Surestart should be reistated for the good of the nation

[Wavywoo]

The report out today that shows the longterm benefits of the Surestart programme confirms what supporters of the scheme said all along.

The government have grossly mismanaged public resource, and done children and families a massive diservice, in defunding Surestart, and yet claiming to have spent several times more on Early Years.

@Desecratedcoconut That's true - if you no longer need those services you might not know exactly what's out there on offer.
I actually found it a bit of a waste that the Surestart centres were basically sat unused in the evenings and weekends.
Having a community centre that covers babies up to the oldies with all the different services in one place makes more economical sense to me.

Or they could offer a drop in service for people losing their minds with colicky babies during the witching hour. I'd go rock a crying baby for an hour now to give a parent the chance to have a cup of tea and put their head together. I'd actually love that.

When we run the country I'm sure we could nut something out 😁

Surestart was a centrally funded government initiative and ran a wide range of services daily

children’s centres are run by local authorities tend to offer less and be open less or be nonexistent in some areas. The odd one or two might be run by charities

with local authorities budgets stretched to the point of not being able to meet statutory obligations many are closed or facing closure

Surestart was a fantastic programme. Our local Surestart hub did a lot of good locally and we used them on multiple occasions when we were exploring the possibility that DS (then aged 3) had autism. They got me a place on an excellent autism awareness course for parents, they ran communication courses for families of children with delayed language. They got me a family support worker to give me advice on how to deal with DS's sensory needs and frequent meltdowns. At this point we received virtually no support from NHS or LEA so Surestart was a lifeline for us. Those responsible for scrapping it removed a critical safety net for family of vulnerable children. I hope they are ashamed. (Although I doubt it.)

There's one about three miles from me, it's only available to people on benefits and for whom their children would be eligible for free school meals - isn't that an income of £6k?

They used to be everywhere and for anyone who needed them. Although some children's centres may still exist - it's a fraction of what was in place ten years ago. There were about five centre in my town, only one remains and it only offers a small amount of what used to be on offer.

I agree with this. The depressing curriculum, the results factory of GCSE's, the scrapheap if you cant memorise the (quite difficult to achieve and in many cases, irrelevant and useless) enormous volume of information you need to absorb to achieve a 4 in English and maths, the lack of vocational training routes, and now, the scrapping of Btecs, replacing them with T Levels but leaving a massive gap in L2 vocational qualifications. The 16-25 year olds who have poor mental health aren;t the ones with the apparently 'useless' degrees, they are the ones with no qualifications and no degrees, doing zero hours contracts with no prospects.

As a severely depressed, mentally unstable single mum, Sure Start saved my life 11 years ago. DD is now thriving and I owe a good deal of this to Sure Start. I pity anyone without that post natal support.

I think its both.

I was a parent on benefits in the sure start years. It was an absolute godsend and gave me volunteering opportunities with free childcare which led to full time work elsewhere.
The one I attended attracted a lot of vulnerable families and had a thriving group for teenage parents as well as an amazing baby sensory and other groups
i eventually ended up working in surestart and supported families at home and to attend activities etc. I saw first hand the difference it made.
i agree with more MH provision but let’s not forget our vulnerable teens are getting into their 20s now and will soon be parents- and will need extra support

@ghostyslovesheets thanks.
When my girl was a baby (2008) all our local ones didn't have the "Surestart" name but they did offer lots of services.
It definitely is a service that's needed - whatever they call it.

You honestly see no link here?
It's about prevention.
Think about it.

I wasn't trying to be funny, I have two disabled children of my own. My point was focused on the fact that other families would have had less resources themselves than you did.

Sometimes the courses I was offered didn't suit our needs, but I was glad to have had the offer and the peer support.

Some families did and do need courses that may seem pretty basic to others.

I think one of the big things that the centres offered us was a consistently warm and non judgemental welcome, given my children's disabilities this was sadly not guaranteed on other places, and I hope that you felt welcome at your centre.

i think this is sn interesting finding:

"For children with special educational needs, Sure Start increased access to support for children at young ages, before reducing it for older children. At the age of 16, the use of Education, Health and Care Plans decreased by 9 per cent (or over 1,000 children per year) among children who lived near a Sure Start centre, compared with those who lived further away."

I accepted your challenge and googled, as you're right, my children are teens now. We have something called a Family Hub, which does appear to offer some if the things our Surestart did. I hope it continues to grow.

