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Tuesday 12th January 2021

Welcome to the Family Information Service Newsletter!

We understand that lockdown and schools being closed is a lot to juggle for many families. The Family Information Service is here to support you throughout lockdown and beyond on a range of issues from family relationships, finance, housing and childcare through to your health and wellbeing. You can get in touch with us by emailing fis@warwickshire.gov.uk or calling 01926 742274. There is also lots of information to support you, just visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/childrenandfamilies. We are here to help.

Important Updates

Keeping yourself and others safe during lockdown

The COVID-19 lockdown means that we all have reduced interaction with friends and family and we are all spending more time at home. For some people, home is not always a safe place so we would like to remind people that help is available.

If you, or someone you know, is being subjected to emotional, physical, financial or sexual abuse, you do not need to feel alone. Click the link below to find out more about the county's services for immediate support.

Find out more

What's new?

Connecting with other people has never been more important for our wellbeing. During lockdown, when we can’t physically be with our friends and neighbours, we have all had to look for new ways to show our loved ones and the community around us that we care.

Join Warwickshire County Council's ‘Show You Care’ Campaign

‘Show you Care’ is a new campaign for Warwickshire and we would love for families to be a part of it. We are encouraging the community to display a picture of a heart in their window, or share it on social media as a way to show that they are thinking of others in the pandemic. Find out how to get involved by clicking the link below.

As always, continue to do the right thing for Warwickshire and stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.

Show you care

Adult community learning online courses

Warwickshire Adult and Community Learning are offering adult learning and training courses online. These include ways to stay in touch with family and friends, learning to promote wellbeing, developing new skills and activities for children and families.

Find out more

Educational learning provided by BBC

The BBC are offering children access to curriculum-based learning, even if they don’t have access to the internet.

Starting Monday 11 January, each week day on CBBC will see a three-hour block of primary school programming from 9am, including BBC Live Lessons and BBC Bitesize Daily, as well as other educational programming such as Our School and Celebrity Supply Teacher and much loved titles such as Horrible Histories, Art Ninja and Operation Ouch.

BBC Two will cater for secondary students with programming to support the GCSE curriculum, with a least two hours of content each weekday.

Find out more

One-to-one support from a Primary Mental Health Practitioner

Are you a parent or carer of a child/young person living in Warwickshire? Would you like the opportunity to speak in confidence with a Primary Mental Health Practitioner about your child/young person?

Coventry and Warwickshire Rise offer one-off 45min 1:1 consultations where you are able to discuss your child/young person’s current difficulties with a professional. They use a solution-focussed framework to explore strategies and ways to help you better support them.

Learn More

Final reminder: Have you applied for your child to start school in September 2021?

Children born between 01/09/16 & 31/08/17 are due to start school in September 2021 and the national closing date for ‘on time’ applications is 11.59am on Friday 15 January 2021. If you apply after this date your application will be classed as ‘late’ and your application will not be considered until after National Offer Day in April 2021. This may affect the chance of your child being offered one of your preferred primary schools. Apply below.

School Admissions

Keeping you children safe at home

With children spending much more time at home while schools are closed and many parents/carers juggling work and looking after little ones, there is more chances of accidents happening in the home.

There are lots of steps you can take to prevent accidents, take a look at some useful tips by clicking the link below.

Learn More

Get your family active with Joe Wicks

Health and fitness guru Joe Wicks is back again this lockdown, hosting PE sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9am so children can get their daily dose of exercise while schools are closed.

Joe Wicks wants to make sure that children keep exercising throughout lockdown which in turn will boost their energy and mood as well as their mental health.

Learn More

Online workshops for parents

Children are rewarding, stimulating and fun, but looking after them can be stressful and challenging.

Warwickshire Early Help and Targeted Support Service are running a selection of two hour online workshops to help parents with some of the more common parenting challenges.

They are also offering longer 10 week programmes to help you and your family build the foundations for a calmer, happier life.

Learn More

Keep your children safe on their devices

There have been multiple online tools and applications that schools have been using to ensure that young people have remote access to learning throughout lockdown, for example Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams.

These forms of remote learning can be accessed via any device that has an internet connection including various gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, Ps4, Ps5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S.

Internet Matters has some top tips on how to use these devices safely and how to set up parental controls.

Learn More

Follow the latest advice on Coronavirus (COVID-19):

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