

For more information visit the FAB website.

Tuesday 10am to 11.30am, Eavesdale Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Thursday 10am to 11.30am, Grove Neighbourhood Centre, Burscough

Thursday 10am to 11.30am, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

We will provide groups in our centres where you can bring your child along to socialise and play alongside other children and parents.

The sessions will provide:

• high quality, well planned, stimulating and challenging activities across all ages from 0-5yrs based on child-initiated play both indoors and outdoors (where possible). This is guided by the Early Years Foundation Stage Development Matters
• information about how to nurture your child’s growing brain that supports their learning and development
• opportunities for physical play in a safe environment Support for you to play and enjoy some time together
• a chance to get involved in your child’s learning and development by actively observing and interacting with them whilst they play and as they reach important milestones
• a safe and secure environment for your child to develop their confidence, social and emotional skills and make friends
• ideas, activities and opportunities to continue, develop and expand play at home
• support for your child’s creativity and imagination and learning through roleplay
• support for you and your child if they have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)
• support with your parenting if you need it
• information relevant to you as a family with young children including employment, training, childcare, health and wellbeing, healthy lifestyles, healthy relationships, early education and childcare
• the chance to meet with other families and make new relationships
• opportunities to participate and share your thoughts including your cultural and community values

Tuesday 10am to 11.30am, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

High levels of good health and wellbeing are vital for children to be able to fully engage in play to learn. Our physical health and wellbeing activities for early years children are a brilliant resource to help guide them on their first steps to living well and boost your child's physical and motor development.

The sessions will:

• build confidence
• develop gross motor and fine motor skills
• improve speech and language skills
• build social skills - have fun together and make new friends
• introduce the benefits of adopting healthy lifestyles

Monday 10am to 11.30am, Eavesdale Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Tuesday 1pm to 2.30pm, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Wednesday 1pm to 2.30pm, Grove Neighbourhood Centre, Burscough

A special group to support your child's speech and language. These skills support other areas of their learning and development such as:

• listening and understanding
• verbal and non-verbal communication
• language development

The sessions will:

• provide a strong foundation for school (for example children with proficient speech and language skills are likely to find it easier to learn to read)
• help build confidence
• enable children to communicate their needs better (and therefore reduce frustration)
• help the development of friendships
• give children a chance to build a love for words, books and stories
• help children make sense of the world around them
• provide opportunities to read and share books together, exploring the fun, rhythms and excitement of words and stories
• support your child’s listening skills by reading aloud to them and support you to do the same
• encourage children to join in song and rhyme, learning new words in a fun and friendly way
• encourage children to use language in their play, describing, predicating, sharing ideas and explaining
• encourage children to play and socialise together
• support you as a parent with ideas of how you can support your child’s speech and language development
• recognise when there may be a delay in your child’s speech and language and signpost to specialist support if it is needed

Please call to book your place.

The sessions will help you to prepare for parenthood including:

• safer sleep for your baby
• support on feeding your baby
• how to ensure your home is safe and ready for your baby
• support with how to care for your newborn's needs, including practical demonstrations on bathing and changing nappies
• the importance of communication and talking to your baby and how this supports the developing brain
• strategies for coping with a crying baby Baby’s cry, you can cope (ICON)
• early Play
• Me you and Baby Too digital app, how a new baby may impact your relationship with strategies for healthy communication
• smoking and 'Smoke Free Homes'

This is a new course, please contact us for more information and to book your place.

We provide targeted support for children of primary school age. Your child may be:

• struggling to express and manage their emotions
• have low self confidence and self-esteem
• presenting with anxious behaviours

By creating a safe space, your child will have the opportunity to take part in evidence-based activities including scenarios and role play, breathing and stretching exercises, TV and video clips, arts and craft, fun and games.

The sessions will help children to:

• explore wishes and feelings and understand worries
• look at a range of strategies to help manage strong emotions
• take part in a range of creative and physical activities to encourage positive play and interaction between children and their peers
• build confidence and social skills
• meet new people and make new friends
• explore and understand the impact of their behaviour on others
• think about, understand and appreciate that we are all unique and different

Please call us for more information and to book your place.

Monday 3.30pm to 4.45pm, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Thursday 1pm to 2.30pm, Grove Neighbourhood Centre, Burscough

If you have any concerns about your child's overall health and wellbeing that is not connected to any diagnosed condition, we have sessions that support you and your child adopting healthy lifestyles.

Many children can be put off by PE at school and can feel excluded from participating. It may be too competitive or slightly threatening particularly if there are large groups with mixed abilities and they feel shy or have lower self-esteem.

We will provide a safe, sensitive and nurturing space for children to meet and have fun together, promoting physical play and activity. We will provide information on their growing body and how to adopt healthy lifestyles including healthy eating.

The sessions will help children to:

• build their confidence to take part in physical play and exercise
• get information to understand how diet and exercise effect their growing bodies
• build their social skills, have fun together and make new friends
• think about adopting healthy lifestyles, balancing activity time with screen time

Tuesday 3.30pm to 4.45pm, Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Wednesday 3.30pm to 4.45pm, Grove Neighbourhood Centre, Burscough

We provide sessions in our centres for children with physical, learning, behavioural or emotional difficulties. We offer an inclusive environment, with opportunities for learning, development and support.

This is also where parents and carers have the opportunity to meet and make new friends and share experiences with those going through similar joys and challenges. There will also be information to hand about professional support so you can find out about other agencies, groups and services.

