Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Family Action
This response is based on the views of our senior children’s centre practitioners and Family Action’s general experience of running and working with Sure Start children’s centres:
Offering our core model the Family Action family support service, (FSS) as part of multi-agency teams in children’s centres in Roehampton and Battersea, Wandsworth, and Edge Hill, Liverpool.
Managing Sure Start children’s centres in Miles Platting Manchester; Southend, Essex; Islington and West Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
Via staff who previous to working via Family Action worked in roles in local authorities establishing earlier Sure Start programmes and centres.
The new Core Purpose of Sure Start children’s centres, how this has evolved and is different from the original design and purpose of Sure Start
1. The core purpose of children’s centres was stated by the DfE in April 2012 as r. Improving outcomes for young children and their families, with a particular focus on the most disadvantaged families, in order to reduce inequalities in child development and school readiness. This is to be supported by improved: parenting aspirations, self esteem and parenting skills; and child and family health and life chances.
2. Some evolution of the core purpose is inevitable. The early days of Sure Start were about development and experimentation in provision, now, following learning from the experience of Sure Start, there is a need for the core purpose to address improvement
3. The new core purpose differs from the original which focussed less on school readiness, and more on child-parent interaction and the role of parent as first teacher. The new document also places greater emphasis on transiting parents to employment.
4. In some respects the core purpose is now looser, and more holistic. For example there is a greater drive for more of the community to derive benefit from children’s centres by using them as social hubs and extending their reach to older children.
5. At the same time, at a time of reduced children’s centre budgets, the reality is that implementation of the core purpose is under greater scrutiny, and providers greater pressure to demonstrate that they are reaching high proportions of groups targeted as disadvantaged, and that budget is being directed at these groups.
6. Despite the moves to extend children’s centres as community hubs the underlying reality is that children’s centres are not for everyone in the community, and are in fact targeted at the most disadvantaged children and families. Arguably this returns Sure Start to its original purpose and is where the focus must be at times of restricted funding. At the same time the concern will be to ensure that families are not stigmatised for engaging with children’s centres.
7. In practice many disadvantaged families contain older as well as younger children; and in line with Family Action’s ethos and ways of working there is a need to work holistically with the whole family to tackle disadvantage so the more holistic emphasis of the new core purpose is welcome. The concern will be to retain the focus on excellence in early years provision even as children’s centres offer activities for older children; also that as centres deliver helping parents access work this does not have unlooked-for, inimical impacts on their parenting or the budget for directly working with children at a time of cuts.
8. There needs to be some thought given as to how all current providers of children’s centres are placed in terms of skills to meet all aspects of the new core purpose, including the increased stress on targeting the most disadvantaged. For example our experience is that school providers, while strong on learning outcomes, do less well at targeting the most disadvantaged and safeguarding.
The effectiveness and impact of Sure Start children’s centres to date, including the role of Ofsted inspections
9. The children’s centres that we manage in Manchester, West Mansfield and Southend have been judged good and outstanding in recent Ofsted inspections, including in terms of children’s learning outcomes. Hometalk, the programme our West Mansfield centres operate with in partnership with the Nottinghamshire speech and language therapy team, can cut the number of children requiring speech therapy by around 80% by working with parents to make sure that they provide a more effective language learning environment at home for their children. A similar programme, Narrowing the Gap, is being delivered in our Southend children’s centre with the aim promoting parental support for children’s learning at home, and is also showing good results. However adult learning and progression into employment are more difficult outcomes for all our centres to reach given the low qualifications and literacy of very disadvantaged parents; and high unemployment. It can take up to a year and sometimes longer to ensure some parents are job-ready.
10. Overall the National Evaluation of Sure Start found that:
At age three, SSLP children had more advanced social skills—they were more independent and showed more self-control.
Parents living in SSLP areas showed less of the characteristics of “negative” parenting.
Overall, there were positive effects relating to SSLPs in seven of the 14 areas assessed. (NESS (2008), p.4).
11. Overall it is disappointing that research into Ofsted reports show that children’s centres remain patchy in delivering on the core outcomes. For example they are generally doing well on safeguarding and supporting families and parents, but less well on delivering improvements in learning.
