Foundation Years - Sure Start Children's Centres

Further written evidence submitted by Action for Children

early years education,

childcare and children’s centres

1 Action for Children

1.1 Action for Children is committed to helping the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK break through injustice, deprivation and inequality, so they can achieve their full potential.

1.2 We help children, young people and their families through nearly 500 services across the UK, including   over 200 children’s centres across England.

Key points

1.1 Key points raised within this briefing are:

· We welcome the focus on providing free childcare to the most vulnerable children .

· We are concerned that the quality of the delivery of the two-year-old offer varies at a local level and that this has resulted in some cases of inadequate provision. Given that the two-year-old offer is targeted at the most vulnerable children we have concerns that poor quality provision could undermine efforts t o improve social mobility

· The delivery of the two-year-old offer can and should be much more closely aligned with the provision targeted parenting support via children’s centres . Parents have the biggest impact on their children’s educational attainment, so that efforts to improve school readiness will be undermined if early intervention and parenting support is detached from the early education offer.

2 Supporting s chool readiness

3. 1 Our children’s centres successfully reach out to, and engage with, vulnerable families providing targeted services within an open access setting . King’s College London (2011 [1] ) found an overall picture of ‘ children doing better’ following contact with Action for Children centre staff and the services conclud ing that ‘ Action for Children children’s centres have the potential to act as a gateway, and in some cases one-stop-shop, for the early intervention which we know can improve outcomes, especially health outcomes, for children. ’ In 2011-12, our children’s centres achieved a positive impact in reducing the risk of physical, sexual or emotional abuse of a child; reducing concerns about a child in 95 per cent of cases where this was an issue. In 98 per cent of cases there was a positive impact regarding domestic abuse and con cern about a child was reduced.

3.2 Action for Children works to enhance children’s school readiness primarily though supporting children’s communication, emotional and physical development. For example, our outcomes data shows that 78 per cent of children within our children’s centres improved their communication skills. We are part of a consortium to deliver the early learning and development programme in all of our children’s centres and also have speech therapists based in our centres , as well as running play sessions and a range of health intervention programmes.

3.3 Within our centres we work to develop good relationships with child care providers who in turn then refer children and families on to us if they are aware of problems emerging and the need for additional support. This enables us to pick up on and address problems at an early stage , for example through the delivery of evidence-based parenting programmes . Our children’s centres work with local nurseries to establish safeguarding protocols to ensure that all are clear on collective and individual responsibilities. We also provide support to child-minders with registration and advice on meeting statutory requirements. Children’s centres provide the physical space in which child-minders and nurseries can operate.

3.4 We also seek to address gaps in training and resources , as well as providing support networks for child-minders. However, to do so to scale will require additional resources. For example, Action for Children is (with a partner agency) currently bidding to the DfE grants prospectus to increase the number of high quality child-minders able to offer flexible childcare to vulnerable and disadvantaged children. We want to appoint child-minder coordinators across a number of children’s centres to recruit new child-minders to meet the demand for the free child care entitlement and in order to provide wrap-around holiday care. We will also provide training to child minders in the core areas of the EYFS, work with parents to find a child-minder match for children with SEN D and liaise with professional networks to secure named child training for complex health needs.

3. 5 Research shows how vital parental engagement is to improving children’s educational attainment. We provide a range of targeted parenting support within our children’s centres. Over the past year 1,302 parents received evidence-based parenting programmes from Action for Children. In addition, w e promote home learning , for example providing ‘Book Start’; working with parents to support their child’s learning and creating a positive home learning environment. Our findings are supported by the national evaluation of Sure Start results from 2010 and 2012 which demonstrated the delivery of better home learning environments. We will also provide adult learning support and skills development, such as literacy and numeracy classes, IT training and volunteering programmes.

3. 6 Without this holistic support a child care place on its own will not provide improved outcomes for children. Head Teachers have told our managers about the dramatic impact our children’s centres have had in term of improving children’s behaviour when they attend school, and also through increasing parental engagement (for example through attendance at parent’s evenings).

3 Concerns relating to the delivery of the two - year - old offer.

4.1 We are concerned about the delivery of the two - year - old offer both because of problems with the quality of provision and also because of the increasing disconnect between targeted early intervention services for parents and the provision of early education .

