Services designed to improve the lives of children across the borough have been given a funding boost.

Barnet Borough Council has awarded £2.5million to 13 schemes, which include helping young carers, parents with disabled children and community coaches.

The services, which will be provided by a mixture of charities, private and public sector organisations, will be rolled out between now and March 2016.

Cabinet member for education, children and families Councillor Reuben Thompstone said all the policies would be based on early intervention, which aims to give children the emotional security they need to help them cope later on in life.

He added: “Our community coaching scheme has already been successful in supporting some of our most vulnerable families to find a way through their problems by volunteers from the same community as the people they are coaching.

“We will now be expanding this scheme to other families across the borough.

“By continuing to invest in early intervention we are helping give children and young people the best start in life as well as saving on more costly solutions later down the line.”

The schemes are broken down into three categories: activities and support for young people, support for parents and families and raising the standards of childcare and delivery of activity clubs. 

These services include mentoring, counselling and respite for young people run by Barnet Carers,  a role model scheme run by The Barnet Group and a range of activities run by Fairplay Barnet.