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Memorandum submitted by Barnardo's
1. Barnardo's works directly with
more than 100,000 children, young people and their families in over 400
services across the
2. Barnardo's currently runs 84 Sure Start
Children's Centres, concentrated principally in three regions of
3. We use the knowledge gained from our direct work with children to campaign for improvements in policy and to champion the rights of every child. With the right help, committed support and a little belief, even the most vulnerable children can turn their lives around.
4. This submission draws
extensively on the experience of Barnardo's Sure Start Children's Centres in
5. We would be delighted to provide further information on these issues or to organise visits to Barnardo's Sure Start Children's Centres, for Select Committee members. Summary
6. Barnardo's experience in working with
disadvantaged families across the
7. Barnardo's has a strong track record for delivering accessible, inclusive services and successfully engaging 'hard to reach' groups. This is a priority for our Children's Centres, working in partnership with local agencies. Key groups for whom targeted initiatives have been developed include: children in need, children with special needs and disabilities, parents abusing drugs or alcohol, families in squalid housing, BME communities, recent immigrants and asylum seekers, isolated families in rural areas and fathers.
8. Children's Centres have the potential to be a highly effective vehicle for delivering preventive services to vulnerable and disadvantaged young families. Barnardo's would like to see greater prominence given to Sure Start Children's Centres as a key element in local preventive strategies, reflected in Children and Young People's Plans and other strategic plans. Integrated working is most effective when there is genuine high level commitment from each of the partner agencies.
9. In particular, Children's Centres are well placed to identify safeguarding concerns and to undertake preventive work with parents, involving social services as appropriate. Children under 4 are particularly vulnerable to abuse and amongst the most likely to come into care.
10. Most of Barnardo's 84 Children's Centres are
concentrated in the South West, Midlands and the Does the Children's Centre model of integrated services for under-5s and their families promote early childhood development and is it an effective response to deprivation?
11. Children's Centres promote early childhood development and contribute to improved outcomes for children in the most deprived communities by:
· Extending high quality early years provision and parenting advice in areas which historically had little access to such services; · Intervening early, for example where there are concerns about developmental delay, special needs and disabilities or safeguarding issues, providing swift access to specialist advice and support; · Reaching out vulnerable and disadvantaged families through outreach activities, providing one-to-one support and gradually encouraging parents to make use of other Sure Start services.
12. Barnardo's experience in working with
disadvantaged families across the UK convinces us that Sure Start Children's
Centres are one of the most effective models we have for breaking the cycle of
poverty, transforming patterns of poor parenting and educational
under-achievement in
13. Children's Centres provide hubs in disadvantaged, fractured communities, offering safe, friendly spaces for young families who would not historically have accessed early years or parenting provision. This takes time: Children's Centres need to be valued and trusted by local families and reflect community needs.
14. Parents can learn alongside their children - taking part in group activities and courses - and many go on to enrol in courses to develop their own skills (for example in literacy, numeracy and ICT), which they might not have felt confident to do in a school or college environment. Volunteering also plays an important role, building parents' skills and confidence and providing a stepping stone back to employment.
The range and effectiveness of services provided by Children's Centres
15. The range of services - often co-located - provided by Children's Centres is important for a number of reasons.
16. The presence of high quality early years services, co-located or working closely with specialist health and family support practitioners, enables early intervention - providing swift access to advice and support (such as family support, speech and language therapy or counselling) where needed.
17. The range of services also means that Children's Centres are able to work directly with parents and children, for example, providing extra support to a child presenting with behavioural problems in the nursery at the same time as working with their parents to address underlying difficulties, such as post-natal depression or domestic violence. Families are more likely to engage willingly in the CAF (common assessment framework) process (or other specialist assessment, as relevant) if they already know and trust Children's Centre staff; they are also more likely to raise issues of concern themselves.
18. Within the range of children's centre services, outreach and family support are critical for engaging vulnerable and disadvantaged families - for example, families with safeguarding issues, parents with learning difficulties and families with disabled children.
