Early years services

Read more about this page below

Healthcare services can be confusing....

Our website - CLCH Children's Health Matters is for parents and expectant parents to find information about the services available for children and families in the local area. You will also find helpful resources tailored to your child as they grow and develop.

You can also find out how to contact our staff directly if you have a concern about your child's health.

On this page you can find out about early years services available to you in the local area. More information can be found on your boroughs Local Offer pages. 

A Local Offer gives children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities, and their family’s information about what support services the local authority think will be available in their local area. 

Richmond Local Offer

 

If you're concerned about yourself or your child and they are under the age of 5 please contact your CLCH health visiting team. We are available to help and support in many different ways and can support you to access other services in the local community. You can also speak to other professionals you and your child are working with. 

For school age children and young people please contact your school nurse.

Richmond 0-19 Single Point of Access (SPA):

All pre-school children have a health visitor. If your child has additional health or developmental needs your health visiting team are here to support you. 

Examples of what may be offered: 

  • Additional visits 
  • Referrals to specialist and community services
  • Growth monitoring
  • Parenting advice and support
  • Toilet training advice and support

You can find your health visiting teams contact details on our website. 

See New parent pack for parents and carers of a baby with Down Syndrome. This contains information about additional health checks your baby may need and inserts for your baby's red book. You can ask your health visitor for a growth chart for babies with Down Syndrome.

If your baby has been in the neonatal unit speak to your health visitor before they come home, this will help them to support you and your baby once home.

If there are any planning meetings it's helpful for your health visitor to be invited to these to make the transition home smoother for you and your baby.

Children’s centre are places where families with children under 5 years can go to meet other parents and carers in their community. They are welcoming places where you can go if you need some extra support. Their teams are experts in helping you find the support you need.

Each children’s centre is slightly different but you will often find groups and activities, midwife and health visiting appointments, baby clinics, infant feeding support and parenting courses. Many children’s centre’s also offer specialist groups for children with additional developmental needs. 

You can find your local children’s centre on your local authority website there is a link to this page on the Local resources section of our website.

Portage is a specialist service for young children and their families with additional needs and recognised disabilities. Portage works in partnerships with parents and carers to build on the child’s existing abilities and foster the child’s development. 

Portage is provided by your Local Authority and is part of The Local Offer – You can find out more about your Local Offer here.

Providing feedback on our services

It is important for us to hear what you think of our services so that we know what we are doing well and where we need to make improvements. Whether you wish to pay us a compliment, raise a concern or make a formal complaint, our patient advice and liaison service (PALS) team are here to help and all feedback given will be kept confidential.

You can find out more about how to provide feedback here.

If you would like to complete a patient story please speak to the team CLCH health team. Patient stories are a chance for you to share more information about your experiences of being cared for by our services. We collect patient stories in multiple different ways including videos, written stories, pictures and conversations with you that we then type. 

Contacting our PALS team

  • Telephone: 0800 368 0412
  • Email: clchpals@nhs.net
  • Post: PALS team, Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust, 5-7 Parsons Green, London, SW6 4UL

Providing feedback on this website

We want this website to be helpful to you and your family and welcome feedback on how we can improve it. If you spot anything that's incorrect, confusing or have suggestions for how we can make it better please email us on clcht.health.matters@nhs.net this mailbox will be checked weekly and should not be used for urgent or clinical requests.

Accessibility tools