The Parenting Network opens baby bank at The Fratton Bridge Centre

The News, Portsmouth

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00:00I'm Matt Foster, I'm the founder and CEO of the Parenting Network and we're here at our space

00:07in the Bridge Centre where we have opened up a baby bank and a multi-purpose community room.

00:14Perfect, so how long have you actually been in this unit here in the Parenting Network?

00:17So we've not been here very long, we've been here about two months now

00:22and the work is already going, it started day one.

00:27And what services do you provide?

00:29So we provide a range of services, family support services in the city. Predominantly

00:36we're working within the family hubs, we're a contracted organisation doing groups and

00:41services in the hubs, stay and play groups, baby massage groups, a dad's group which is

00:48where it all began and a young mum's group for teen parents, a whole range of activities and

00:56what we've now provided with this space is we're able to now have our own dedicated space

01:01here in Fratton thanks to Horsford City Council's support where we can provide those services

01:06here as well in our own bespoke venue that can either be a child-friendly space, a family space

01:12or an adult space. Here in this centre, here we do many groups such as stay and play groups but

01:18we also do perinatal mental health groups. In here we have other organisations such as the

01:22Breastfeeding Network providing services and this morning we had Speech and Language

01:27in here as well. Perfect and then people that kind of want to find those services or need

01:31that help can they just pop in? So we are on all the social media so Facebook, Instagram as well

01:38so people can contact through there. We also have our website which is the parentingnetwork.co.uk

01:44but they can also come to us here in the Bridge Centre and knock on the door. We do actually have

01:50a member of staff starting soon, a community engagement worker that we're employing just to

01:54deal with families who will come seeking support because we're very aware that families sometimes

02:01particularly given the cost of living crisis, many of the families that are engaging with us

02:06would not have engaged with support services before and they may not know necessarily where

02:11to turn so with being such a visible location we're very aware that we could be

02:17somebody's first port of call so we really want to make sure that when they're engaging with us

02:21and meeting with us that they've got somebody there who is aware of all the services that are

02:25around not just ourselves but other organisations such as the pantries, such as Homestar, all those

02:30organisations out there that we can all work together in partnership to make sure that families

02:35are getting everything that they need and we're really proud and privileged to make sure that

02:38we're at the heart of all of that. Perfect and how much of a difference has it made having this

02:43hub here and having that kind of face-to-face facility for people to just turn up? So the

02:48evidence to that really is just the level of interactions that we're having, the amount of

02:53knocks on the door, the amount of people turning up to our groups. This is quite a small space but

02:58it's packed out every time we do something and we're having to put on more events, more groups,

03:04we're having more people come to us for help. The baby bank itself is experiencing a huge ever

03:11growing increase in demand, it's between 100 to 140 referrals every month. We're delivering

03:18over 30 groups a week ourselves. Last year we engaged with about 8,000 families,

03:23we're going to easily exceed that this year and that is largely thanks to the amount of families

03:29that we are seeing here in the footfall and the fact that we're just so visible and accessible

03:34now and families are really struggling. There's no particular type of family,

03:41Portsmouth is known for being an area that has many areas of deprivation and poverty within it

03:48but actually the problems that we're facing now, the years and years of austerity, of cost of

03:54living, of Covid, it's affected all families, dual income families. We've all heard the stories of

04:00teachers and nurses having to use food banks, there's more food banks in this country than

04:04there are at McDonald's so that tells you the state of where we're really at with things and

04:08now services like the Parenting Network that's providing safe welcoming spaces where we're

04:13bringing organisations together such as breastfeeding, speech and language, health

04:17visitors, midwives to all work in one space together to provide a service for families

04:22and the baby bank which is so so needed. What we've got here is something really really special

04:29here in Portsmouth and the families are responding that really really well and the level of interactions

04:35is hundreds and hundreds of families every week. Yeah amazing and the baby bank itself so what

04:41functions does that provide? So the concept of a baby bank can be quite new to some people if

04:47you've not come across that before. I hope that most people will be aware of a food bank and how

04:54that works and how through a mixture of fundraising and donations they will provide services and goods

05:01to families who might find themselves in challenging struggling situations. A baby bank

05:08is much the same so we will take in donations of pre-used baby items, it could be cribs, it could

05:15be buggies, it could be clothes, toys and we will clean all that up and we will give those back out

05:22to families in need. We also need to fundraise as well so the baby bank says we there are many items

05:28for safety reasons or health and safety that we have to provide brand new such as mattresses or

05:33electrical items so we have to fundraise so there's a constant need there for the baby bank to be fed

05:40with grants and funds so it's an ever-going problem and given the fact that it's the need is always

05:46increasing at the moment so it's a big problem to have but we will put those out and referrals can

05:53come through professionals such as Citizens Advice, the Hive, health visitors, GPs, even teachers or

06:01somebody from a church, food banks themselves, any professional can put in a referral but what we

06:07also say is if families are in need knock on that door and talk to us and we can explore, we can

06:14work out what's good because we will never turn a family away.

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