|
Memorandum submitted by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE)
1. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is an independent non-governmental organisation and charity. Its corporate and individual members come from a range of places where adults learn: in local community-based settings such as Sure Start Centres, in libraries and schools as well as universities, further education colleges, workplaces, prisons and in their own homes via ICT. The ends to which NIACE activities are directed can be summarised as being to secure more, different and better quality opportunities for adult learners. It is particularly concerned to advance the interests of those who have benefited least from their initial education and training.
2. For many years, NIACE has worked to support family learning. We believe that intergenerational activities which involve children, their parents and siblings, grandparents or carers and which result in explicit learning outcomes for all offer exceptional potential, especially in a child's early years, to break the transmission of educational disadvantage from generation to generation. The confidence, agency and resilience gained from family learning flows both ways - from child to parent and from parent to child.
The development of Sure Start Centres 3. NIACE regrets the fact that broad family learning is afforded relatively little priority within many Sure Start programmes. An initiative intended to develop models of integrated services for under-fives and their families may have come to over-emphasise childcare solutions at the expense of the educational and healthcare roles of Sure Start Centres. While recognising that paid employment is the best route out of poverty and deprivation, getting mothers into work may have the effect of marginalising wider outreach and community development work with children's families.
4. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that there is still a stigma attached to the fact that children's centres' initial locations were in areas of deprivation. One centre gave the example of parents not wanting to be called 'Sure Start' parents despite the fact that they are service users. The challenge here is to change people's perception of an established a brand and get buy-in from local communities. This may be more easily achieved if centres are controlled by local boards (including service users) rather than being seen as a local government service.
5. The integrated approach has been applauded for its effectiveness in safeguarding the very vulnerable and failures in applying such an approach are highlighted in cases such as the Baby P case. Not all Centres have been successful in developing fully integrated services however and there may be a case for clearer leadership in this respect.
Range and effectiveness 6. Currently children's centres are promoted as
'one stop shops' for family services, concentrating on those families with
children under five. NIACE would argue that the definition of 'family' should
be re-visited allowing, explicitly, for a broader interpretation (to reflect
the growing diversity of family and kinship forms in modern
7. The advent of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) does not yet appear to have encouraged a more integrated approach across Sure Start services. In some cases, centres have told NIACE staff of a lack of willingness among partners to change old ways of working (in terms of sharing information) and would readily welcome a more collaborative use of resources.
8. Provision within children's centres tends still to be dominated by services for mothers and children under five. Often this means an emphasis on services such as mums and tots groups, stay and play, baby massage, pre- and post-natal support and support on returning to the labour market. Less attention is given to activities which nurture and support wider family networks.
9. While this focus is understandable, NIACE would argue that some centres are failing to achieve their full potential and effectiveness by not broadening their offer to include a more comprehensive range of services as support for self organised learning, services for older adults (such as grandparents) or older siblings and for BME groups (other than ESOL classes). This would allow for more creative partnerships to develop. An example is where links with community groups and organisations could support attempts to reach marginalised communities and individuals. The focus on services for families with young children may limit effectiveness and may impact on the types of services being developed and the types of families reached.
10. Overall, there appears to be an unresolved tension between a desire to allow flexibility and responsiveness to local conditions on one hand and the need to encourage the roll-out of proven evidence-based good practice on the other.
Funding, sustainability and value for money 11. NIACE believes that there is scope for strengthening partnerships between Sure Start Centres and other stakeholders in family policy. These might include health and social care, formal education and training providers, jobcentre Plus, community and cultural services and the voluntary sector. There may be a case for several Departments of State to co-resource an innovation fund to pilot and disseminate examples of effective cross-silo working - demonstrating what can be possible and for greater pooling of budgets into a 'single pot'.
Staffing, governance, management and strategic planning 12. As early as 2004 NIACE led an evaluation of the Step into Learning programme. The programme was originally delivered by the then Basic Skills Agency which aimed to equip staff in Sure Start programmes, nurseries and children's centres with the knowledge and skills required to help them identify parents and carers' literacy, language and numeracy (LLN) needs and support them into local provision. Our findings showed that whilst this was a good programme, some of the targets were overly ambitious. For instance it was expected that staff, having attended the training would be able to identify parents/carers with language, literacy or numeracy needs and refer them onto appropriate support; however although staff could identify those parents who needed support, many of them were not confident enough to engage parents in discussions about their LLN needs or to refer them onto other agencies. It was also identified that many of the staff themselves struggled with LLN and would require support of their own. The evaluation recommended that: [1]"The nursery managers and staff needed further training in practical strategies and skills for discussing LLN with other staff and parents/carers."
Whether this recommendation was implemented subsequently remains unclear. This is not a criticism of the front-line staff but perhaps of more senior managers who had recruited 'child care' practitioners to services rather than those with the broader range of skills or experience required to deliver wider support to families.
Work with other partners and services 13. NIACE is aware of persistent grumbles about data transfer issues in some centres. Examples reported include health agencies failing to share information on new births which prevents centres from engaging with families not known to the service. Midwives and health visitors were originally seconded to Sure Start children centres and this led to more robust partnerships with clear protocols for sharing information and pooling of resources but it would appear that partnership between health and children's centres has decayed in some areas. In other areas the partnership between health and children's centres is better established and services benefit from a more integrated approach. What is of concern however is that NIACE has heard examples of inconsistencies within areas covered by the same LA and PCT. There is clearly work to be done to ensure an integrated approach across services and the replication good practice in less successful areas.
14. Partnerships with schools are, from most accounts, working well and have been a welcomed arrangement. However still lingering are [2]"... differences in organisational culture and working practise (which) can lead to tensions and rivalry between professionals and the defending of work boundaries." Government departments need to work more closely to ensure to ensure that this type of practice is eliminated.
Access for those most in need and effectiveness for the most vulnerable
15. Children's centres have developed a range of ways to evaluate their offer. These include:
· Individual evaluations of provision; · Parent-led needs assessment (some using parent to parent interviews); · Group evaluations; · Varying users for a; · Socio spatial mapping which shows where groups are coming from geographically
16. While these methods may be effective at evaluating what people want, accessibility and content, they are less good evaluating impact on participants' lives. There is also some anxiety about the tendency of Government Departments to measure achievement using quantitative methods, ignoring the value of more qualitative approaches which would better assess the long term effectiveness of services on individuals and families.
17. There appears to be a lack of clarity in some centres about exactly who constitutes the 'most vulnerable' groups within their locality, not only in terms of categories such as single parents, BME, disabled parents or children, those with mental health issues for example, but also in terms of numbers within each category. The flexibility and responsiveness mentioned above may mean that Centres tend to respond most effectively to users similar to those already engaging with their services. Vulnerable groups or individuals not in contact with children's centres may remain at a significant disadvantage
October 2009 [1] Step into learning [2] Best Practice guidelines, NIACE, 2009 |