Best Start in Life

Safe and Stronger Communities

Select Committee

6th August 2014

Why is the Best Start in Life So Important?

• “The foundations for virtually every aspect of human development –

physical, intellectual, and emotional – are laid in early childhood.” Fair Society, Healthy Lives Marmot 2011

• “By the 1001st day, the brain has reached 80% of its adult weight.

Ensuring that the brain achieves its optimum development and nurturing

during this period of growth is vitally important and enables babies to

achieve the best start in life.” The 1001 Critical Days, A Cross Party Manifesto

• “… this Report is rooted in one simple ambition: to ensure that every baby,

child and young person grows up with the basic social and emotional

competencies that will give them the bedrock skills upon which all else is

built.” Early Intervention: Smart Investment, Massive Savings Graham Allen MP 2011

The Impact of Parental Neglect by Three Years

Recent Key Policy Drivers:

•Supporting Families in the Foundation Years (2011) – Government vision for the services that should be on offer for children, parents and families.

•Munro Review of Child Protection (2011) – Professor Eileen Munro’s influential child protection review, looking at the journey of a child through the system and how this can be improved.

•Early Intervention: Smart Investment, Massive Savings (2011) – Graham Allen’s reports on the value of early intervention both for outcomes and resources.

•Fair Society, Health Lives (2013) – This report conducted by Professor Sir Michael Marmot proposes the most effective evidence-based strategies for reduced health inequalities.

•1001 Critical Days (2014) – Cross party report into early years setting out the importance of the first 1001 days in a child’s development.

•Early Years Annual Report 2013 (2014) – Ofsted’s first annual report that focuses solely on early years.

Local Authority Duties:

• To improve the well being of children under 5 and reduce

inequalities

• To deliver integrated early childhood services

• To make arrangements for sufficient Children’s Centres to

meet local need

• To meet the CC Core Purpose: school readiness, parenting

aspiration and improved health and life chances

• To secure sufficient provision of childcare

• To provide information, advice and assistance to

parents/prospective parents on childcare, services or facilities

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/21/contents

What Should a Best Start Involve?

Giving Children the

Best Start in Life

Learning Home

Parental

Health

Parenting

Style/Skills

Child

Health

Safe and

Secure

Home

Sufficient

Income

Space to live

And grow

Life Skills

Positive

Relationship

Play

Parental

Involvement

High Quality

Early

Education

Breastfeeding

and Nutrition

Birth Weight

Vaccination

Parental

Relationships

Mental

Health

Substance

Misuse

Physical

Activity Supportive

Friends and

Family

A thorough review of the

evidence by Customer

Insight highlights the

following critical success

factors:

Areas of Need

• There are

approximately 55,000

children aged under

five in Staffordshire.

• In 2012, there were

9,100 births in

Staffordshire.

• The under 5

population is

projected to continue

to increase to 2015

and then start to

decline.

Approximation of Staffordshire Spend on Best Start

• Early Years Commissioning Budget – £2.509m: Spent on services and premises (not including the six large (phase 1) children’s centres.

• Families First Early Years & the six large (phase 1) Children’s Centres – £3.682m: Running costs, EY central costs, and training for private, voluntary and independent (PVI) providers) plus Child and Family Engagement Workers £1.2m.

• Entrust – £2.737m: Childcare sufficiency, quality / training around the Early Years Foundation Stage.

• Think 2 Trajectory Funding – £0.945m: Development fund to build capacity for providing free childcare for disadvantaged2 year olds.

• Think 2 Nursery Place funding – £7.642m: Funding for placements for 2 year olds (part of the Direct Schools Grant).

• Nursery Education Funding – £15.3m: Nursery Place Funding for 3 and 4 year olds (15 hours free).

• Adult and Community Learning – £1m: Spent on family learning programmes.

• Schools – £6.1m: budget for local authority maintained nurseries.

• Troubled Families Grant – £5m (max) : Grant from central government for delivery of their Troubled Families policy initiative, called ‘Building Resilient Families and Communities’ in Staffordshire.

• Public Health & NHS England – TBC: We are in the process of identifying how much Public Health and NHS England spend on early years. However these will be significant amounts that contribute to the best start offer across the County.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

• Staffordshire’s 54 children’s centres delivery sites were established in three phases - 6 large (referred to as Phase 1 centres) between 2000-2006, and 48 smaller centres between 2006 and 2010 that are attached to school and community buildings.

• In the early 2000’s children’s centres were part of a drive to get schools more involved in early years and supporting those with the highest levels of need. As such were delivered under the Community Learning Partnerships and SCC Early Years Unit.

