Oxfordshire County Council is proposing cuts to children’s services which will see a reduction in the county’s Children’s Centres from 44 to 7. If you’re not a parent, you might be blissfully unaware of what this means: if you are, perhaps you have never needed the services offered by these threatened centres. Children’s Centres across the UK provide ‘one stop shops’ for familes, offering support in relation to physical and mental health, and economic well-being. But it’s easy to read the blurb and gloss over what these centres really do; who they really help. So let me explain what my local Children’s Centre did for me.
The ACE Centre in Chipping Norton provides drop-in sessions for families. Parents chat, kids play… so far, so simple. But it goes deeper than that. Five years ago I walked into the ACE Centre with a seventeen month old toddler and an armful of six-week-old twins. I was made-up and Boden-clad; the children were healthy, happy and well-fed. I know from speaking to friends who first laid eyes on me then, that I presented as poised, confident and totally controlled. But I was far from in control. In fact I was hurtling down a terrifying abyss of depression, so far removed from sanity that I felt as though I were watching myself through a thick glass wall. Presented with the most simple of questions – tea or coffee? sugar or no sugar? – I would freeze, completely panicked by the overwhelming challenge of articulating an answer. The babies in my arms were objects – to be cared for, certainly – but only in the same way I would diligently water a plant or look after my cat. It was lonely, confusing and utterly terrifying, not least because I had no idea what was happening to me.
Taking that first step into the ACE Centre saved my life. Maggie gently took the babies from me; my son waddled off to the craft table; Lynn made me a cup of tea. I sat on a sagging sofa and watched parents play with their children. I went back the next day, and the next. I was persuaded into joining a post-natal group, and then another. Slowly, I saw the gaping difference between the way other mothers interacted with their children, and the mechanical way in which I looked after my own. I copied them, and faking motherhood gave me something to do in a day which stretched for hours from dawn till dusk.
Gradually I realised that something was badly wrong with me. Five months of dragging myself through treacle; five months of hearing a baby cry and having to be told it was mine; five months of being so disconnected from life that I had reached a point where I couldn’t see a point to it any more. I didn’t want to die, but neither could I see a reason to live.
I asked for help, and help came rapidly. My recovery began, and with recovery came tears – lots of them. The ACE Centre became my refuge; a place where people understood, where they wouldn’t judge me for crying or tell me I was a bad mother. When it was closed I drifted between playgroups and cafes big enough to accommodate a triple buggy and three high-chairs, but nowhere were we welcomed quite as much as at the ACE centre. Nowhere else could the guard come down, the defences be allowed to crumble. There was nowhere quite as important.
I am one parent. One of hundreds – of thousands – of parents helped by Children’s Centres across the UK. I was thrown a lifeline without which I could easily have drowned, and I weep to think of these lifelines being withdrawn from vulnerable familes. We cannot leave parents floundering without support. We cannot expect them to drive twenty miles to their nearest centre. We cannot let this happen.
Please help our community do what little we can do to save the ACE Centre and other Oxfordshire Children’s Centres from being axed. Even something as simple as ‘liking’ the campaign’s Facebook page, or signing the petition will make a difference. Thank you.