Welcome

Dear Partners,

Welcome to our latest bumper edition of Families First News! 

We certainly have a packed full edition for you this month, with lots of information and links to summer activities and support for families. Firstly, we were delighted with the response to our Working Together in Early Help summer events. Each session focused on the critical issue of SEND, updating on the action plan and making it everyone’s business. Five presentations were delivered from individual organisations including ADD-vance, Space, Herts Sports Partnership, SEND Local Offer and DSPL with over 85 partners attending from across the county.

Swimming for the British Heart Foundation

On Saturday 29th June, a group of Children's Services staff along with 1200 swimmers swam 1.4 miles from Bournemouth Pier to Boscombe Pier. The HCC Swimming for Sue team have so far raised over £2,700 for charity.

Despite choppy conditions, a last-minute route change, shark sightings and one swimmer even forgetting their swimsuit Donna Gilfillan, Katie Thornton and Lauren Penrose made it over the finish line spurred on by the support and donations as well as a number of colleagues, friends and family who made the trip down to Bournemouth to cheer them on.

The team signed up to the swim after an incident where a colleague was suddenly taken ill and went into cardiac arrest. Thanks to a real-hero Bonnie Barber and other amazing HCC staff, the CPR training and medical equipment provided by BHF they were taken to hospital and are recovering well.

The team would like to thank everyone for their donations so far. You can make still make a donation via the Just Giving page.

Finally, don't forget to take a look through our Learning and Development articles to see what is available for you and your teams. Along with our local news pages.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Families First News and please encourage your teams to sign up to receive their own copy!

The Development Team

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