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Welcome to Cardiff Flying Start
Providing extra help to get children off to the best start in life.
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Are you eligible?
Do you have a child aged 0 – 3 years 11 months and live in Cardiff?
Enter your postcode to check whether you are eligible for Cardiff Flying Start and find out which Flying Start services you can access.
Celebrating 20 years of Flying Start
Flying Start Cardiff celebrates 20 years of supporting children and families in 2026.
We have helped thousands of families across communities to access vital support. For example:
- Childcare
- Parenting support
- Health services
- Early years support
During the most important stages of a child’s learning and development, we aim to:
- give them the best possible start, and
- help their parents or carers feel supported while navigating parenthood.
Since our launch by the Welsh Government in 2006, we have grown and evolved to meet the changing needs of families today.
Supporting families
Our services continue to provide:
- High-quality childcare opportunities
- Dedicated services for children with additional learning needs
- 1-to-1 and group parenting support, and parenting support at home
- A range of health services
- Play settings and sessions
- Speech, language and communication support
- Help for parents in managing relationships, emotions and behaviours
Get in touch
Find out more about how we can support you or get in touch with us today.
Looking back and looking forward
Our 20th anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the positive impact the programme has had on Cardiff families.
While celebrating, we remain focused on the future, continuing to adapt and develop services so that families can access the right support, at the right time.
“Flying Start is such a lovely initiative. It has helped my family in so many ways as it provided fun sessions where our children could go and where we could connect with other parents. My son used to be so shy but overtime and attending Flying start stay and play, he has grown in confidence and began to play independently. Thank you so much Flying Start.”
“When I came to Wales I don’t have anybody here. It’s just me and my child. Sometimes you don’t need money, you don’t need anything, you just need someone to ask, “How are you?” that’s the main question, I think. That what Flying start did. They has made it comfortable for me to approach them for anything whether it’s just advice about my child, sometimes I’m having a hard day with being a single parent is so hard, they made it comfortable for me to approach them in stay and play know there’s people I can reach out to who can help, because I’d never had a child, and this was my first time in this country. Thank you”
What we do at Flying Start
Find out what we do and the services we provide at Flying Start.
Enhanced Health Visiting Service
The Flying Start Health Service aims to support you with parenting and to provide you with any help and advice which you might need, from the ante natal period through to 3 years and 11 months.
Help and support can be provided on a range of issues which may affect you and your family. These include caring for your new baby, feeding, weaning, sleep routines, potty training and behaviour issues. We can also sign post you or refer you to other agencies within and outside Flying Start if required.
The Cardiff Flying Start Health team includes
- Health Visiting Service
- Community Nursery Nurse Service.
- Speech and Language Therapy Team
- Dietetic services
- Breastfeeding Support specialists
More on our health services
Access to Parenting Programmes
Congratulations on becoming a parent!
At Cardiff Flying Start we value parents, carers and wider families as the first and most important educators of children. This is central to all of the services we provide.
Flying Start Parenting and Cardiff Parenting 0-18 are both part of Cardiff Parenting Services. Being a parent can bring joy and happiness as well as challenges, at times. The aim of Cardiff Parenting Services is to work in partnership with families living in Cardiff to improve parenting confidence and skills, strengthen relationships and nurture wellbeing and resilience.
We can work with you both individually or in group sessions to provide parenting support that:
- Increases your confidence as a parent, and helps you feel like you can cope better in stressful situations
- Builds on your own self-regulation (how you identify and manage your own feelings) and positive parenting skills to promote your children’s development. This includes how they manage they emotions (self-regulation), play with others and how they feel about themselves (self-esteem), making behaviour easier to understand and manage.
- Improves the relationship and time you enjoy together, playing with your children
- Improves communication and relationships between parents
- Strengthens your understanding of the importance of play and the important role of parents for child development. This helps support you to respond to the needs of your children to promote their learning, development and well-being
In Cardiff Flying Start, our Parenting teams deliver a variety of services for families, that parents and children can enjoy together or that parents can attend while children are cared for in our crèche. We also provide services for individual parents in the home. We currently offer:
- Your Baby is Amazing
- Stay & Play
- Mini Talkers, Mini Explorers
- GroBrain
- GroBrain Toddler
- Parent Nurturing Programme
- It’s Child’s Play
- Parents Plus psychology-led service
Through parenting positively and building meaningful relationships, parents can help raise healthy children, develop a more calm and peaceful household, with fewer arguments and conflicts. Research tells us that children who grow up with positive parenting are more likely to:
- Do better at school
- Have better relationships with family members and friends
- Have higher self-esteem and confidence
- Have fewer behavioural issues
- Be able to manage their emotions better
If you are interested in our Parenting Service but are not eligible in Flying Start, please go to our site Cardiff Parenting.
More on our parenting services
Fully Funded, quality, part-time childcare for 2-3 year olds
The provision of high quality childcare for children from 2-3years old is the centre piece of the services to be provided under the Flying start initiative. Childcare is provided in a variety of settings across Cardiff and the Childcare Advisory Team work closely with all settings to support, develop and monitor quality practice.
Speech, language and communication
Supporting children’s language and communication development is a core aim of the Flying Start project.
The importance of targeting and identifying children who are having difficulties as early as possible is well evidenced. As is research into brain development which has shown that the first three years of a child’s life are crucial to the development of good language & communication skills.
In Flying Start areas children who might be having speech and/or language difficulties are identified as soon as possible in order that the team can provide the most appropriate support as early as possible.
Our partners
Visit our partner websites for further information on the services for Cardiff Families.
