Replacing the county's children's centres with 14 family centres for young people in need across Bucks form part of fresh county council plans for controversial changes to the children’s services.

A new consultation into Bucks County Council’s (BCC) Early Help service – which provides early intervention support for families – is due to start on October 4 after previous talks were abandoned earlier this year.

A total of three options laying out the potential future of the service have been unveiled by BCC, and will be presented to families at information sessions as part of the consultation.

The council’s “preferred option” is opening 14 family centres in place of the current 35 children’s in the county – which would offer help to families with young people aged 0 to 19.

Three of the centres – known as ‘family centres plus’ – would be open five days a week, operating in Chesham, Aylesbury and Wycombe.

Children’s services chiefs say this plan would provide support for a wider range of people, as the current centres only support children up to the age of five, while majority of people who need the Early Help services are not accessing them.

At a press conference yesterday (September 20), BCC’s director of education, Sarah Callaghan, said the new service would aim to help families with a broader range of needs, such as victims of domestic violence, and those struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues.

She said: “One of the things we have learnt from our children’s centres is that the focus has been much more on 0 to 5s, whereas our new model we are expanding our age range from 0 to 19.

“And all those risk factors, so substance misuse, domestic violence, mental health, we know they are prevalent in a broader age range, so we feel it is a much better opportunity to target the right families.

“So although we know it is critically important to support our children from 0 to 5, we also know the issues that are manifesting themselves in our schools, going through to social care. We also know those young people need our support, and we need to put that support in earlier on.”

She added the council still wants to make "best use" of the current children's centre sites, and will be working to identify ways they can still be used by the community.

Another option suggested by BCC would be keeping the Early Help service as it is, and the county’s children’s centres would remain open– however budget constraints would mean reduced opening hours and services.

Closing all current children’s services in favour of a “fully targeted outreach service” is the third and final option put forward by BCC, which would be delivered by teams working in different areas.

The controversial debate on changes to the service has rumbled on for over a year – following the announcement the 35 centres in the county could be replaced with nine “hubs”.

A public consultation was abandoned in March – after families and campaigners raised concerns over the quality of the investigation.

Speaking at the press conference, director of children’s services, Tolis Vouyioukas, said the council is not “pre empting” the outcome of the new consultation, and all three options will be presented at public meetings.

He added five per cent of people who need the children’s centres are currently accessing them – stating: “we are not meeting the needs of the right families at the right times.”

Cabinet member for children’s services, Warren Whyte, added: “It is clear that the status quo is not good enough. If we leave them to reach social services that we have missed the opportunity for early intervention to get them on the right track.

“It concerns me that 85 per cent of the families that we could be helping are not accessing our service at the moment. That’s a huge huge issue we want to fix as well as we can with this proposal.”

For more information on the consultation visit www.buckscc.gov.uk/earlyhelp