The ‘Parenting. Give it time’ campaign promotes the benefits of positive parenting approaches to help parents manage challenging periods in a child’s development.

It provides a dedicated website, Facebook page and printed resources offering tips and information for parents. 

From birth, these include:

• take time to model the behaviour you want to see
• make time for praise
• take time for love and affection
• make time to listen, talk and play
• between the ages of 2 to 7, make time to set boundaries and routines to your day.

The campaign is part of the wider support for parents and is being launched ahead of the Welsh Government introducing legislation to ban the physical punishment of children in Wales.

Launching the campaign, Minister for Children, Huw Irranca-Davies said:

“As a father myself, I know parenting is not easy. You’re not handed an instruction manual when your child is born. That’s why our ‘Parenting. Give It Time’ campaign aims to help parents to do the best job they can. 

“It will help parents better understand the benefits of positive parenting techniques as a way to help their children develop and become confident and happy.  If a child understands that there are boundaries and if they are given time to settle into a routine it will improve their behaviour and help them feel safer and more confident. 

“Promoting positive techniques such as ‘taking a few moments to breathe before reacting to a tantrum’ and the ‘importance of routines and boundaries’ in place of shouting or losing your temper is the best way to help our children. This reinforces our long-standing commitment to children’s rights and ensuring every child in Wales grows up in an environment that allows them to have the very best start in life. 

“That’s why, next year, we will introduce legislation to remove the defence of reasonable punishment, which will prohibit the physical punishment of children by parents and those acting in loco parentis.”

Find out more by visiting gov.wales/giveittime

The funding comes from the £100m Transformation Fund to support key actions from the Welsh Government’s long term plan for health and social care, A Healthier Wales.

The Cwmtawe Cluster project, developed by the West Wales Regional Partnership Board, will receive £1.731m over two years to develop new ways of working, better integrating health and social care. The best ideas can then be scaled up and rolled-out across Wales.

The project has three overall aims: 

• Improve wellbeing across the age spectrum, with a particular focus on ensuring children have the best start in life to be the healthiest that they can be.
• Co-ordinate services to maximise wellbeing, independence and care closer to home. With a particular focus on older people to develop new models of care closer to home and reducing unscheduled admissions. 
• Test and evaluate the models of care that could be rolled out across Wales.

Some of the new ways of working, which have already started include:

• Clydach Community Hub, to enable people to access all Swansea Council services from October 2018 through a digital gateway. With access other partner organisations’ services too, either digitally, or via volunteers. 
• An integrated health and social care team serving the Cwmtawe cluster is based in Gorseinon Hospital and Clydach Primary Care Centre.
• New workers to link up health and social care.
• Same day GP appointments and a new IT system to allow access to patient records away from the GP practice. 

Mr Gething said: 

“Our long term plan for health and social care, sets out how we will transform the way we deliver care to ensure it is sustainable in the future. 

“This will require better integration of health and social services to reduce reliance on hospitals and deliver care closer to home. The Transformation Fund will be used to fund a small number of projects which have the most impact in developing and delivering new models of care, and which have potential to scale up so they can be used across Wales. 

“The Cwmtawe Cluster already has a strong background in collaborative working and innovative thinking. I look forward to seeing the results from these new ways of working.”

Dr Iestyn Davies, Cwmtawe Cluster lead said:

“We at Cwmtawe are thrilled with this very exciting announcement. The investment will really help us restructure and modernise the way we offer care to patients.  

“We are delighted that Welsh Government recognises our vision for patient-focused primary care, which has a strong emphasis on supporting our communities and working with them to help keep people well – not only treating them when they are sick. 

“This investment will allow us to expand our multi-disciplinary teams, giving patients better access to a wide range of healthcare professionals in their community, and bring some services traditionally accessed in hospitals closer to home.”

The £7.5m, which is part of the Welsh Government’s £50m EU Transition Fund, will be used over the next three years to help companies develop the new expertise and processes they will need in order to thrive, post Brexit.

Part of the funding will be invested in strengthening the  Welsh Government’s already highly regarded export support services so that more Welsh businesses can develop the skills and confidence needed to begin or increase overseas trading, both inside of and outside of the EU. It will also be used to ensure businesses have access to the high quality exporting intelligence and technical information they need to successfully develop new export opportunities.

Another element of the funding will be directed into a Brexit Resilience Grant which businesses from across Wales will be able to bid for a share of. This will complement the high quality advice and support available through the Welsh Government’s Business Wales service to help businesses invest in overcoming immediate challenges related to Brexit, such as additional administrative burdens and complexities.

The £7.5m will also be used to help businesses explore and engage in new collaborations and innovations so they can develop capacity and retain competitiveness, post-Brexit, in order to keep jobs here in Wales, to enhance the Welsh Government’s own understanding of trade flows between Wales and the rest of the world, and  to market Wales as a great place to invest and do business.