19. As regards service effectiveness, Children's Centres are subject to DCSF performance management requirements (including a detailed self-evaluation form, reviewed annually with the local authority) and inspection by Ofsted. From the outset, there has been a great emphasis on quality and evidence-based practice, informed by the National Evaluation of Sure Start. All Barnardo's Sure Start Children's Centres work towards a set of specified outcomes for children, based on the Every Child Matters framework. Outcomes for children and families using our services are recorded to ensure that our Children's Centres are making a positive impact in the communities they serve. Are services being accessed by those most in need and how effective are they for the most vulnerable?
20. Barnardo's has a strong track record for delivering accessible, inclusive services and engaging 'hard to reach' groups. This is a priority for our Children's Centres, working in partnership with local agencies. Key groups for whom targeted initiatives have been developed include: children in need, children with special needs and disabilities, parents abusing drugs or alcohol, families in squalid housing, BME communities, recent immigrants, asylum seekers and transient populations, isolated families in rural areas and fathers.
21. For the most vulnerable families, the role of outreach is critical. Locating services in accessible and familiar community facilities and visiting families in the home is critical to reaching those who would not, by themselves, access Children's Centre services. Outreach is often needed, for example, to work effectively with families where there are safeguarding concerns, if parents have learning difficulties or mental health difficulties, families with disabled children and for some minority ethic communities.
22. Feedback from Barnardo's Children's Centre managers highlighted the significant numbers of safeguarding concerns they deal with. Children under 4 are particularly vulnerable to abuse and amongst the most likely to come into care. Children's Centres are well placed to identify possible concerns and to undertake preventive work with parents, involving social services as appropriate. In our experience, families who have a history of involvement with social services are sometimes more willing to engage with Barnardo's than with statutory services.
How well Children's Centres work with other partners and services, especially schools and health services
23. In some areas, Sure Start has been a catalyst for integrated working across children's services: providing a hub for multi-agency services and laying the foundations (by building relationships, sharing information, joint working etc) for effective partnership working to meet local community needs.
24. However the success of the integrated model is dependent on the support of partner agencies, in particular, health and social services. This can be problematic, due to budgetary constraints, differing priorities and service boundaries, barriers to information-sharing and cultural differences. Barnardo's services in some areas reported difficulties in securing the involvement of health services in particular, for example, reductions in Speech and Language Therapy and health visitors not being well linked into Children's Centres.
25. Children's Centres have the potential to be a highly effective vehicle for delivering preventive services to the most disadvantaged young families. But in the context of tight public service budgets, preventive services are often vulnerable to cuts.
26. Barnardo's would like to see greater prominence given to Sure Start Children's Centres as a key element in local preventive strategies, reflected in Children and Young People's Plans and other strategic plans. Integrated working is most effective when there is genuine high level commitment from each of the partner agencies.
Funding, sustainability and value for money
27. The first waves of Sure Start Local Programmes were generously funded, enabling the development of innovative practice and providing strong foundations for integrated working. Budgets have tightened over time and as Children's Centres have gradually extended their 'reach' to more vulnerable and disadvantaged families, so resources have had to stretch further. Improved value for money has also been achieved through increased partnership working with schools and local agencies, and by sharing specialist expertise and facilities across clusters of children's centres.
28. In some areas, there are difficulties with funding levels for childcare and nursery provision, as Sure Start budgets have been reduced, Neighbourhood Nursery Initiative funding has tapered off and in the context of welcome moves to improve the skills and qualifications of the early years workforce. In particular, some Barnardo's services operating in disadvantaged areas have reported difficulties with:
· providing
flexible, affordable childcare (outside
· the sustainability of day care places. This was part of the core offer and well funded in the early waves of Sure Start, but some services report that the Nursery Education Grant for 3 and 4 year olds does not cover the true cost of a place. Staffing, governance, management and strategic planning
29. Part of the strength of the Sure Start model in the early waves lay in the great emphasis placed on responding to local community needs and priorities. The flexibility this allowed and the innovative practice this stimulated was important in making inroads into communities which had historically not used such services. This responsiveness must not be lost in the move towards a common Children's Centre model and as budgets become tighter.
30. Most of Barnardo's 84 Children's Centres are
concentrated in three regions of
October 2009 [1] These figures are accurate based on current service information, but recent growth and differences in the extent of Sure Start services provided by Barnardo's and the delivery model used (i.e. some are not centre based, others involve clusters) makes it difficult to provide an exact figure.
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