Welcome to Time4Families – a unique and exciting campaign in south Sefton to recognise and celebrate all the good things about family life and the important role that positive family relationships play in children’s emotional health and well-being.
The campaign is the brainchild of NHS Sefton working in partnership with Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.
Making time for fun as a family
We all know how easy it is for everyday life to get in the way of the things we really want to do – like spending special time with our children and having fun as a family. And we know from talking to 8 – 11 year olds in south Sefton just how important family life is to them. So we hope Time4Families can give you some helpful ideas and support to find ways to spend more quality time together as a family – and we’re not talking big expensive holidays or trips out here.
The children we’ve spoken to in south Sefton are content to be with their family doing ordinary things such as watching TV together, playing games, cooking, gardening, going to the pictures or the park - or simply having a cuddle.
Here’s just a few of the things they told us about family life:
Join in the fun!
There are lots of different ways for you and your family to get involved with our Time4Families campaign and have the chance to win some great prizes.
Win a bike! We asked year groups
3 – 6 (7 – 11 year olds)
in south Sefton to think about this phrase: “My family is so important…” and either paint or draw
a picture or write a poem or a short story that tells everyone what it means to them. Winners of the top two prizes were invited with their families to a red carpet award ceremony on June 6 2010
(see below). Short-listed entries will be showcased in a local exhibition and, we hope, in the local press.
The winner received a bike generously donated by Formby Cycles. The runner up received an art box and there were 15 3rd prizes of Dunes Splash World family passes.
A free, eight page magazine packed with information about family days out for under £20, its very own Dear Donna advice page, a children’s page with competitions and prizes, real life family stories and top tips for parents. If you live in south Sefton should have come through your door during the week starting June 7. And don’t forget to fill out and return the feedback form on the back page to the address given. We’ll pick two forms out at random on July 13 to win a tour of Liverpool FC's stadium and museum for four people or a signed Everton FC football.
Our thanks go to all our sponsors for their support.
The magazine was distributed through free local newspapers including the Bootle Times and the Maghull Star to approximatley 35,000 homes in Litherland, St Oswald, Netherton, Orrell, Derby, Linacre, Ford and Church. A further 3,000 copies are available through primary schools, family and children’s centres, libraries and other public places. It is also available on this website.
This is a short but moving film featuring 8 – 11 year olds from Sefton talking about what family life means to them. We think it’s a very special film, involving a group of amazing children who gave up their time in their Easter holidays to take part. We hope you like it too.
Everyone involved in the film was a star but we’d particularly like to single out YKids’ Chief Executive Claire Morgans, Schools Work and Gap Year Co-ordinator Kate Yates and the YKids volunteers without whose help, wisdom and infinite patience the film would not have been possible.
We organised a fun-filled family event in Bootle on June 6th, at the end of National Family Week, to mark the formal launch of our campaign, the highlight of which was the premiere of the Through their eyes film to an invited audience including the children who took part and their families. We now hope to be able to show the film more widely, to the general public.
a source of useful further information for families. Take a look at ‘Useful Links’ to the right.
Involving local people
We think one of the really important aspects of our campaign is that we have involved local people at every stage:
- we sought the views of local parents and children about family life in Sefton and then made sure our campaign responded to what they told us was important to them
- we were keen to feature stories and pictures in the Time4Families magazine which are about real people, living in Sefton
- we recruited local parents to join a reader group and give us their opinions on whether the magazine was well designed and written
- we filmed local children for the Through their eyes film and invited three media students from Bootle’s Hugh Baird College - Jenni Gray, Jake McGibbon and Ben Kerry – to work under the supervision of our DVD producer/director Richard Knew www.knewproductions.co.uk to give them hands on experience of film making
- we asked local children what they’d like to see on the children’s page of our very own free Time4Families magazine
- we created our Family Heroes and art competitions to encourage even more local people to get involved
- we invited organisations and businesses with premises in south Sefton to sponsor prizes for the campaign
- we worked in partnership with the Bootle Times to publicise our campaign as widely as possible throughout south Sefton
- we will be carrying out some extra research among local people to see what they thought of the campaign and whether they think it has been effective.
Thank you to our supporters
We’ve had fantastic support for our campaign throughout Sefton and beyond from a wide range of people and organisations including Sefton Council, Every Child Matters Forum, Sefton CVS, Liverpool Museums, Media Mix, Waterloo based Tony Almonds, Gemma Nolan, Media Tutor from Hugh Baird College, primary school children and teachers, parent support advisors and parenting practitioners and many more.