Unfortunately, it is not as accessible or visible as the two that we had were, this one is in the secondary school, whereas the two we used to have were at two primary schools. They were in the middle of two of our more deprived housing estates, the high school is in the middle.

It doesn't seem to have any outdoor play space, but maybe they use the school's.

Fingers crossed that it builds up to be as good as the resource we lost!

@Wavywoo fingers crossed indeed that it does well - and the people that need to use it are made aware and actually do use it 🙂

We all hear so many stories of children starting school in nappies (no ND reason), unable to hold cutlery, not brushing teeth etc etc. It can be argued that these are life skills that should be taught by parents and yes I agree. However not everybody has been taught these things or are able to. These are the parents that Sure start centres should first and foremost be reaching out to. I agree with the centres wholeheartedly but there has to be a way of reaching out to people that are unwilling or unable to access for various reasons. I've seen lots of comments about MC people accessing the services for a freebie, yes you'll probably always get people doing that. However that one parent out of a group of 20 may be middle class but is struggling with MH or their child isn't feeding well enough. Blocking access off based on income would cause struggles in other areas for those women who don't fall into a WC or unemployed background. I also don't think SS should stop at 5 either, I'm not sure where the cut off would lie. However these places can be utilised by having spaces for teens, job seekers and financial matters.

Yes it should be reinstated, I was talking about this yesterday to a woman i met at a sure start baby group over 20 years ago.. she was 44 and a first mum, I was 21 but that group was a godsend a couple of mornings a week.
I literally felt like I was going insane with tiredness and colic and loneliness and so did she!
I don't know about the rest of the country but in my town they've shut down the children's library (another godsend) and the community centre that used to run toddler groups also gone.
A friend of mine who works as a reception teacher also believes these services are very important to early years and she's seeing an impact on children when they start school.
The nursery hours for two/three year olds were obviously very helpful and meant I could go back to work but sure start helped me a lot through the baby years.

I would definitely support this
Ok some people who need it won’t use it and some sharp elbowed middle class mums will but overall I believe that they did a lot of good

Just reading the comments, like I said a few comments ago I used Sure Start a lot 20 years ago and had zero idea it was aimed at a certain group (poor/young parents?)
The group I went to was very diverse/middle class/poor mixed age group. This was Sputh London.

There's some cognitive dissonance that a site where the Princess of Wales is generally held in high regard is so dismissive of one of her particular causes-the importance of Early Years intervention.....

Society most definitely has not moved on.
Just because other areas need investment, such as mental health care, that doesn't mean we can neglect younger children and their parents either. Many children are still growing up in poverty, whether their parents work or not.

Family hubs are nowhere near as good as CC’s. Our CC became a ‘hub’ and is basically a reception area which hosts meetings and baby weigh ins or antenatal clinics. They do offer emergency support like food bank vouches but the receptionists have no knowledge of early years. Our CC had a team of helpful outreach workers who could meet with you to offer support and advice and usually one was around as a ‘drop in’.
Aldo, the workers who operate from hubs serve only the most need families. So those who need early help support who get home visits. There not a service for all families- no groups or drop ins etc
Famiky hubs are very different and sadly very lacking

It was an excellent scheme and discontinuing it a prime example of false economy. The money saved to the public purse by preventative measures like this is significant and proven. I'd be behind any campaign for reinstatement.

I think the most significant thing about sure start for me, as a mum and an early years teacher, is that it recognised early childhood as a crucial part of our society and strove to equip new families with the skills, support networks and confidence to help their young children thrive.

For those particular children with poor mental health the posters above describe, there will be others whose mental health, physical health and lifelong outcomes are much, much better as a result of surestart.

Perhaps the model wasn't perfect but the spirit was there - investing your youngest members of society to enable a better future for all of us. It's every bit as important as health, defence and the economy.

More and more of the services that were offered by Sure Start have now moved onto nursery staff to provide - without the recognition as experienced professionals those in Sure Start centres used to get and despite all the extra training we've had to take to ensure the children in our care are getting their needs met. It's frustrating to have that aspect to be added onto a busy workload but it's also letting down families as they have nowhere to turn for support outside of this provision now.

Yeah, again, doing a thing for a kid isn't the same as supporting a parent to do a thing for a kid. It's a different skill set with a more profound ability to improve the life of the child and a family.

Beside, the sure start workers weren't like local celebs riding a wave of respect and popularity.