Sure Start’s pathway to success
Designed to deliver better outcomes for children, families and communities, England’s multi-billion dollar Sure Start program was launched in 1999. It is widely acknowledged internationally as one of the most far reaching and significant public policy initiatives based on research evidence about the importance of the early years.
London-based Sure Start Director, Naomi Eisenstadt, visited Australia in August and spoke to DoCS staff in Sydney about the success (and growing pains) of Sure Start.
Whole-of-government approach
Sure Start in an innovative whole-of-government approach that brings together early education, childcare, health and family support. It provides early education for three-and four-year-olds, affordable, quality childcare and after-school activities in every area, and children’s centres and health and family support in disadvantaged areas where they are most needed.
Ms Eisenstadt said the traditional approach of keeping social and economic interventions separate was ineffective and wasteful. Sure Start tries to integrate these and works with parents to build aspirations for employment and for their children’s education. “Parental aspirations are the single most important factor in achieving better outcomes for children, more important than quality of group setting, school or teachers,” said Ms Eisenstadt.
User-led planning
The program also consults with parents about service development and includes them on the Board of Sure Start programs. “In this way, we’ve moved from provider-led planning to user-led planning,” said Ms Eisenstadt.
“However, we need to be community driven but professionally informed”, she added.
“We found that while we had a thousand blooms in terms of local programs perhaps some of these needed to be weeded out. The policy lesson was that we needed a balance of prescription and local determination.”
Common assessment framework
A common assessment framework and information sharing between services was also fundamental to improving services – so that a core set of knowledge about a family could be shared.
‘It’s not fair that a mother has to tell the same story about her disabled child over and over again each time a new support service is introduced,” said Ms Eisenstadt.
Starting early
Research and evaluation supports the need to start early and demonstrate that pre-school experiences enhance children’s development.
Ms Eisenstadt said that the quality of this experience was directly related to outcomes – with staff qualifications highlighted as a key indicator of quality. An interesting finding was that starting quality childcare before children are three makes a significant difference, while whether it is part-time or full-time does not. Also quality childcare for children less than one year old appears uneconomic, while the greatest benefit is observed for those between two and three years old.
The Sure Start Unit is part of the Children, Young People and Families Directorate. It has a headquarters in London and a regional structure with teams based in nine Regions. For more information go to www.surestart.gov.uk