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Memorandum submitted by Capacity 1. About Capacity 1.1 Capacity, launched in 2004, is a not-for-profit body, conducting research, training and consultancy on behalf of statutory and other agencies, particularly in relation to children's centres, schools, adult skills and linked strategies for reducing poverty and social exclusion. 1.2 Our work is innovative in creating robust links between early years, adult skills development and regeneration and is grounded in understandings about "what works" and the impact of poverty on parents' capacity to engage with public services. An award-winning programme, Wishes, designed by us for Thurrock Council and now being delivered in other local authorities, is supporting such parents in pathways to employment. 1.3 We have worked with a number of local authorities to support poverty reduction, including training for front-line staff. Our range of short courses includes units relating to poverty awareness and engaging "hard to reach" families. We are currently working with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham to support the creation of an outcome framework for children's centres, together with supporting resources for staff. 1.4 Our response draws on this work but, more specifically, on three qualitative studies of children's centres conducted by us on behalf of, respectively, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation[1], DCSF [2] and the Commission for Rural Communities[3]. These studies, from separate standpoints, have examined the ways in which children's centres engage with and support families most in need. In the course of the same studies, we have interviewed more than 400 parents about their experiences of children's centres, their needs for support and their hopes and wishes for the future.
2. Response to Consultation - Summary 2.1 Children's centres play, unquestionably, a crucial role in promoting early childhood development and responding to deprivation. The strongest among them are working with highly disadvantaged parents to: tackle housing debt and benefit issues; help with mental health issues caused by isolation; support victims of domestic violence; open up opportunities for education, training and employment for parents; and create opportunities for civic engagement. These forms of support, complemented by effective outreach, are in addition to the core children's centre offer of healthcare, parenting support and early education. 2.2 Children's centres successfully engage and gain the trust of families affected by poverty and other features of social exclusion. Support from children's centres is described by many parents as qualitatively different from dealings with other services or agencies. Parent users are able to relate specific benefits arising from their involvement with children's centres, in some cases describing these as life changing.
2.3 Where practice is least consistent is in the capacity of children's centres to bring about economic transformation for families affected by poverty, particularly those which are workless. Yet, asked about the kinds of help they need - parents are more likely to cite help with finding employment than help with health matters or relationships. Centres also need to be able, more comprehensively, to identify and capture the specific outcomes achieved for and by users and assess the value-added of specific initiatives or inputs. 2.4 The effectiveness of children's centres could also, in our view, be enhanced by: · More support, training and resources for front-line staff from DCSF in relation to the priority of tackling child poverty
· Reformulating children's centres as Sure Start children and community learning centres with a refocusing of resources to support the achievement of qualifications and new skills by parents
· Reinvigoration of the principle of accountability to users and local communities
3. Response to Consultation - Full response to terms of reference Are services being accessed by those most in need? 3.1 Among the 242 parents interviewed by us in our study of outreach for DCSF, 56% had family incomes of £15,000 or less; 40% lived in workless households; 48% were qualified only to Level 1 or below[4]; and 36% had long-term health problems. In our current study of children's centres in rural areas, 42% of the 130 parents interviewed live on family incomes of £15,000 or less. Among workless families, nearly half have chronic health problems; 40% have children with health difficulties or additional needs; and only 26% have access to a car.
3.2 These findings appear to contradict criticisms that children's centres may be catering only to the needs of those who are well-off or only moderately poor.[5] However, few of the children's centres in the study routinely capture this breadth of data about their users, either as a baseline or as a means of tracking achievements. Since poverty is the factor with the greatest impact on child outcomes and if children's centres are to assess their impact on child poverty, they require data systems which can evidence their reach to those most affected by poverty.
