SURE START: the story of an area- based initiative for families with

young children under 4Eva Lloyd

Senior Lecturer Early Childhood StudiesSPS

19 July 2006

1. Lecture outline

• Natural history and timeline for development of Sure Start, this Government’s major family support initiative.

• The national Sure Start evaluation.

• The current debate concerning the future of Sure Start.

2. Sure Start: a natural history• 1998 Inter-Departmental multi-agency area-based

family support initiative, for some 400,000 children and their families.

• Universal, i.e. targeted at all under 4s and their families in disadvantaged areas, including 1/3 of under 4s living in poverty.

• 524 programmes operational in England by 2006 now known as Sure Start Local Programmes. Programmes rolled out in 5 rounds, starting with ‘trailblazers.’

• Core services: outreach and home visiting, parenting programmes and family learning, crèches and drop-ins, benefits advice, family health services. Since 2003/4 also early learning and daycare provision.

3. Sure Start: aims

Sure Start is the Government’s programme to support children, families and communities through the integration of early education, childcare, health and family support. Sure Start local programmes are one element of this, based in areas of disadvantage, whose aim is to improve the health and well-being of young children under 4 and their families, so that children have a greater opportunity to flourish when they start school.

(National Evaluation of Sure Start, 2004: 1)

4. Some Sure Start contextBy 1998/99 over a third of British children were living in households with incomes below 50% of the average…

(Gordon et al, 2000: 32)

Having recognised the complex and multi-dimensional nature of child poverty and social exclusion, these have been addressed by the present Administration across a wide front. Key elements of its anti-poverty strategy focus on welfare reform and public service changes, including area-based and universal public services that contribute to improving poor children’s life chances and breaking cycles of deprivation.

(Lloyd, 2006: 317)

5. Sure Start: governance and accountability

• At central government level, Department for Education and Skills has a Sure Start Unit which co-ordinates all childcare and early education services, including Sure Start.

• DfES works closely with Department of Health and Department for Work and Pensions.

• At local level, parental and community involvement were originally considered integral to programme development and quality. Sure Start multi-agency partnerships.

• 2004 Children Act returns local responsibility and accountability to local government Children’s Services Departments.

6. Key characteristics of Sure Start programmes

• Two generational;• Non-stigmatising;• Multifaceted;• Persistent;• Locally driven;• Culturally appropriate and sensitive to the needs

of children and parents.

(Glass, 1999)

7. Sure Start: timeline• 1998 – 2002 parallel development of

neighbourhood nurseries, early excellence centres and extended schools, all as part of the 1998 National Childcare Strategy, alongside Sure Start.

• 2003 Sure Start 10 year capital funding utilised for Childcare Strategy’s childcare component: all programmes to develop up to 50 full daycare places and offer grant-funded early education.

• 2003 original 524 Sure Start programmes to be known as ‘local programmes’ and all DfES childcare and early education initiatives to be renamed Sure Start initiatives.

8. Sure Start from 2004 onwards• Sure Start local programmes to be integrated with the

Children’s Centres initiative announced in 2003 Children Bill, now 2004 Children Act.

• By 2010 there will be 3500 Children’s centres offering an integrated programme of early education, childcare, health care provision and family support in every community for children up to secondary school age.

• All primary schools are encouraged by 2010 to offer early education, childcare (both daycare and out-of-school care for older children), family learning and family support, in their new role as ‘extended schools.’ They will open all year round.

9. The National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) 2001 - 2007

Evaluation team based at Birkbeck College, University of London and led by Professors Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky and Alastair Leyland (statistician).

• Impact module• Implementation module• Cost effectiveness module• Local context analysis module• Support to local programmes on local evaluation

module.

10. Additional components of the Sure Start evaluation

Also:• Case studies of 26 Local Sure Start programmes.• Thematic evaluations, e.g. father and minority

ethnic involvement, parenting support, and Sure Start local programmes in rural areas.

• Local evaluations.

(www.ness.bbk.ac.uk)

11. Challenges to NESS• SSLPs do not have a prescribed ‘curriculum’ or

set of services, e.g. delineated in a ‘manualised’ form, to promote fidelity of treatment to a prescribed model.

• SSLPs were advised that services should be ‘evidence-based’.

• The great diversity of interventions employed in SSLPs poses great challenges to evaluating their impact, as each SSLP is unique.

(Melhuish, Anning and Hall, 2005: i)

12. The NESS preliminary findings

November 2005 first findings in five early reports:

– Early impacts of SSLPs on children and families.– Variation in SSLP effectiveness: early preliminary

findings.– Maternity services in SSLPs.– Implementing SSLPs: an integrated overview of the

first four years.– The quality of early learning, play and childcare

services in SSLPs.

13. The overall NESS findings

The five early reports from the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) show that Sure Start is succeeding in making a difference to a large number of parents and children, and is doing particularly well in affecting parenting practices. However, the NESS findings raise two important issues: the programme is not reaching some of the most disadvantage families; and the work in the local programmes is not working as well as it should.

www.surestart.gov.uk/research/evaluations/ness/latestreports/

14. Some key contextual findings

• Many SSLP areas suffer from some of the worst deprivation in England. Unemployment, worklessness and low income more than double the national average in both 2000/0 and 2001/2.

• Just under half of all young children in SSLP areas in workless households, almost double the national average (43% compared to 22%).

• 1/3 of SSLP: minority ethnic population of 20% or more.• 20001/02 average birth rate 16 per 1000 population,

compared to 12 per 1000 for England.• The percentage of births to lone mothers in 2001/02 was

25% and to teenage mothers 4%.)

