Weekly Round-Up from the Director of Social Services

23 January 2026

Hi everyone,

As Director of Social Services, I wanted to use this Friday’s end-of-week message to write about our Flying Start Team, who I have been visiting recently.

On Tuesday the Chief Executive and I dropped into Skomer Road to learn about how this incredible provision is delivered across the Vale.

Once again, it was awesome spending time with some of the dedicated individuals responsible for our frontline services and hear the fantastic, stories about the amazing impact their work is having.

For those that don’t know, Flying Start is a Welsh Government funded programme available in certain parts of the Vale and other Local Authority areas. Flying Start services in the Vale have grown significantly over recent years and are supporting more families.

It helps parents give children from birth to three a fantastic start in life, operating in locations where such support is needed most.

The programme provides intensive services that focus on promoting language, cognitive, social and emotional skills, physical development and enables staff to identify instances of additional need as early as possible.

Such a varied offering is delivered with health support and guidance, sessions to develop speech and communication, parenting groups and free part-time childcare.

The overarching aims are to help children be healthy and thriving, ensure families are capable and coping, and enable children to reach their potential.

Services like Flying Start are vitally important to this Council and its vision for the future as one of the objectives contained within Vale 2030, our five-year plan, is to Give Everyone a Good Start in Life. It is a perfect example of the Council’s wider Shared Prevention Agenda, which involves taking proactive steps to address problems, before they become too big to solve.

This will lead to better quality of life for residents and reduced costs as we look to nurture those that need it and support wellness rather than provide reactive assistance, which is often expensive.

This illustrates a clear strategic requirement for us as a Council so that we avoid making the wrong decisions in the face of financial challenges. 

The expanding service has distinct departments offering Health, Parenting, Early Years and Childcare assistance, Business Support and an Outreach Service.

Within each of those areas are highly skilled professionals delivering specialist, targeted provision.

This is a partnership with health colleagues, so the service is also made up of Health Visitors, Nurses, Midwives, Nursery Nurses, and Speech and Language Therapists. They offer intensive homebased support, enhanced ante/postnatal care for vulnerable parents and training.

Parenting Support is provided by Social Workers, Social Care Officers, Parent Support Workers, Learning Coaches, Food and Nutrition Workers and a Fathers Worker.

That expertise is used in sessions that offer help with mental wellbeing, debt management, housing, cooking and a father-focused programme called Men Behaving Dadly!

The Early Years Team host baby massage, play and language events as well as one-on-one home-based support to help with early language and to identify Additional Learning Needs (ALN).

Specialists operating in this sector include Childcare Liaison Officers, Early Years Advisors for complex needs, ALN staff and staff working as part of the Inclusion and Creche Teams.

There is also now an Outreach Service offering support for families outside Flying Start postcode areas – a substantial expansion to the number of people we are supporting.

The way in which Flying Start has developed to nurture those in our most disadvantaged communities is truly remarkable, as is its effectiveness in reaching the people that most need the service.

Through the commitment, compassion and efforts of our staff, families are being helped to create safe home environments, eat nutritious food and give children firm foundations for success.

This is a service that is constantly evolving to provide even more for the people it serves.

During my visit earlier in the week, I heard about newly established support for parents who have had a child removed that is designed to break the cycle and stop the same thing from happening again with another child.

I feel honoured to represent a service which is actively developing new ways of engaging with people in such complex circumstances and that understands the impact of preventative work.

The enthusiasm, knowledge and ingenuity of the teams was genuinely inspiring and really made an impression on me.

I know Flying Start is just one example of the fantastic preventive services we have in the Vale – all of which are down to the hard work and determination of our staff.   I’d like to again express my gratitude and admiration for the Flying Start Team and to all colleagues who are making such a valuable contribution.

From a personal perspective, such services give me real hope that we can make a real difference in people’s lives. It makes me want to focus all our services towards developing the strengths of children, giving them the nurturing experiences that improve their social and emotional skills, so that they can go on to thrive and do well in life.

I and the rest of the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) very much appreciate the efforts of all the staff working with children in the Vale.

For those not in work, enjoy your weekends.

Kind regards,

Lance