Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Pre-school Learning Alliance

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.

From the perspective of Lighthorne Heath & District Children’s Centre in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, the core purpose of children’s centres has not changed a great deal from their original design and purpose.

We continue to provide early intervention to families with children aged from birth to five in the locality. There has always been a push towards working with the most “neediest” of families and this continues to be on the agenda.

However, we are still challenged by the difficulties of reaching the most vulnerable families. The agenda of multi-agency working still remains key to the core purpose as managers would not be able to deliver all services required without the skills, links with parents that some of the multi-agency team have i.e. health visitors, midwives, and speech and language therapists.

The Sure Start local programme’s core offer way was to have all agencies working under one roof all employed by the same company to deliver services together. This is still the same agenda. However, all the teams do not work out of the same centre/office, which creates communication issues.

The effectiveness and impact of Sure Start children’s centres to date, including the role of Ofsted inspections.

Ofsted is rolling out a inspection process for children’s centres in January 2013.

We understand that children’s centres are to have a new framework in January, which won’t go live until April. Ofsted has identified that children’s centre managers need greater opportunity to embed that new inspection framework into their practice before it begins to inspect on the new framework. This will give them a better chance to look at the framework and make sure that they are achieving all of the areas they need to in each section before inspection.

As Lighthorne Heath Children’s Centre is awaiting its next Ofsted visit, it is continuing to compile evidence on the impact of its effectiveness on the local community. Not knowing what particular areas that Ofsted will focus on in this community or what areas will be in the framework, the centre team continue to seek to prove their effectiveness in all areas, which is a tough challenge.

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.

The range of services offered includes a universal offer. Therefore, where family centres and local programmes target particular families, we offer some services to all.

This universal offer reduces any stigma and allows identification of need which may not be identified by other professionals who may not see the family very often.

Although early years settings are universal, the setting staff do not get to see the parent and child interactions that our staff do in children’s centres, and do not have the time or funding to support the family with parenting and other related topics.

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.

We suggest that a measurement of school readiness may be achievements made in the three prime areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage for every child.

How to increase the use of evidence-based early intervention in children’s centres.

Evidencing the impact of children’s centre services is key to ensuring the centre is supporting families with the most need. We have seen a shift in the role of children’s centre manager from delivering services with an open-door policy to all families to a sense that centres must prove they are providing services to the families in most need.

It is a difficult task for children’s centres to compile evidence of what impact their services are having on their local community as it takes time, energy and motivation of the whole team. Without the ground staff collecting attendances evaluations and post-evaluations about the impact that a service has on a family, managers are unable to systematically prove that their children’s centres are providing value for money and are making positive impact to the lives of the children attending services.

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”.

Although Lighthorne Heath Children’s Centre has some good multi-agency working, we feel that this could be improved by children’s centres and the other professionals having regular times to share information, and children’s centres having a clear offer of what they can support families with. At present, this varies greatly.

However, having a named social worker will make a big difference to the children’s centre as it will have a direct contact rather than several points of contact. The centre said it would be wonderful if its social worker could sit on the advisory board.

Lighthorne Heath Children’s Centre has an excellent integrated working system, although there is always room for improvement. It is still awaiting the Children’s Centre Statutory guidance to lead the centre to making stronger relationships with Children’s services and other agencies, such as housing and JobcentrePlus.

Lighthorne Heath Children’s Centre has identified that promoting a drop-in session has been one of its most-effective ways of involving the more-targeted families. Sometimes that may be dads or families from ethnic minorities.

What it has allowed parents to do or has shown parents to do is that they are welcome to drop in to the children’s centre at any time of day. They don’t necessarily have to come to a particular session, a Friday session or a play session. This means these parents don’t feel obliged to join if they feel they haven’t yet got enough confidence or self-belief in themselves. But they know they are welcome to pop in for a quick cup of tea and to say hello.

Although the parents’ visit to the centre may only last a few minutes before they leave, this flexible and low-key open-door policy has increased significantly Lighthorne Heath’s involvement with the neediest of families.

December 2012