15. Parental employability• Some parents…face a range of complicated

barriers to work, and require intense and sustained support to deal with them.

• SSLPs act mainly as a bridge for parents into the education, training and employment services of other organisations which specialise in providing these services.

• The proportion of parents taking part in employment and training activities, even in the most active and encouraging programmes, is low. Those who do take part are almost all mothers.

(Meadows and Garbers, 2004:1)

16. The maternal employment dilemma

The emphasis given to support for employability by programmes reflects different local perceptions about the appropriate role for mothers in the early years. In many…there is a strong community emphasis on the importance of mothers being at home in their children’s early years.

(Meadows and Garbers, 2004:1)

17. Fathers’ involvement

• Staff in a large majority of SSLPs reported low levels of father involvement in programme activities…

• Fathers are inclined to attend activities designed specifically for them…

• Fathers continued to come to SSLPs when they had seen a positive benefit to themselves or to their children from a service.

• Where programmes had high levels of father involvement, they had decided early in the planning stages of the programme that fathers would be central to their work.

(Lloyd, O’Brien and Lewis, 2004:1)

18. The impact of SSLPs on child development and family functioning

• Cross sectional study of 9- and 36 month old children and their families 3 years after Sure Start implementation.

• Sample: 16,502 families in first 150 SSLP areas and 2,610 families in 50 comparison, Sure Start-to-be, communities.

• Assumption: potentially any services user in an SSLP area is affected by the SSLP.

• Some small beneficial and developmentally adverse impact effects detected.

(Melhuish et al, 2005: ii)

19. Outcome variablesChildren:• Cognitive and language development at 36/12.• Social and emotional development at 36/12.• Physical health at 9/12 and 36/12.

Parents:• Parenting and family functioning at 9/12 and 36/12.• Maternal psychological well-being.• Local area appraisal.• Services used and rated.

20. Parenting/Family functioning

• Supportive parenting: a construct of ‘responsivity’ and ‘acceptance’.

• Negative parenting: a construct of parent/child conflict, parent/child closeness, harsh discipline and home chaos.

• Home learning environment: learning opportunities provided in the home.

• Home chaos: disorganised, noisy, lacking regular routine.

NB respondents are MOTHERS.

(Melhuish et al, 2005: 39)

21. Impacts on parenting• 9/12 Mothers experience less household chaos.• 36/12 Ms are more accepting of children’s behaviour.• 36/12 Non-teen Ms (86% sample) show less negative

parenting.• 36/12 Children of Teen mothers show lower verbal

ability and social competence.• 36/12 Cn of Teen mothers show more behaviour

problems.• Cn in workless households (40% sample) and lone-

parent families (33% sample) score significantly lower scores on verbal ability.

(Melhuish et al, 2005: iv)

22. Adverse effects in most disadvantaged groups: why?

Three possible processes

1. Services being used more extensively by less advantaged groups depriving more disadvantaged.

2. Negative reaction by most disadvantaged to services offered.

3. Working with more cooperative groups easier for practitioners.

(Melhuish et al, 2005: 34)

23. Evaluation conclusions

…the findings of this report represent, at best, early indications of whether SSLPs might be affecting the well-being of children and families. Stronger grounds for drawing definitive conclusions about SSLP effectiveness will exist once longitudinal data on the 9-month olds and their families in SSLP areas who are included in this report are followed up at 36 months of age and thus have been exposed to SSLPs for a much longer period of time.

(Melhuish et al, 2005:2)

24.The future of Sure Start: the current debate

• Glass, Norman, Founder of Sure Start at HM Treasury, now Director of National Centre for Social Research. The Guardian, 05.01.05 Surely some mistake?

• Hodge, Margaret, Minister for Children. The Guardian, 08.01.05 Our baby is thriving.

• Eisenstadt, Naomi, Director of original and current Sure Start Unit at DfES. The Guardian, 16.02.05 Director defends ‘influential’ Sure Start

25. The DfES response2006 Sure Start Children’s Centres Practice Guidance emphasises:

• Local authorities’ need to make services and information meet the interests/needs of families better;

• Greater emphasis on outreach and home visiting;• Primary purpose is improving children’s life chances,

not to be attractive to parents;• Improved joint working and personalisation of services

delivery;• Good practice becoming commonplace.

www.surestart.gov.uk/improvingquality/guidance/practiceguidance/

ReferencesGlass, N. (1999) ‘Sure Start: The development of an

early intervention programme for young children in the United Kingdom.’ Children & Society, 13, 257-264

Gordon, D., Adelman, L., Ashworth, K., Bradshaw, J., Levitas, R., Middleton, S., Pantazis, C., Patsios, D., Payne, S., Townsend, P.and Williams, J. (2000) Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Lloyd, E. (2006) Children, poverty and social exclusion. In: D. Gordon, C. Pantazis and R. Levitas (eds) Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain: The Millennium Survey. Bristol: Policy Press

Lloyd, N., O’Brien. M. and Lewis, C. (2004) Fathers in Sure Start Local Programmes. National Evaluation Summary. www.ness.bbk.ac.uk

References

Meadows, P. and Garbers, C. (2004) Improving the employability of parents in Sure Start local programmes. National Evaluation Summary. www.ness.bbk.ac.uk

Melhuish, E., Anning, A. and Hall, D. (2005) Early Impacts of Sure Start Local Programmes on Children and Families. Research Report NESS/2005/FR/013/ London: HMSO

NESS, National Evaluation of Sure Start: http://www.surestart.gov.uk/research/evaluation/ness/latestreports/