10. Some of this may be to do with the data collection and trail. In particular the linkages to the EYFS results are not always clear. Certainly it is our experience that the outcomes are optimised when local authorities have clear strategies for structuring their delivery and measurement from the start. For example Wandsworth had a clear strategy to reduce the EYFS gap between the most advantaged and disadvantaged wards, linked Family Action family support into specific children’s centres with this aim and linked this into data collection from schools so that it could be shown that our services were having an impact on reducing the attainment gap in the reception year.
11. Overall there is a lot of emphasis on hard indicators but by themselves these do not enable effective analysis or planning. For example one hard indicator used for children’s centres is the number of looked-after children using centres. However a soft indicator for this group which does not exist is the number of children being placed in the children’s centres out of area by other local authorities. Children under five with a disability including SEN are a group for whom data or an indicator do not generally exist.
12. Another aspect of data collection that affects outcomes is that children’s centres do not generally operate on an individual, but on a cluster, basis with children and parents registered at one children’s centre being able to take up programmes and activities at other centres in the cluster. However children’s centres are limited to measuring outcomes for children and parents registered with their centre only.
13. In recent years Ofsted inspections have changed to reflect the targeted reach of children’s centres and inspectors require children’s centres to demonstrate that they are reaching the most disadvantaged. Inspections are generally more rigorous.
14. While children’s centres are now being expected to act as community hubs and deliver for older children Ofsted are only measuring outcomes for the under fives
15. In general Ofsted inspectors are largely drawn from teaching backgrounds, they are not drawn from the early year’s sector and consequently they sometimes have poor understanding of the core purpose, the multi-agency working with health which is so important to children’s centres and the presenting data. For example Ofsted are generally accustomed to understanding educational data, not public health data. It is our experience that unless centre managers provide a great deal of background information poor conclusions are reached.
16. The cluster based model of children’s centres as noted above gives particular challenges for judging the delivery of individual centres; as does the fact that most work delivered in children’s centres is delivered on group, rather than on a one-to-one, basis.
The range of services and activities provided at Sure Start children’s centres, and their desired outcomes, and whether/how these differ from family centres, early Sure Start local programmes and early years settings.
16. Family centres are social care-focused whereas children’s centres are about early intervention. However by focusing on disadvantaged groups and working with older groups children’s centres do risk some duplication and similar levels of stigma.
17. In order to improve targeting of the disadvantaged Sure Start is increasingly moving out of children’s centres to outreach in community settings. In this way it is returning to SSLP roots.
18. Overall children’s centres are becoming more focused on employment outcomes for parents and learning outcomes for children than in earlier stages of Sure Start. Overall we consider these are the right outcomes to look for. However, we believe it is vital that children’s centres retain general child development and the reduction of child poverty at the forefront of their vision.
How to define and measure good practice in family and parenting support and outreach, including the effectiveness of the Government’s payment by results trials, and what measures of child development and school readiness might be used:
19. Family Action defines and measures good practice in family and parenting support and outreach using the Family Star http://www.family-action.org.uk/section.aspx?id=13976. The Family Star is a visual tool focused on improvement across eight key areas of parenting including “setting boundaries” keeping a routine “providing emotional support”, providing home and money; promoting good health, promoting learning, keeping your child safe; and social networks. We use this because it is an assessment and monitoring tool that is readily understood commissioners, parents and practitioners thus enabling a partnership approach with all stakeholders. We have found that many clinical tools, while vital in some contexts, are not readily understood by all and exclude parents from the process of engaging with the process of measuring their own progress.
20. In terms of child development and school readiness there needs to be a focus on social and emotional learning; for example the resolution of attachment issues so that children can contemplate their first day alone at school confidently; the calm and focus necessary so that children can tolerate the demands of structure and attending to input from a teacher; and the emotional intelligence to interact with children and adults outside the home.
How to increase the use of evidence-based early intervention in children’s centres
21. The question needs to be asked “what are we intervening in, why and how?” For example children with SEN require intervention as early as possible but the issue remains that even when SEN is identified there is usually little if any resource to respond to them before they leave children’s centres.
22. If we are talking about delivery of manualised parenting programmes then early years staff are often not highly qualified and do not have sufficient skills or capacity to deliver evidence-based early intervention on a programme basis. This is better delivered by family support workers and social workers who have the necessary skills. It is also more readily scaled when delivered on a cluster basis. However it does require resourcing in terms of monies available for training of staff and measurement of the delivery of programmes.