4.2 Supply does not currently meet demand. This means the private, voluntary and independent providers can c harge higher than the allocation . Hence, there is little incentive for private nurseries to take up the two–year old offer. This has also resulted in wide variation in local implementation of the childcare offer. In order to meet demand some children ar e faced with reduced free hours with some local authorities only providing 10 hours to accommodate more children . W e are concerned that as the offer is rolled out th e number of hours will be reduce d again.

4 .3 There simply are not enough good quality places to meet need. Only Ofsted rated ‘good or above’ providers are meant to deliver the two - year-old offer places, yet some providers rated as ‘adequate’ are being used to meet the need. High quality provision is broader than just education , it is also about settings being able to identify additional needs and spotting problems early. E merging data from our latest review of child neglect shows that while staff in most early year’s settings are well versed in spotting the signs of neglect, private nursery staff were not as aware. The poorest quality provision is most likely to have vacancies, leading to the likelihood that the most vulnerable children will receive the poorest quality provision. This will be in contrast to their peers who can pay the going rate for the best provision .

4 . 4 The criteria for accessing a place is being applied inconsistently. On top of the free school meals criteria, some areas are looking at tax credits and benefits or are adding vulnerabilities to the criteria to ensure that the most vulnerable get the limited provision. This means a lot of children are missing out and there is a great deal of confusion at local level.

4. 5 In addition to concerns about the quality of provision, t he way the two-year- old of fer is being rolled out is threatening the holistic approach to early years by separating childcare from family support services. Because the two-year-old offer has been designed as a separate arrangement , vulnerable children and families are increasingly not coming into contact with other early year’s services. Government policy must promote a joined up early years offer for children and families.

4.6 F unding arrangements for the on-going delivery of the two - year - old offer have serve d to exacerbate this disconnect , with the top slicing of the EIG to f und the early education places and then the absorption of the rest of the EIG into wider local government funding . Within the new funding arrangements , funding for early intervention services must remain prioritised at a national and local level. Local family and child support services such as children’s centres are vital to the effective delivery of the offer and the intended outcomes of the pr o gramme. The current disconnect is of grave concern.

5 S olutions : Beacon Heath and Whipton Children’s Centre 2gether pilot

5 .1 The way the two-year-old offer is being implemented need s to be re-thought with the connections between early education, child care and family support re-established. Within this network children’s centres have a vital role to play. For example o ne group of our children’s centres in Devon has taken up delivery of the two-year-old offer and provides sessions directly for disadvantaged two year-olds as well as providing complimentary parenting support.

5.2 Action for Children is participating in a pilot run by Devon County Council aimed at improving outcomes and narrowing the education attainment gap between disadvantaged and other children in Devon, as well as supporting parents to take up training or to go into work.

5.3 The two participating children’s centres were chosen because there were insufficient child care spaces available locally and there were large numbers of children who fitted the criteria. A child care team was recruited to work across both children’s centres, who also employed two family workers (one for each centre) to provide family support to the families attending the 2gether pilot.

5.4 All the children who attended the pilot moved to a nursery when they reached three. Given the age of the children quite a high percentage (28%) left before completing because of difficulties settling – not being ready to be left. To address this , the project instigated a programme of settling in periods during the first term.

5.5 Data o n the c ohort of families show s that the pilot successfully targeted those w ith greatest need (for example lone parents, families where there is domestic abuse, BME communities, families where E nglish is a second language , grandparent s as main carer and pare nts with a physical disability ) .

5.6 A range of family support services were offered in addition to child care. 14% of families accessed counselling through the children’s centres. Al l families were given home learning during the scheme. The centres also provided different adult education groups for the parents ( i.e. basic literacy and maths skills) . 47% of families attended an adult learning group.

5.7 S ome families remained very difficult to engage. The o utcomes achieved depend on effective targeting . T here is concern that the different measures adopted in the payment by results p ilots may conflict with each other. For example, i f you target families with the highest levels of need then you will not get such high results for numbers of parents who return to training and work . H owever , targeting the pilot at families with greatest and most complex needs allowed the scheme to meet the needs of children first . A solution would be to continue to target at families with greatest need but to introduce interim measures around adult education as steps on the way to employability.

5.8 One of the key emerging issues was that it was much easier to develop good relationships between family workers and parents when the children were attending child care at the children’s centres.

5.9 The outcomes for children in the first cohort were extremely good, as measured against their health and development. An interim report into the effectiveness of the pilot conclude d that f or children living in families with very high levels of need, the pilot offered compensatory experiences that they otherwise would not have had.