The sessions will help children to:

• be confident in expressing themselves
• experience positive social opportunities and interactions
• access learning and development opportunities
• receive peer support as well as signposting to specialist services for their parents and carers
• find a safe, inclusive place to be themselves

Wednesday 1pm to 2.30pm Skelmersdale Park Children and Family Wellbeing Services

Our newest drop-in session for support with additional needs. This weekly session is for parents and carers. It aims to provide a space to meet and gain information, support and advice, along with visiting guest speakers.

Wednesday 1pm to 2.30pm Southway Neighbourhood Centre

This session is for parents and carers to come down for a brew and a chat and learn ways to support their wellbeing. There will also be advice and support available on looking how to get into work either now or in the future.

Children do not come supplied with a handbook, most of the time we feel our way along the parenting journey hoping that we are getting it right, crossing our fingers, that our children will grow up happy, healthy and fulfilled.

It is not an easy job and many of us can feel out of depth and overwhelmed, finding that our children’s behaviour is not what we expected, challenging and difficult to manage.

If you are struggling with being a parent, the evidence based, structured Triple P parenting course could be the answer for you.

We offer the following Triple P courses, please call for more information and to book your place.

The course covers:

• Positive Parenting – using assertive discipline, having reasonable expectations and looking after yourself as a parent
• raising confident, competent children -showing respect for others, being considerate, having good communication and social skills, having healthy self-esteem, being a good problem solver and becoming independent
• raising resilient children- recognising and accepting feelings, expressing things appropriately, building a positive outlook, developing coping skills, dealing with negative feelings, dealing with stressful life events

The course covers:

• raising responsible teenagers – taking part in family decision making, being respectful and considerate, getting involved in family activities, developing a healthy lifestyle, being reliable, being assertive
• raising competent teenagers - developing self-discipline, establishing good routines, getting involved in school activities, being a good problem solver following school rules, having supportive friends

The course covers:

• positive parenting for children with a disability
  • creating a positive learning environment
  • using assertive discipline
  • having reasonable expectations
  • looking after yourself as a parent
  • adapting to having a child with a disability
  • being part of your community
• helping your child reach their potential - promoting your child’s development by teaching them new skills and behaviours; this explores
  • choosing a skill to teach
  • breaking skills into steps
  • choosing rewards
  • deciding on strategies
  • keeping track and reviewing

The Freedom Programme is a relaxed, informal group for women who have experienced domestic abuse, from a partner or family members and would like to be able to recognise abusive behaviours and understand what makes a healthy relationship. Freedom is primarily designed for women as victims or survivors of domestic abuse, as research shows that the majority of domestic abuse cases are male on female.

The sessions will:

• examine the roles played by attitudes and beliefs on the actions of abusive men and the responses of victims and survivors
• help victims and survivors make sense of and understand what has happened to them, instead of the whole experience just feeling like a horrible mess
• describe how children are affected by being exposed to this kind of abuse and very importantly how their lives are improved when the abuse is removed

All families have arguments, it is part of how we negotiate, make decisions, understand each other and live together. This is constructive and children learn from seeing how arguments are resolved. However, when arguments become frequent, intense and poorly resolved it is destructive conflict and children suffer from being exposed to it. There is support on hand and we would encourage you to come along and give this course a go if you find yourself entrenched in ongoing destructive conflict with your partner.

This is a course of 6 weekly sessions, couples are encouraged to attend together. The course aims to work in a solution focused way, enabling and empowering you as a couple to understand your conflict and see how to resolve the issues yourselves, rather than relying on a practitioner for solutions.

The sessions will include:

• the effects of conflict on parents and children, and the causes of conflict
• the stages of relationship development, how our existing vulnerabilities can make us more susceptible to conflict and the different perspective we bring to our relationships
• constructive and destructive communication
• thoughts, feelings and behaviours
• the feelings wheel, problems and issues
• better communication – expectations and reality, goal setting

SEND Nurture based group for 12 to 19 years, Monday at the Southway Neighbourhood Centre (Zone).

11 years+, Wednesday evenings. Please contact us by email westlancs.TYS@lancashire.gov.uk for more information and to apply.

The Targeted Youth Support team will offer advice and information, facilitate sports activities and aim to develop new relationships with the young people that utilise the park spaces. This will provide opportunities to discuss with the young people the issues they are facing.

For further information please email Paul.Rooney@lancashire.gov.uk

Wednesday 4.15pm to 5.45pm at the Southway Neighbourhood Centre (Zone).

For more information please email paul.rooney@lancashire.gov.uk

A safe environment providing an opportunity for young people to meet and establish new and existing relationships with their peers.

The age range for the groups is 11 (secondary school) to 19 years.

Friday evenings, 5.45pm to 8pm at the Southway Neighbourhood Centre (Zone), no need to book.

Email: westlancs.TYS@lancashire.gov.uk for more information.

Monday 3pm to 5pm  at Youth Zone, Skelmersdale

Young people aged 16 to 18 years who are not in education, training or employment, and those who are young carers or parents can apply for a free bus pass.

For more details contact westlancs.TYS@lancashire.gov.uk

Tuesday evenings

Age 12 to 19 years (up to 25 with SEND)

A group for young people who are LGBT or questioning their sexuality or identity and want a safe environment so they can be themselves in a non-judgmental and supported environment.

For more information contact westlancs.TYS@lancashire.gov.uk  

Friday 3pm to 5pm

Age 12 to 19 years (up to 25 with SEND)

For more information contact westlancs.TYS@lancashire.gov.uk