Ten years of cuts have left many families in dire straits. There's lots of talk about it but little action and acion is desperately needed, especially for families with babies and toddlers who got much less. public attention, even during the covid-19 pandemic and lock-downs, than school-age children. Parents struggled just as hard to meet the developmental needs of babies as to home-school eight year olds. And while everyone knew school meals were urgently needed duringg the holidays, who knew that parents at home were starving themselves to feed their toddlers? We need to recognise the damagge ten years of cuts and a year of covid have done and get ready to do better, duringg the inevitable recession ahead .
Government knows that local councils and organisations must play a big role. Baby and Toddler groups are local, both geographically and in their knowledge of what their communities need. With adequate, ring-fenced funding they could bring together everyone who works with young families - from community midwives and health visitors to nurery nurse assistants so they could work and learn together, and with as many centres as primary schools in every area they would be places for parents to take those youngest children,. places to play and talk. and places where if advice was needed it would be available today or next week, not in three months if you're lucky. If that sounds like a pipe-dream, find someone who used the Sure-Start centres founded 20 years ago for help young families in poverty., They showed then that local community centres could make a real difference to the health and happiness of young familes. Their loss
has been one of the tragedies of a decade of cuts. .But we know that New centres , planned to fit today's circumstances and each community's needs ,and protected from financial competition with other services, can work , now., to provide wrap-around services for all young families and help society towards the promised levelling-up