Finally the money will provide businesses with access to web-based information, tools and resources that will empower them to respond to a changing trading environment. This work began last month with the launch of the Business Wales Brexit Portal.

Speaking ahead of an FSB Business Breakfast where he will formally announce the funding, Economy Secretary Ken Skates said:  

“It is now just a matter of months until the UK leaves the EU but unfortunately the UK Government’s approach to Brexit means businesses in Wales are still left with many unanswered questions about what the future holds.

“As Economy Secretary my focus remains very much on delivering our Economic Action Plan, which has been designed to help us future proof our economy, and maintaining an honest, direct and ongoing dialogue with the business sector so we can work together to prepare for the challenges ahead.

“Last month,  we launched our Business Wales Brexit Portal which was developed with support from FSB . The portal  provides companies in Wales with up-to-date information and advice on a range of crucial issues and helps them to assess their Brexit readiness though a bespoke diagnostic tool. I have  been  delighted by the incredibly positive  feedback from businesses right across Wales on its value.

“Today I am delighted to announce an additional £7.5m to support business in Wales to build the sort of resilience that Brexit will require.

“From  beefing up our already strong export support service through to helping business to navigate immediate Brexit burdens and uncertainties and helping them to develop new collaborations and innovations, the money will be spread across six priority areas that I believe really can strengthen the sector.

“I am determined that we will use this  funding   intelligently and effectively so we can maximise its impact and  support the business sector in Wales into the  strongest possible position to face the Brexit related challenges ahead.”

More details on how businesses can apply for their share of this funding will be published in the coming weeks.

The Welsh Government’s Superfast Cymru programme has already transformed the digital landscape of Wales with the vast majority of premises, more than nine out of ten, now able to access superfast broadband compared with just over half when the programme began.  It has provided almost 733,000 premises in all parts of Wales with access to fast fibre broadband.

As one part of a suite of measures for the remaining premises a grant agreement has now been signed with BT.  This will be delivered by Openreach  and will initially provide access to fast broadband to almost 16,000 premises by March 2021, utilising just over £13m of Welsh Government and EU funding.

These premises are in North Wales and the South West and the Valleys.  Evaluation of tenders for the area covering East Wales is ongoing and a further announcement will be made once that work is complete.  

The successor scheme to Superfast Cymru will form one part of a suite of interventions.  The other elements are individual support through our ABC and ultrafast connectivity voucher schemes, and support for communities through our vouchers schemes and community led interventions.

Julie James said:

“The broadband market in Wales has seen a rapid change over the last five years.  Superfast Cymru has transformed the digital landscape of Wales with the vast majority of premises across the country able to access superfast broadband.  

“But there is more to do to reach the remaining premises.  Given the scale of the task in providing fast reliable broadband to those premises currently unable to access it we are going to need a range of interventions in future.  There is no one size fits all solution.

“This will include publicly funded roll-outs as announced today, our ABC and ultrafast voucher schemes and support for community projects through our voucher schemes.  For many a community based scheme is going to be the best route to fast broadband connectivity.  We will work with communities and local authorities to provide advice and funding to bring fast broadband where it’s needed.”

Kim Mears, Openreach’s managing director for strategic infrastructure development , said:

“We’re delighted to be partnering with the Welsh Government once again on the continued roll out of fibre broadband across Wales.

“After the successful delivery of Superfast Cymru to date, to be awarded the first lots of this next phase confirms that Openreach is at the very forefront of building infrastructure that’s fit for the future.

“While the vast majority of the country – both urban and rural – can already access superfast broadband thanks to the work Openreach engineers have already completed in Wales we appreciate that there is still more to do.

“This is the next step in the process of making decent broadband available for all across Wales on an open network with a choice of providers.”

Developing Welsh Language speech technology that will allow Welsh language versions of digital personal assistants to be created in future; developing artificial intelligence in Welsh so that machines understand the language; and improving computer-assisted translation to ensure more Welsh is available are also aims of the plan.

The plan sets out the Welsh Government’s vision for children, young people and adults to have more opportunities to use Welsh language technology, and to use it easily; in schools, in the workplace and at home.

Announcing the publication of the plan, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, Eluned Morgan said:

“So many people use technology for so many different things in their lives.  We want to make it as easy as possible for them to do this in Welsh.

“This is why we want Welsh language functionality to be readily available, without having to be requested, when it comes to technology, whether that is working on your computer, using your phone or tablet. We want people to be able to use Welsh and English easily in their virtual lives at home, in school, in work or on the move.

“Technology also provides many opportunities for us to increase our use of Welsh or to learn Welsh but to do this we need to have the correct infrastructure in place. Technology moves quickly. Welsh needs to move with technology. That is the aim of our Plan.”