Early years and Sure Start services are fundamental to giving children the best start in life, as well as being vital in helping parents to achieve a work-life balance. Local authorities, along with local partnerships, are the crucial element in providing these early years services. They have the power to close the gap between children living in poverty and the wider population, increase opportunity for all parents and achieve better outcomes for their local communities.
However, developing an effective early years strategy requires hard work and strategic thinking mixed with a dash of vision. But, how does this work in practice? Enter the Beacon Council Scheme, which has selected four local authorities - the London Boroughs of Camden and Newham, Leeds City Council and Somerset County Council, who have built excellent early years strategies based on the ten steps below - as examples of best practice that other councils can learn from.
In fact, according to children's minister Margaret Hodge, these trailblazing authorities "have demonstrated innovation and commitment, and I'd urge everyone working with young people to consider how they may engage with them".
DEVELOPING JOINED UP SERVICES
Joining up services can seem, at the outset, like a challenging business fraught with problems, but it has huge benefits, as Camden demonstrates.
In an unusual move, the council realigned its Sure Start boundaries with those of the local primary care trust to ensure that services were easier to deliver.
"In terms of delivery, it is easier to link up health services with Sure Start if the local clinics are in the same areas," explains Barbara Sampson, head of Camden's early years service. "Realigning the boundaries has really improved communication between the Sure Start areas and the PCT."
Leeds City Council is another local authority that has put a lot of energy into developing integrated services. It aims to have 21 children's centres up and running by March 2006, offering childcare from birth to five years old. "As well as childcare, all of the centres will have links with health visitors and family outreach workers, and will offer flexible community services," adds Sally Threlfall, head of the early years service in Leeds.
However, she warns that integrating services may be a phrase that is easy to say but is harder to put into practice. "You have to value all the perspectives of the people coming together and be flexible," she counsels.
"You also have to hang onto the common cause you're all fighting for - the wellbeing of children."
Mainstreaming the Sure Start agenda One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that everyone who needs to use Sure Start services has access to them. Newham, one of the most culturally diverse boroughs in London and one of the most deprived areas in the country, has spent time and effort to achieve equity across the area.
As a result, Janet Hicks, head of Newham's early years and childcare service, and her team set up the Early Start initiative. It brings health, social care, education and childcare under one remit, and involves cross-departmental working in the council. "Initiatives such as our Early Start programme work because all of the key people have an investment in them," believes Newham councillor Quintin Peppiatt.
The council also aims to have eight children's centres offering integrated services. "Previously, if parents wanted to find out about job opportunities, training or make an appointment for their child to see a speech therapist, they would have had to cross the borough," explains Hicks. "Now they will be able to visit a children's centre that will offer all of these services in one place."
The council is also focusing on outreach services because, according to Hicks, "there is no point in having one super-duper place in the centre of the borough if people have to get on a bus to reach it".
BUILDING IN INNOVATION
Innovation is key to expanding the early years service in a way that meets the need of each local authority and its inhabitants. Somerset, the only rural authority to receive a Beacon Award, has shown particular ingenuity.
The authority's Early Excellence centre, The Hollies, provides both centre-based and outreach services, such as a mobile service that offers access to a health practitioner, early years education, family learning, family support and New Deal advice.
"Staff from The Hollies take the van and visit an early years group," explains John Kirby, group manager of early years play and childcare management.
"The children can play and do activities in the van, or the parents can have one-to-one chats with a practitioner." Another innovative approach is Somerset's Portage home-visiting service, which identifies children with special educational needs at an early stage.
"The service also gives support to the parent," says Kirby. "Often, the parent of a child with special educational needs will feel quite isolated and anxious about the future."
ESTABLISHING AND SUSTAINING EDUCATION AND CHILDCARE
A huge problem facing early years services, especially in London, is keeping the money rolling in to maintain good-quality childcare and education.
