Learning from Sure Start: Working with Young Children & their Families

Learning from Sure Start: Working with Young Children & their Families by Jo Weinberger et al (Eds).

Here is an extraordinary text.  It is a critical and insightful examination by insiders and outsiders from an inter-disciplinary perspective of one early childhood programme – Foxhill and Parson Cross Sure Start.  It has set a new standard for programme evaluations.

Learning from Sure Start explains in clear detail the processes of undertaking evaluation and research, critically reports findings, discusses issues and candidly identifies problems and lessons learnt. The maxim of “No mistakes – no learning” guides the honesty that is as plain as the nose on your face in this text.

The Sure Start programme model is a unique British policy initiative. Learning from Sure Start provides international access to information about Sure Start from the experience of one programme locality.  The text explains how the programme works in practice, the problems, the shortcomings and issues (policy/funding problems and developing collaborative relationships amongst different professionals are the major macro issues), the benefits and possibilities for doing more to make a greater difference for young children, their families, their community, and ultimately benefiting  British society.  Early childhood policy planners and makers in other countries (and dare I suggest to our policy makers inNew Zealand also) should read this book. 

It may be unsettling to read how the British have been trying to get it right for young children by taking an integrated service delivery approach, aiming to base services on what children and parents need rather than on what the experts and bureaucrats think they need. 

The multidisciplinary approach of having preschool teachers, health visitors, social workers and others working alongside each other and collaboratively seems a much more sensible and powerful one for addressing community needs and raising outcomes for children than professionals working in competition and in isolation of one another.  For parents and young children this makes it more likely that they will receive support that is appropriate, e.g. in relation to the child safety scheme at Foxhill and Parson Cross Sure Start it is noted by the evaluator Robin Carlisle that:

There is general agreement that education on its own is of limited value. Targeting ‘at risk’ groups for specific education programmes risks ‘victim blaming’ and there is no evidence that ‘at risk’ groups have less knowledge or are less concerned about accidents. The main problem is lack of resources to make homes safer (p. 118)

Within a multi-disciplinary team approach the delivery of services was strengthened because people had to learn from each other.

Locating Sure Start programmes within ‘pram-pushing’ distance for parents in communities with a high level of disadvantage seems to be a strategy that works in making a difference to the life outcomes of this hard-to-reach group. Internationally, the Sure Start model is a valuable one for policy-makers and planners to study and learn from. 

At Foxhill and Parson Cross Sure Start a ‘no blame’ culture is described to have resulted in staff being more willing to try new ideas and to develop a programme that was truly innovative and responsive, listening as far as possible to parents in designing services and content whilst working to meet specific nationally-required targets.

Strong editorship makes this text very readable, with consistent language and structure. Research issues such as ethics and independence are covered adequately in the introduction and in various studies reported.  Nineteen chapters are included:

1. Why we should learn from Sure Start by Peter Hannon and Linda Fox
2. Listening to families: a survey of parents’ views by Jo Weinberger
3. Family support by Jo Weinberger
4. ‘Connecting with our Kids’ parenting programme by Margaret Drake
5. Meeting the needs of teenage parents by Deborah Crofts
6. Low birth weight – exploring the contribution of nutrition – by Fiona Ford
7. Supporting breastfeeding mothers by Sue Battersby
8. The impact of Sure Start on health visiting
9. Child safety scheme by Robin Carlisle
10. Quality of play and learning opportunities by Simon Martinez
11. Community teaching in a Sure Start context by Jackie Marsh and Jan Forde
12. Screening and language development by Caroline Pickstone
13. Media, popular culture and young children by Jackie Marsh
14. A dialogic reading intervention programme for parents and preschoolers by Anne Morgan
15. Community involvement by Helen Lomas and Peter Hannon
16. The young families’ advice service by Imogen Hale
17. Community research by Jo Weinberger
18. Bringing it together: the role of the programme manager – Linda Fox, programme manager talks to the editors
19. Looking to the future by Peter Hannon, Caroline Pickstone, Jo Weinberger and Linda Fox.

Published by Open University – McGraw Hill, 2005