First delivered in Manchester on 16th October 2024. Check against delivery,
The Critical Role of Early Years Intervention: Successes, strategies and the impact of Family Hubs and HCRG
Introduction:
Good evening everyone. Thank you for that kind introduction and warm welcome.
I’m delighted to be here tonight to speak about a topic that is incredibly close to my heart – supporting families and giving every child the best possible start in life.
As someone who has long championed social mobility and expanding opportunities for all, like you, I know that one of the most impactful things we can do as a society is to prioritise early intervention. The evidence is clear that the first 1,001 days of a child’s life are critical in shaping their future health, well-being and life chances as they begin to climb their ladder of opportunity.
The Promise of Family Hubs:
I don’t need to remind anyone in this room tonight of the importance of Family Hubs in giving every child the best start in life.
They represent an innovative and integrated approach to supporting families by bringing together services like health visitors, midwifery, mental health support and early years education under one roof, making it easier for families to access the help they need.
And the statistics and evidence speak for themselves:
- Children who receive high-quality early years support are estimated to be four months ahead in literacy development compared to those who do not.
- Research shows that for every £1 invested in early years interventions, there is an average return of £4 in long-term societal benefits including reductions in costs related to crime, healthcare and welfare.
- A landmark study found that children who participated in high-quality early childhood programmes were 80% more likely to graduate from senior school and 130% more likely to be consistently employed as adults.
These figures paint a clear picture – investing in children’s earliest years pays enormous dividends, both for individuals and for society as a whole.
It’s why I’ve been such a passionate advocate for expanding early years support, as an MP, as the Chair of the Education Select Committee, and as a Minister in the Department for Education. Because I know that Family Hubs, and their role in supporting early intervention have such transformative potential.
Now, as some of you will know, I love JRR Tolkien. I know that here in Manchester, Tolkien’s First World War revolver is displayed at Imperial War Museum North.
I have always found that his writings and imagination never fail to bring to life an issue that can feel sometimes insurmountable. And the concept of a Family Hub is no different.
At the end of Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and Sam return to the Shire, oust Saruman and return to their normal lives, Sam goes to Frodo to ask him for his permission to leave Bag End and move in with his new wife Rosie Cotton and their family.
“When all was at last ready Frodo said: ‘When are you going to move in and join me, Sam?’ Sam looked a bit awkward. ‘There is no need to come yet, if you don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘But you know the Gaffer is close at hand, and he will be very well looked after by Widow Rumble.’ ‘It’s not that, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam, and he went very red. ‘Well, what is it?’ ‘It’s Rosie, Rose Cotton,’ said Sam. ‘It seems she didn’t like my going abroad at all, poor lass; but as I hadn’t spoken, she couldn’t say so. And I didn’t speak, because I had a job to do first. But now I have spoken, and she says: “Well, you’ve wasted a year, so why wait longer?” “Wasted?” I says. “I wouldn’t call it that.” Still I see what she means. I feel torn in two, as you might say.’ ‘I see,’ said Frodo: ‘you want to get married, and yet you want to live with me in Bag End too? But my dear Sam, how easy! Get married as soon as you can, and then move in with Rosie. There’s room enough in Bag End for as big a family as you could wish for.’
Frodo asks Sam and his family to move in with him and turns Bag End into the first family hub in Middle Earth.
The role of HCRG Care Group:
But before I get too carried away with my love of Tolkien, I’d like to take some time to remind us of why we are all here tonight and to recognise the incredibly valuable role that specialist organisations like the HCRG Care Group, who have brought us here this evening, play in delivering early intervention services across the country.
There are some great examples of the work they have been doing across the country, and I wanted to talk about some of those. I know HCRG well. In my patch in Essex, HCRG in partnership with Barnardo’s delivers the Child and Family Wellbeing Service and I was lucky to visit the services and see their impact on many occasions throughout my tenure as the MP in Harlow.
These services, no matter who provides them, support families and children from pre-birth to the age of 19, or 25 for those with SEND) and do a vital job in giving everyone the best start in life and ensuring everyone reaches their full potential.
Services like these operate up and down the country, with varying models and approaches – but above all, they aim to be preventative where they can and as I know from the services in Essex, the impact that they have can be huge.
I think this speaks so significantly to my earlier point about the need for early intervention to ensure every child can access the educational opportunities they deserve to get the best start in life.
But it’s not just in Essex where these services are having a huge impact, they are delivering across the country and showing huge potential to do even more as we look to the future.
These outcomes and benefits contribute to improving the overall health and well-being of children, young people, and families across Lancashire, while also potentially reducing the burden on other healthcare services through early intervention and prevention strategies.
This comprehensive approach aligns well with the Family Hub model, providing integrated, sustainable and accessible support for families and young people close to home, reducing the burden on our public services, and working to ensure every child gets the support they need to begin climbing their ladder of opportunity.
Case Studies and Early Successes:
There are several early successes and case studies I could point to to showcase the positive impact that family hubs and early intervention initiatives are having but I’d like to focus on just three.