The Children's Centre model - does it promote early childhood development and is it an effective response to deprivation? 3.4 Children's centres have not yet been evaluated and robust evidence relating to reducing inequalities in outcomes for young children is not yet established. The most recent impact study from the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS 2008), suggests that there have been demonstrable benefits for three year olds living in Sure Start areas, compared with a comparison group of three year olds living in similar areas.[6] However, as the 2009 White Paper on Social Mobility acknowledges, divergences in development between children from different backgrounds continue to occur early, manifesting themselves in Foundation Stage Profiles at age 4 or 5, with children from disadvantaged backgrounds developing significantly less well. [7]
3.5 Although called children's centres, much of their work is with parents, whether in the form of advice, counselling education or advocacy. Parental satisfaction with children's centres is high. Users feel they have been helped and can identify benefits for themselves and their children. Learning and socialising are seen as key benefits for children and for parents.[8]
3.6 In our study of outreach for DCSF, support from children's centres was described by parents as qualitatively different from dealings with other services or agencies. For the first time, parents said they felt listened to, understood and not stigmatised. The benefits were, in some cases, described as life-changing. For the majority, the main benefits described were gains in parenting skills, increased capacity to deal with problems, improved self-confidence and reduced feelings of isolation. Two-thirds of current and former users said that the support they had received had led them to make more use of other services in the community. Almost two-thirds felt that family relationships had improved and 38% felt that their children's health or behaviour had improved.
3.7 Many of the benefits described by parents could be characterised as hard or soft outcomes, for example, gaining a qualification, or improved parenting skills. However, these outcomes are rarely captured in any systematic way. In our view, centres should monitor and track the impact of their work in this way, enabling a fuller view of their achievements and relating these to specific outcomes for children and parents.
3.8 Children's centres are responding well to the manifest problems of families living in poor environments, some unable to afford basic necessities, or affected by debt or poor physical or mental health. Less evident are consistent and effective strategies to bring about economic change in the lives of their families through training and eventual entry into skilled employment.
Tackling the causes of poverty
3.9 Among parents interviewed, more than 40% wanted help in getting a job as a means of improving life for their children. Among parents living in workless families, this proportion was 56%. This finding is replicated in our study of rural children's centres. Other studies of poorer parents suggest they consistently identify financial hardship as the primary barrier to effective parenting. [9]
Results show time and time again that it is difficult for stressed families to benefit from parenting programmes when they face multiple disadvantages and thus policies that reduce everyday stresses in the lives of families (including poverty, unemployment, poor health, housing and education) will support parents in caring for their children. [10]
3.10 Children's centres demonstrate their understanding of this in the additional supports they provide to help families with debt, benefit or housing issues. There are also exemplar children's centres which are helping to transform the long-term prospects of families through tailored support to find employment. In addition, the child poverty pilots, announced in the 2008 Budget, may accelerate this trend, providing evidence relating to best practice in supporting families towards economic well-being.
3.11 However, our finding is that children's centres are sometimes inclined to focus more narrowly on those elements which play best to their capabilities, values and professional background. Although committed to families, some are inclined to attribute poverty to personal rather than structural causes. Not all believe that finding work is a realistic or desirable aim for parents. A themed study by the National Evaluation of Sure Start in 2004 found that few programmes made active efforts to reduce worklessness, with only a minority adopting active strategies with partner agencies to take advantage of employment opportunities.[11]
3.12 DCSF should give priority to helping children's centres tackle the causes of child poverty. Among the Every Child Matters aims, the aim of achieving economic well-being has least sub-structure of training, guidance or other resources. However, if there is to be an effective response to tackle child poverty, this aim more than any other, should guide the future development of children's centres, the services offered and the context for assessing effectiveness.
The range and effectiveness of services provided by Children's Centres
3.13 Our study for DCSF found that parents value outreach services and believe that this has led them to participate in other services for children and families. The highest participation rates were in Stay and Play groups and training courses. Participation in health appointments, or health-related activities was at a lower level. Parents were also less likely to cite a health visitor as a preferred source of support - 40% of parents said that their first choice if they needed support would be the children's centre family support worker. A similar proportion, 37%, said they would turn to their families for support, while only a small minority, 7%, said they would seek this from a health visitor.
3.14 High levels of interest
in and demand for courses and qualifications is also a finding of our study of
rural children's centres. Many parents describe discovery of learning as life-changing.
This is particularly significant given the high proportions lacking
qualifications. The 2003 Skills for Life Survey found that more than 5 million people between 16 and 65 in the
3.15 A strength of children's centres is that they offer learning which is planned and configured to match the realities of life for poorer families - in the local community and not an expensive bus ride away and provided at times of day which are matched to the start and end of the school or nursery day. In deprived neighbourhoods, many people spend most of their time in their own neighbourhoods, literally, a few streets. Some children's centres are now extending their hours to evening and weekend opening. With a family support and outreach function, there is the opportunity to provide sustained help for vulnerable learners.