"We can get these places up and running," reveals Sampson, "but the difficulty then is that the revenue for maintaining these places is meant to come from paying parents.
"Really, this money should be coming from the childcare element of the working tax credit," she adds. "But research we've done has shown that even parents claiming the maximum in tax credits can only afford to meet 40 per cent of the average price of a place in a private-sector nursery."
At the moment, Camden is sustaining its provision through parental contributions and council funding.
But Sampson is worried about the advent of children centres. "Our funding will become really stretched when we create more children's centres," she predicts. "And it will become an issue as the use of that funding becomes more widespread."
As a result, Camden is lobbying the Government to raise the working tax credit to reflect the higher cost of London childcare. And it also wants to see local authorities being given more ring-fenced revenue funding, so they can create more affordable places.
PROVIDING TRAINING
While early years services can play a key role in getting parents back into employment, they can also be integral in training childminders, who are in short supply in many areas.
Hicks explains how Newham tackled the training challenge. "We've done a lot of work with Newtec, a training provider that has been very successful in raising employment in the borough. But we've also been working in partnership with the East London Childcare Institute to provide training for those wanting to go into childcare.
"We're also looking at piloting a scheme called Childminder Associates, where childminders will be linked to their local children's centre or nursery school to get training, advice and to see good practice in action," she adds.
However, training also extends beyond the workforce to parents looking to get back into work. For Camden, one of the key ways of reducing child poverty is to get parents working.
In light of this aim, it set up the Better Childcare for Unemployed Parents initiative, where the scheme pays for childcare costs for a limited time when parents are training and when they return to work.
"We give them extra financial help to get them through that transitional period," explains Sampson.
PROMOTING DIVERSITY
When drawing up an early years strategy, it is vital to reach all children.
Somerset has strived to put inclusion at the heart of its agenda and "provide quality services for all children," explains Kirby.
The approach adopted by Somerset has been nicknamed Maisey (Multi-Agency Intervention and Support in the Early Years). For example, regular Maisey meetings ensure that children with special educational needs get a range of specialist support and interventions. "We've focused on identifying children with special educational needs as early as we can, and a lot of extra training has been given to early years staff to achieve this," says Kirby.
Leeds is also very strongly committed to its inclusion policy for children.
"Services are provided regardless of disability," reveals Threlfall, and the policy has been very successful. "We have seen little miracles happen. Some of these children who may have been put straight into a special school now have a future in mainstream schools."
But promoting diversity is not just about the children, it is also about childcare providers. Leeds has been working hard in this area by recruiting Black and minority ethnic childcare trainees. "We have been working with Positive Action Training in Housing (Path), Yorkshire, and we expect each childcare centre to take on a trainee either from Path or from our own job-placement scheme," explains Threlfall.
"It has been very successful," she says proudly. "So far, we have recruited 12 trainees in this way and they are still in employment six months later." Threlfall admits that recruiting men into the childcare workforce is still a tough nut to crack. "We have to raise the status of childcare and stop it being seen as a low-paid job done by women." But she's determined not to give up. "Our local Sure Start programme has been very successful in engaging with men and getting them onto parents forums. So I'm going try to take this further."
DRAWING UP A VISION
Having a strong officer and member vision is a key element to an effective early years strategy, believes Camden's Sampson. "It is so important to have this support across all departments in the council."
This philosophy is working well in Camden, and the Beacon Council's advisory panel commended the council's strategy as "simply outstanding", showing how "strong member and officer vision can be turned into effective delivery and action".
But while it's crucial to have a vision, it's also important to be adaptable and be prepared to change that vision, claims Sampson. "You still have to look at what is important for the child. When we realised that we needed some support around special educational needs, for instance, we developed the early years intervention team.
"In fact, part of the vision is finding the gaps and seeing where you have to still meet needs," she concludes.
PROVIDING CAPABILITY AND DELIVERY
Dreaming up a brilliant strategy is all very well, but how you deliver it is everything. According to Sampson: "Delivery is all about working in partnership with others to the best effect. There is no way that one local authority can deliver all these services by itself."