23. Family Action makes use of a number of evidence based parenting programmes such as Mellow Parenting, Triple P and Solihull. But our experience tells us what is primarily needed is for disadvantaged parents to engage with evidence-based programmes in the first place. As the British Psychological Society has recently pointed out the usefulness of such programmes is limited if they are not socially inclusive and the parents who need them most cannot engage with them in the first place (Davis et al, Technique is not enough, British Psychological Society August 2012). There is also little point in adopting behavioral strategies if one is unaware of the root causes of the behavioral issues. It is our experience that intensive family support carried out in a partnership spirit with families in their own home can be vital to persuading parents to engage in such programmes and understanding which evidence-based programmes will be of benefit.
How to strengthen integrated working between health, social care and education as part of a multi-agency early help offer, including how to improve information-sharing and the proposal for children’s centres to have access to a “named social worker”
24. Siloised training of the different disciplines ie education, health, social work early years) and the differing outcomes looked for in early child development and learning by these professionals are presently obstacles to integration and require addressing. The proposed integrated two-year-old check may be a useful step toward this. However there are also resourcing issues which affect capacity for partnership working
25. The CAF (Common Assessment Framework) can provide a useful mechanism for assessing the risk to, and needs of, the most vulnerable children and can improve multi-agency working depending on local relationships and commitment to this way of working by all the parties.
26. A common risk assessment framework for new mothers judged to be vulnerable at the ante-natal stage would be valuable in encouraging a range of professionals to work together at the earliest possible stage for vulnerable families. Ideally joint working should start as soon a child is born because that is when parents will be most receptive to help.
27. Our Perinatal Support Project, based in our West Mansfield children’s centres, is an example of a project which promotes this co-operation on very early intervention. Our professional Perinatal Support Co-coordinator trains and supervises volunteer befrienders to work with women at risk of ante and post natal depression to reduce their social isolation and build confidence in attunement to the baby’s needs. This activity is backed by multi-agency referral networks including midwives and health visitors and support groups for parents based in the centre. This ensures children centres and health professionals work to respond to families needs at the earliest possible stage and parents are encouraged to engage with the children’s centre as soon as possible which should be beneficial to optimizing the two-year old childcare offer .
28. Data sharing by health remains an issue. We understand this will be tackled by a protocol that is forthcoming from DH.
29. A named social worker could be helpful but only in so far as this individual is resourced adequately to respond to the children’s centre and its service users.
How to increase the involvement of families (especially fathers, disadvantaged families, minority ethnic groups and families of children with SEN and disabled children) in the running of children’s centres and in their regular activities
30. Family Action specializes in increasing the uptake of children’s centres by disadvantaged families and children. In our experience the offer of home-based family support is vital to ensuring that families with multiple complex needs are able to engage with centres. If parents do not have routines to manage family life it is unlikely that they will arrive at centres in time for scheduled activities; children will not be able to engage with other children successfully or parents may feel unduly stigmatised by their difficulties.
31. The experience of our Hornsey Road centre is that the offer of ESOL classes is vital to engaging parents from diverse groups in the centre, and ensuring that they can volunteer and participate in the running of the centres and they can take advantage of support with training and employment. Also creche support will be vital to pay for their participation in this and parent fora.
32. It is vital to consult with parents as to what they need and want and to ensure appropriate scheduling of activities. For example our Hornsey Road centre runs popular groups for fathers and children on Saturdays so that fathers separated from their families can engage with their children and other fathers on weekend time.
33. In terms of the running of centres it needs to be recognised that disadvantaged parents are often coming from a low base of education and skills, as well as needing to spend time to bring up their children. Typically we start engagement with undemanding activities which are attractive to parents and children—Tip Toe Dance sessions for example—we then look to engage them in more obvious learning activity. When they attend regularly we may look to engaging parents in involvement in parent fora and volunteering. After this they may be ready to participate in advisory boards alongside professionals and to begin seeking employment. But generally by the time parents have the skills to run centres their children are ready to leave the centres; and parents themselves are preoccupied by moving onto training and work.
How the overall level and quality of provision is being affected by moves to local funding.
34. Our experience is that funding is restricted while we as a provider are being pressed to do more for less. This scenario presents challenges to all providers for investment in staff delivering in a quality way and has inevitably meant the loss of some activities. We are deeply concerned that the changes to the Early Intervention Grant will translate into effective cuts for early intervention activities in children’s centres.
December 2012