3.16 Some provide learning opportunities related to health or diet, child development or parenting; some provide family learning or Skills for Life courses; and some have established partnerships with training agencies to support parents into sustainable employment. However, there is currently no requirement to provide progression to a particular goal or to track achievement.
3.17 Support for education and training should be brought within the core offer of children's centres, with adult learning providers co-located or established as key partners alongside health, social care and specialist services. With the involvement of training professionals, all parents should be offered help to achieve qualifications and/or to train for particular occupations, in addition to learning opportunities related to parenting and family life. In this way children's centres should be reformulated as Sure Start children and community learning centres.
How well Children's Centres work with other partners and services, especially schools and health services
3.18 In our study for DCSF, all of the children's centres worked with other universal and specialist services, although the form of partnership working varied. The majority of centres worked with at least three other agencies, with some centres linking with twenty or more services and agencies. It appeared that where there was a close working relationship with Social Services, children's centre outreach was focused on parents with a high level of need.
3.19 The relationship with health visitors is pivotal. In small urban areas, outreach staff may be able to identify target families through door-knocking or stopping people in the street; but in larger conurbations, or in rural areas, partnerships with health professionals are essential. In our experience the status of relationships between children's centres and health professionals is variable. Relationships with Jobcentre Plus staff are also highly important, but not yet consistently established across centres.
3.20 There is some concern among health professionals about the level of training and qualifications of children's centre outreach workers. We believe there is a need to clearly define the roles for which children's centre staff should be accountable in terms of social care, health visitors and other health professionals. However, many effective outreach staff use knowledge, experience and skills which are not reflected in formal qualifications and it is important that this dimension is retained.
3.21 Data-sharing is also of particular importance. Where this is in place, staff are able, more effectively, to identify families in need of support and at a suitably early stage. In rural areas, where families may be harder to identify, shared information is of crucial importance. In just over half of local authorities visited on behalf of DCSF, some form of data-sharing took place or was planned to take place.
Management and governance 3.22 Many local authorities are moving towards locality or cluster structures for schools, children's centres, health and other services. These are seen as providing an effective foundation for planning and as a possible precursor to integration and budget-sharing. As part of this, authorities are developing strategic policies for family outreach from children's centres, moving away from the more localised planning and delivery mechanisms which characterised Sure Start.
3.23 While there are clear advantages in these approaches, it is less evident how local accountability will be safeguarded and opportunities for parental involvement in governance be preserved. The original Sure Start model was developed with the idea of breaking with traditional models of service delivery, in favour of a model of community empowerment. Within this view parents and other members of the local community would tackle local problems and work alongside staff to reduce social exclusion. 3.24 Social exclusion is, almost by definition,
a state of being in which the voices of those affected are not heard. Across
3.25 We believe that this dimension of children's centres is a distinctive aspect of breaking the pattern of poor take-up of services by those who are most disadvantaged. Without local accountability there is an increased risk of children's centres becoming out of touch with what families want and need.
3.26 The use of parents as volunteers or in governance arrangements is intrinsically related to concepts of empowerment and the creation of what has been described as social capital. Many children's centres say their aim is to empower and yet it is not immediately obvious how, within a developing framework of local authority management, such empowerment is to continue to be secured. We believe that this requires serious consideration and guidance from DCSF.
October 2009
[1] Capacity (2007). Children's Centres: ensuring that families most in need benefit [2] Capacity (2009). Outreach to Children and Families: a scoping study. DCSF Research Report DCSF-RR116 [3] Capacity (to be published shortly). Peace and a quite disadvantage: children's centres in rural communities. Commission for Rural Communities
[4] Equivalent to GCSEs at grades D-G [5] House of Commons (2009) Health Committee - Third Report Health Inequalities
[6] [7] Cabinet Office (2009) New Opportunities: Fair chances for the future [8] Ridley-Moy, K. (2007) Sure Start Children's Centres Parental Satisfaction Survey Report and Annexes 2007 DCSF Research Report RW108 [9] Ghate, D. & Hazell, N. (2000). Parenting in Poor Environments. Department of Health [10] Moran P., Ghate, G. & Van der Merwe, A. (2004). What Works in Parenting Support? A Review of the International Evidence. DCSF Research Report No 574 [11] [12] Basic knowledge and skills [13] The Skills for Life Survey: A national needs and impact survey of literacy, numeracy and ICT skills DfES Research Brief RB 490, 2003 |