UP to 10 ‘family hubs’ could be developed across the Dorset Council area by social services.

The council say they hope the hubs will bring family and child-related services and information together in one place – sharing goals to improve services with partner organisations.

“We want to link services together better within communities, that has been one of our challenges for many years” said commissioning director for children’s services Claire Shiels.

“A Family Hub is accessible, it’s branded, and it’s all about connecting families with professionals and the voluntary and community sector and finding spaces to co-locate where that makes sense.

“But given that we are a rural community we won’t have a family hub in every town… but there will be one central building acting as a hub for an area, connecting out to other services, and we might also outreach services to communities as well,” she said.

Public sessions are being planned across the county to talk to local people about what the services might look like and what is needed for each area.

The first hub is expected to be established in East Dorset in September with others to follow over a period of three years. Consultations have been taking place already with local Alliance Groups with a recent meeting in the Three Legged Cross area.

Ms Shiels said the service would try and make use of buildings which the council already owned including children’s centres,  libraries, community spaces, or even Citizen’s Advice offices or foodbank bases.

The director said the service was also looking at ways of how to improve services online and is also investigating ‘pop up’ facilities within communities as part of the spread of the Family Hubs, to ensure that communities which might have transport difficulties are also reached.

She said that some courses, including the popular ‘Incredible Years’ course for new parents which had traditionally been delivered face to face, might in the future be delivered online.

Dorchester councillor Stella Jones welcomed the idea of the Hubs but said it needed to recognise that they might have to be open outside the working week – because problems and difficulties frequently happened within families at weekends and in the evenings.

She said she was also worried that some rural areas might not get Family Hubs until 2025 although they often had hidden problems which, arguably, made them more in need than some of the market town.

Cllr Carole Jones (Sturminster Newton) asked for the libraries review currently underway to also identify where library buildings could be used to host the Hubs.

She said that many families often turned to their GP for help although some of the social aspects were outside the scope of medics.

Cllr Jones said her own work with a community food project in North Dorset had identified families which social services were probably not aware of and difficulties families faced – including not being able to get to centres which might offer help because of a lack of transport.