Memorandum submitted by Sarah Benjamins

 

Summary:

Does the model promote early childhood development and is it an effective response to deprivation?

· The principle of providing additional resources and support, within the very local community ('pram pushing' distance), to families with pre school children is supported by a range of evidence which you will have access to, and I am confident that it is sound and appropriate.

· The importance of those early years to children's social, emotional, physical and intellectual development into adulthood is understood, both in hard economic terms and from a quality of life perspective, enabling children  to reach their potential and have happy, fulfilling, productive lives.

· The question should be around the method of delivery, and this inquiry should be the opportunity to review the evidence from this trial period and look at what works best where.

Suggestions for improvement/getting maximum benefit:

· A creative and genuine approach to engaging with and involving parents in design and delivery of services

· Centres should not give the impression of having a mainly childcare focus.

· Sure Start should form a key strand of LA's child poverty agenda

· Management by teams with wider perspective

· Avoid a centrally dictated 'one size fits all' approach

· The activities' services, activities, badging and branding should be more important than the 'buildings' and should be trustworthy and a 'quality mark'

· Monitoring requirements may need to be reviewed

Full Response:

1. Does the model promote early childhood development and is it an effective response to deprivation?

1.1 I have absolute confidence in the principle of providing additional resources and support, within the very local community (pram pushing distance), to families with pre school children. In particular I believe in the effectiveness of centres providing an informal, welcoming atmosphere as a gateway to extended services from health visitors and midwives, who are supported by 'family workers' with less specialist skills and more of a supporting befriending, advocacy and signposting role. As teams they can focus on promotion and support rather than damage limitation, and they can work with local community and voluntary groups to be creative and responsive to the local community in designing how to offer their services to families.

1.2 All the research I have read on early child development (even more since having my own daughter) convinces me of the importance of those early years to children's social, emotional, physical and intellectual development into adulthood, and of the impact of those early years throughout the rest of their lives, beyond school, beyond further education, and into their own parenting years.

1.3 In hard economic terms, I am convinced of the 'spend to save' principle of the long term cost savings to health services, the benefits system, and probably the criminal justice systems generated by the short term investment in early years.

1.4 From a quality of life perspective, I am also sure that supported, connected parents who feel in control and able to request services that suit them, and can get non judgemental 'no strings' help with what concerns them, and feel part of a local community, and have hope and aspirations for their own and their children's future, make better parents and that their children in turn can maximise their potential contribution to their own family and to their wider community.


2. Assessing the impact of Sure Start Children's Centres

2.1 Given that the principle itself is sound and supported by evidence, the most interesting aspect of this inquiry I feel is the analysis of the many different ways these services have been designed and delivered. This will presumably be informed by a raft of different evaluations that have taken place over time.

2.2 There is a need to ensure different areas and approaches are assessed separately to see what works and what doesn't rather than take an 'average' - approaches were so different everywhere as there was a great deal of flexibility particularly in the earlier programmes, so there is a need to follow that through because by implication some approaches will have worked better than others.

2.3 Evaluation should also consider that in areas with transient communities such as the one I worked in, overall statistics may not show marked improvements, but the life chances of those children involved in the programme for a year or two will still have been affected - linear studies would need to be carried out to assess these impacts. For example, in my area many parents getting into employment will have moved out and been replaced by new families with different needs.

2.4 The question should be around the method of delivery, and now should be the opportunity to review the evidence from this trial period and look at what works best where.

3. Suggestions for improvement/getting maximum benefit:

3.1 Success relies on a creative approach and genuine commitment to engaging with and involving parents in design and delivery of services. Parents should almost be seen as the 'key worker' in the team of people bringing up children - the constant factor and the one with the most time and energy and motivation to support their child, and the one with the most knowledge of their child.

3.2 I believe this will be one of the factors influencing success in deprived and multicultural areas like the one I operated in, and at reaching those the most in need and the hardest to reach.

3.3 The programme I worked on worked very hard on parent engagement, and on providing appropriate services to a multicultural and fairly transient population. I would be happy to talk in a  bit more detail about the methods we employed to extend our reach to these parents.

3.4 Not overtly childcare focused. Though this should be an element, the focus should be for support with parenting and investing in children's early development - not on getting parents back to work (particularly those with very young children before age 2.5). The childcare centred approach alienates parents with no concept of themselves entering the labour market and therefore no concept of needing or being able to afford childcare. This childcare centred approach may be a significant barrier to engaging with hard to reach and workless families. That said, Sure Start services are a great platform to start building parents confidence and skills and helping them getting into work or training once they and their children are ready for this. If this is with very young children, there should be more support around recruiting, promoting, and developing childminders to provide quality care.

3.5 Should form a key strand of LA's child poverty agenda - children's centres and the sure start approach could be the fundamental cornerstone to LA's child poverty strategies, both in terms of reducing child poverty, and also importantly in reducing the impacts of the effects of poverty.

3.6 Management by teams with wider perspective than just healthcare delivery - who in my experience had a less broad and less flexible perspective. Health care and early years education services seemed to me to be by their nature very procedural and hierarchical, with the 'patient' or 'pupil's parent often at the bottom of the decision making food chain. This is understandable because of how they've evolved, but not necessarily right for what should be a parent centred service - need community engagement / regeneration understanding and relationships.  I came across some very judgemental and old fashioned ideas when working with health professionals and there may be some cultural changes that are still to be made through working with PCTs in particular. Some of these attitudes I think had an impact on whether people felt comfortable accessing our services. It was also difficult to be creative with designing job descriptions for specific posts to meet the needs of our families.

3.7 Sure Start should be able to offer advice or at least signposting on almost anything including housing, benefits, community and leisure facilities, to help parents ensure their children are benefiting from the material deprivation recently put forward by child poverty strategy http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/poverty-wales110308.pdf
Children should as a minimum be warm, well fed, and feel loved when they go to sleep at night. Parents who are not aware of their rights and local facilities, possibly living in sub standard housing and not receiving all the benefits they're entitled to, and maybe isolated from their communities, will struggle to provide this and that's where Sure Start can help, as a trusted provider of support.

3.8 A fundamental principle of Sure Start workers from managers to front line staff should be not to do anything to damage that confidence and trust or 'brand identity'.

3.9 Should not be a centrally dictated 'one size fits all' approach. Middle class areas, rural areas, multi cultural areas, and areas with high levels of deprivation, all require different approaches. The centrally dictated tenet should be around responsiveness to local need, genuine engagement of parents (ie decision making powers, and support to parents not used to participating in decision making to feel confident in taking part in this).

3.10 Monitoring - was always confused in the past - not clear what real priorities were and very difficult to supply all the information required - lots of software designers out there selling solutions, not sure how useful they all were. The focus should be on checking qualitative factors - are programmes meeting the needs of the children and parents, and on prioritising the hard to reach and most in need (without excluding others and stigmatising the service), rather than just being about 'numbers seen'. Apologies if my experience with this is too outdated to be relevant now.

 

October 2009