With primary school places announced this week families are being urged to seek support to help with toilet training in readiness for children starting school in September.
ERIC, the Children’s Bowel and Bladder Charity are attending the Family Hub on the Harbour, Whitehaven first birthday celebration event tomorrow, 15 April, with their Wee and Poo mascots to help raise awareness of the support available to families who are toilet training. They will also be attending the Family Hub – Millom launch event on Wednesday 16 April.
Nationally children have been toilet training later and 1 in 4 children across the country are currently starting school unable to use the toilet independently.
This has a huge impact in the classroom, as school staff are diverting 2.4 hours a day, on average, away from teaching and towards supporting children who are not school-ready. It also has a knock-on effect on pupils, who lose learning time each day.
In response, ERIC, The Children’s Bowel & Bladder Charity has launched an intervention, ‘All Aboard the Toilet Train!’, that aims to help more children get ready to use the toilets independently at school.
Parents and children are invited to ‘board the Toilet Train’ by signing up to the charity’s online support challenge that will help them prepare for school. They’ll receive information, advice and support via email over a 6-week period to support them in their journey.
ERIC will also send digital packs to early years settings and primary schools across the country which contain helpful PDF leaflets, advice sheets, and a video they can share with families to help get children toilet ready for school.
Find out more about All Aboard the Toilet Train at: ERIC | All Aboard the Toilet Train school readiness
Although All Aboard the Toilet Train is primarily an online initiative, the team from ERIC will be attending in-person events in Cumberland to help raise awareness in the local area both of the support they provide nationally and the support available to families through the expanded Family Hub offer.
Throughout last week and this week Cumberland Family Hubs have been opening their doors to children, young people and families to showcase the support they offer. The welcome events are completely free and offer families lots of fun activities to keep kids busy during the Easter holidays.
Sian Wicks, CEO of ERIC, The Children’s Bowel & Bladder Charity said:
“The ERIC team are thrilled to be attending this event to celebrate the successful first year of Family Hub on the Harbour and launch of Hub2U in Whitehaven, and to have the opportunity to showcase our All Aboard the Toilet Train resources for families.
“There are many contributing factors that can impact a child's ability to be toilet trained before school, and there is often a great deal of stigma and shame associated with it. As a charity, our aim is to offer a judgement-free source of advice and information to ensure that as many children as possible receive the support they need to be toilet trained for school; working in partnership with families, Family Hubs like this one, early years providers, schools and our health care colleagues to ensure the best possible outcomes for children.
“There’s a real synergy between the work ERIC is doing with All Aboard the Toilet Train and Cumberland Family Hubs andHub2U initiative – both of these projects are about making support services accessible to families. For ERIC this is a national project, and for Cumberland Family Hubs it is about serving the local community, but at their core, they are both about bringing that advice and information directly into the hands of the families who need it in a fun way.”
Cllr Emma Williamson, Executive Member for Children’s and Family Wellbeing and Housing at Cumberland Council, said:
“We are so proud that ERIC have chosen to launch such an important campaign here in Cumberland. It’s a really exciting time of year for young children and families across the country as they find out where they will be going to school for the first time but it can be quite daunting.
“We wholeheartedly support ERIC’s campaign to promote toilet training before school and we are pleased to be getting the message out loud and clear to families about the support available.
“The expanded Cumberland Family Hubs and Hub2U bus is building on this support in Cumberland, with more joined up support brought closer to children, young people and families.”