Somerset also believes that working in partnership with others is crucial to delivering an effective strategy. As a result, it has built up strong links with property services and planning officers to enable the expansion of nurseries and children's centres.
"The approach we use is that of the European Foundation for Quality Management, which is a model of how to work with your staff and achieve your targets together. This is all about the oil that makes the wheels turn," explains Kirby.
DEMONSTRATING COMMITMENT
"In Newham, we have a real commitment to making things happen from the members, the officers and staff at all levels," says Hicks. "This is so important, because once you have that you can make important changes. If you don't have this commitment, early years services and Sure Start can become isolated and won't be effective in what they do.
"Our lead member is Quintin Peppiatt, who is the lead member for early years, social care and health services," she continues. He is also chair of our inter-agency advisory panel, so he can monitor what is happening across the board and across the borough."
With commitment comes money and part of Leeds' success as an early years service is down to the high level of funding it gets from the local authority.
For instance, in 2004/5 Leeds' early years expenditure is predicted to be 25.3m, and it expects to spend 15m of this on daycare for children. "We are very lucky here, as we have had substantial investment that has given us a very good starting point," admits Threlfall.
ENABLING PARENTS AND CHILDREN TO JOIN IN
It may seem obvious, but involving parents and children is the final plank in an effective early years strategy, claims Kirby. "It is so important, because if the service we provide is what parents and children need, then they will use it," he says. Consequently, Somerset works with the Children's Fund to consult with children about what services they would like to have in their nurseries.
Leeds is another council that is strong on consultation. "We have a range of ways of doing this," explains Threlfall. "For children under two who can't tell us what they want, for instance, we carry out observations and use photographs and pictures.
"But we also work very closely with parents, because happy parents mean happy children." In fact, for Threlfall, while strategies are important, it's the wellbeing of the child that is paramount. "It is really important to find out what engages them and makes them laugh."
IN FOCUS - THE BEACON AWARDS
The Beacon Awards are designed to raise standards in local authorities by identifying excellent performing councils and helping them to spread best practice. This is the first year that early years services and Sure Start have been singled out as a theme for the Beacon Awards. Thirty-eight local authorities in England applied, with 11 shortlisted.
In assessing the applications, the advisory panel looked for local authorities with active policies for joining up services for young children and plans to mainstream the Sure Start agenda across their authority. They also had to be able to demonstrate success in establishing and sustaining good-quality education and childcare, training, recruitment and retention, and promoting diversity.
"For a local authority to get a Beacon Award is a recognition of excellence," says Alden Brown, project manager at IDeA (the Improvement and Development Agency), which is responsible for co-ordinating the programme of sharing best practice. "It also helps with recruitment, as councils with Beacon status are attractive to job applicants."
A boost for the winners is the chance to share their hard-won experience with other local authorities. For information on events where the Beacon authorities will share best practice over the next year, visit www.idea.gov.uk/beacons or contact IDeA Beacon on 020 7296 6880.
RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION
Recruitment and retention of staff is a problem for most local authorities both in terms of childcare providers and officers at the council. Newham tends to cultivate its own childcare providers. For instance, nurseries and childminders that create additional childcare places get extra funding from the council.
This has been so successful that the council has exceeded its childcare targets.
But for officers, it's a different matter. "It is difficult," admits Janet Hicks, head of early years at Newham council. "This is a new area, since nobody has worked in the sector as an integrated service manager, so a lot of these skills need to be developed on the job."
Hicks believes the answer lies in using existing staff and training them for the new roles. "We need to develop more training for staff," she says. "It is also about looking for them in places that we haven't looked before."
John Kirby, group manager of early years play and childcare management at Somerset Council, agrees. "One of the best solutions to the problem of getting skilled officers in the service is to develop your own staff and for them to move up the career ladder and grow," he concludes.
