The Prime Minister’s “Plan for Change” includes a goal for 75% of five-year-olds in England to be “ready to learn” when they start school and to “strengthen and join up family services to improve support through pregnancy and early childhood”. The government’s renewed focus on the early years is welcome, but to achieve these ambitious aims, it will need to provide clarity on their targets, significantly rebuild the workforce, and commit to funding a comprehensive family support programme.
Scale of the challenge
First, the government has no hope of achieving this goal without providing greater clarity over what it means. Most parents will think it means being “ready for school” on the first day, yet the government’s definition equates to the end of reception. Similarly, what does “ready” actually mean? Parents need straightforward information. Confusion over the scale of the challenge, will only serve to undermine progress. The government along with parents and the sector must work in harmony.
Second, while the UK was once a world leader in family support policy, successive funding cuts have seen significant decline. Austerity has damaged the outcomes this support can deliver for families and needs to be urgently addressed for the government to meet its goals.
The sector is crying out for investment to rebuild the workforce and an increased budget to train them in the “evidence-based interventions” the Prime Minister mentioned.
Third, we need to dramatically increase access. Investment in family hubs has been limited to only half of England, meaning access to evidence-based parenting support such as Triple P, is a postcode lottery for parents.
Internal analysis by the Department for Education has revealed that educational and social development outcomes may have worsened in areas with fewer non-statutory funding and interventions, such as family hubs and the Start for Life programme, widening the school readiness gap for the most disadvantaged.
Access to parenting support
We know that a variety of intensities and delivery formats of parenting support must be offered to significantly increase reach and deliver a truly joined up end-to-end system of parenting and family support, all without compromising the evidence-base. In order to break the unfair link between background and opportunity the government must ensure parents in every area have access to effective evidence-based parenting support.
The quickest and most effective route to increase the reach and access would be a digital rollout of evidence-based parenting support. Doing so would follow the successful blueprint provided by the Labor government in Australia.
In 2022, Australia launched a nationwide roll out of our online parenting programmes which has been an emphatic success with the more than 400,000 families who have accessed the free support. The scaling up of access to these evidence-based programmes in Australia is delivering significant outcomes and helping move from a solely individual-level focus to a population-level one and represents a shift to prevention and early intervention over treatment - alongside moving from analogue to digital - matching Wes Streeting’s ambitions for the NHS.
Empowering parents
We know from the practitioners and parents we work with how important parenting support is to families nationwide. With our annual practitioner survey finding reports of an 81% increase in parental mental health concerns, and an 85% increase in parents identifying concerns around the cost of living, it’s key that programmes such as Triple P for Baby – now accessible in most family hub areas – which are proven to empower parents and provide them with tools that benefit their family over time, are made widely available so children have the best start.
If this government is clear about developing a shared goal, commits to funding a comprehensive family support programme, and scaling evidence-based programmes, it will not only be a vote winner in four years’ time but have the potential to transform the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children.