• In 2011 a county-wide Early Years Transformation programme took place, with the 6 large bespoke children’s centres, targeted children’s centre outreach, Family Information Service, Children’s Centre Management Team, Business Support and Early Years Data resource transferred to Families First. This review also clustered the 54 delivery sites into 26 registered children’s centres (also know and children centre clusters).

• Early years workforce training, business support, Ofsted support and child-minder support for the PVI and maintained sector was transferred to Entrust.

• Within the Commissioning Delivery Hub, 8 Children’s Commissioners with responsibility for commissioning against ‘core purpose’

Current Performance

– The most recent Children’s Centre data for 2013-14 states that only

25.1% (11,578) of the total number of 0-5 year olds had reached

Children's Centre services either at a Children's Centre building or other

community venues.

– Just under a quarter or 24% (2,806) of the total 0-5 year olds reached by

Children’s Centre services are resident in the most deprived areas of

Staffordshire.

– As of December 2013, 287 0-5s were children subject to a Child

Protection Plan (over-represented at 44.8% compared to 26% of 0-19

population)

– In April 2014 51% (21) of those children entering care were under the age

of 5 years.

– There is on average a 17% point attainment gap between children living

in the 30% most deprived areas and children living in the rest of the

county. This is five times the national average.

Current Performance

– Staffordshire has a lower breastfeeding initiation rate than the national

average (68.5% and 73.9% respectively).

– According to the most recent Office of National Statistics data from 2012,

Tamworth has the 8th highest rate of teenage pregnancy nationally (per

thousand women aged 15-17)

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/conception-statistics--england-and-

wales/2012/sty-conception-rates.html”

– Staffordshire has a higher percentage of children aged 4-5 classified as obese

or overweight that the national average (9.6% and 9.3% respectively).

– Smoking in pregnancy rates have risen in Staffordshire compared to the rest

of the country.

Ofsted Inspection Framework

• Ofsted are currently in the process of inspecting children’s centres across the

country. Through these inspections Ofsted are focusing on:

– Parenting

– Partnership working

– Leadership

– Views of children and families

– Good data driving outcomes

– The development of parenting skills

– Working in partnership

• 4 Inspections have taken place to date with 4 to be completed by March 2015.

The results of these inspections were:

– Cannock Chase (5th & 6th March 2014) = Requires Improvement

– Lichfield (13th & 14th May 2014) = Requires Improvement

– Stafford (10th - 12th June 2014) = Requires Improvement

– East Staffordshire (18th & 19th June 2014) = Inadequate

Ofsted Inspection Findings

• The inspections have uncovered strengths and areas for improvement at

children’s, including:

• Strengths

– Large majority of families eligible for free early education places for 2 year old

children take up their entitlement

– Quality of commissioned services is good in places, but the quality is

inconsistent across the county

– Local partnerships are strong

• Common Themes for Improvement

– Insufficient families accessing provision, including those with higher levels of

need

– Insufficient data to assess the of the current approach on outcomes

– Systems to track and evaluate effectiveness of services across the wider offer

eg/ Health, ACL, DWP, Schools, Benefit advice

– Absence of SMART targets set by the Local Authority

– Model, including leadership, is complicated and fragmented

Stakeholder Engagement - Process

• Cabinet agreed in March to a stakeholder engagement exercise on the proposals

set out in the March Early Years cabinet report.

• Engagement has taken place between April and September with stakeholders

including:

– Families First

– Entrust

– Public Health

– Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent NHS Partnership Trust (SSOTP)

– Schools

– VAST

– Private and voluntary sector providers (Home Start, Autism Outreach etc)

– Selected groups of parents

Stakeholder Engagement – Feedback

• The current system is fragmented and a lack of coordination between agencies

can make things difficult for parents and providers.

• Outcomes are not currently being measured effectively enough.

• Prevention and early intervention are key to a good start, however we are still

intervening too late.

• Information, advice and guidance (IAG)for parents needs to be improved to

signpost and increase independence as a critical part of the universal offer.

• Good communication with hard to reach families vital if they are to engage and

remain engaged

• Pockets of good practice can be seen across partnership agencies, but there is an

inconsistency in the quality across the county

• Suggestions for improvement include better IAG, greater awareness of the

importance of breastfeeding across all agencies and professionals, and closer

working with schools where possible.

What Does this Mean?

• Getting the first 1001 days right (from conception to age 2)

• Excellent Information, Advice and Guidance for all

• Easy access to universal provision for families within localities

• Focussing on earlier intervention for families in need

• Being proactive and in the right place at the right time for

families with higher levels of need, rather than restricted by a

building based approach.

• Concentrating on building the skills and aspirations of adults

• A greater role for schools eg 8am-6pm agenda, 2 Years plus

• Integration is key – commissioning and delivery

• SCC influence and leadership critical