Urban Villages - Focus Magazine {Issue 11)

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Supporting Early Years The Carew Family Centre in the heart of EastSide

They were able to create interactive online materials that connected parents with Nursery and Pre-school settings across the EastSide Urban Village area and provide easy access to important information needed for the pre-school admissions process. Even though families could not visit settings this year, the resources including transitions booklets, virtual tour videos and the interactive map helped to ensure that they had the information needed to make informed choices about their child’s transition onto the next stage of their learning journey.

Maggie Andrews from EastSide Partnership said, “The production of an Interactive Map of all Early Years settings has been a great tool that the Early Years Network will continue to use as a resource post pandemic.” Some additional capital funding support was used to repurpose internal and external places in the Centre to provide a fabulous new parent’s room, an updated drop-in, kitchen area and develop an area outside for outdoor learning. We even managed to have two new Forest School leaders trained to ensure it is used to the max!

Urban Village area has been transformed as a hub for the EastSide Early Years Network and local children and families, thanks to support from the Urban Villages Initiative. EastSide Learning has been facilitating an Early Learning Project since 2017 to support training, events and resources for early years settings in the area. Last year, due to the pandemic, plans had to be changed to offer support in a different way. local community, creating a welcoming space to meet others, reducing social isolation, which is much needed now and post COVID. The Keeping Healthy Staying Safe programme is supported through a partnership between the Urban Villages

For more information contact maggie@eastsidepartnership.com

Initiative and Business in the Community (BITC).

Urban Villages Initiative | Focus Magazine Issue 11