In Salford, the council have taken a strengths-based approach by really listening to local families about what they need and providing those services. They’ve used Family Hubs and Start for Life funding to invest in their 0-2 offer, perinatal mental health services and peer-to-peer infant feeding support.
The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has focussed on creating a unified online Family Hub to improve digital access to services. Their research found that 90% of families believed this would significantly improve their daily lives.
Cornwall has not only improved frontline services but also invested in staff training and governance to create a more sustainable model.
International Lessons:
But it’s not just here at home where we can see the significant strides made to support families. There are lessons we can draw from internationally to help improve our domestic offer.
In Australia, Child and Family Centres have been established as integrated services hubs for families and children up to age five. These centres have improved access to services for vulnerable families, enhanced collaboration between health, education and social services, and increased parental engagement in children’s early learning.
A study of these centres found that 97% of parents reported feeling welcome and respected, and 91% said the centres had helped them feel more confident as parents which is critical to support children’s starts in lives as so much of that support comes from the home.
New Zealand’s Early Start Programme is a home-visiting intervention for at-risk families with young children. Outcomes from this programme are already showing a reduced rate of child abuse, improved child health outcomes, and enhanced parenting skills and family finances. Long-term studies have shown that children who participated in this programme had 50% lower rates of physical abuse and neglect.
In Singapore, their KidSTART initiative provides coordinated support to low-income families based on home visits, supported playgroups and pre-school support. Early evaluations are already showing improvements in children’s developmental outcomes and increased parental confidence.
These examples offer us valuable insights for our UK models:
- Integration is key. The success of Australia’s Child and Family Centres showcases the importance of seamless integration between services.
- Evidence-based interventions are critical. Like Salford, New Zealand’s programme demonstrates the importance of rigorously evaluated, and informed service provision to meet local needs.
- Targeted support. Singapore’s work highlights the benefits of targeting support and resources on the most vulnerable families can yield significant results.
But most of all, these programmes all emphasise the need to sustained and long-term investment to see meaningful outcomes.
Focusing in on Manchester & Essex - Commissioning:
I’d like us to now travel back to the UK and focus on two key examples where Family Hubs and integrated service models have really worked well.
Firstly, in honour of our location tonight, I’d like to talk about the work going on in Manchester.
The Manchester Children and Parents Service (CAPS) has been highlighted by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence as a model for best practice for Early Years social and emotional well-being.
CAPS is a jointly commissioned, multi-agency partnership between health services, early years and several voluntary sector organisations which delivers parent programmes, guidance and targeted initiatives like Think Equal, to a diverse population of families with children experiencing emotional and behavioural problems across Manchester.
The Think Equal Programme is a pioneering early-years development programme which has supported more than 42,000 children across the region. It’s been implemented in almost 1,000 reception classes and in 659 nurseries across all ten local authorities and supports the social and emotional development of children aged 3-5 as part of Greater Manchester’s Covid recovery and school-readiness work.
Early indications are already showing this approach is working and we expect to see further improvements highlighted in the next tranche of school readiness data.
Now some of you in this room may remember a Select Committee report I launched as the Chair in 2018 on the importance of early years interventions.
Manchester was a seminal focus of our report and one of our key recommendations was for the Government to build on the evidence in Greater Manchester, especially where every child is assessed 8 times up to their fifth birthday, including for communication and language development This model allowed for immediate interventions where problems were identified and is something I still believe should be followed across the country.
But there are some key factors we need to take note of which underline Manchester’s success.
- Their use of evidence-based models and robust measures to collect outcomes data.
- Adopting a collaborative approach with multiple agencies.
- Establishing a training hub for practitioners.
- Having champions within services to advocate for evidence-based practise.
- And providing access to high-quality supervision and consultation.
How many of you in this room can already see the links between the work going on here in Manchester, and in the insights I’ve identified from other case studies here and around the world?
That’s because these fundamental principles and ways of working highlighted across these examples are critical to the ongoing success of the Family Hub model.
Commissioning:
Before I turn to the opportunity we have to amplify these learnings with the new Government, I want to spend a minute focussing on one critical point – and that is commissioning.
We’ve seen in Manchester that so much of their success is down to their collaborative approach to working alongside multiple agencies, but I firmly believe that the way these services are commissioned also plays a fundamental role in how well early intervention can work.
Traditionally, local authorities identify a need for a service, usually in isolation of other service needs, put this out to tender, and then procure a service based on value for money.
But we desperately need to be much more dynamic in how we commission services. It can’t just be about a baseline value on a spreadsheet. Instead, we must put the needs of children, families and local communities at the heart of our procurement processes.
Take the West Essex partnership for example. This procurement process began with a consultation and involved the CCG and Local Authorities like Essex and Harlow right from the start. It began by identifying the issues, and most importantly what the outcomes that the community wanted to see from this service.
By aligning local providers and service delivery against the needs of the community – not just in isolation – they were able to bring people together to provide targeted and specialised provision which met the needs of the area to give children the best starts in life.
This demonstrates to me, the incredible value of re-thinking the way we commission services. If we keep following the same rules, the same patterns, and the same traditional processes we’ll continue to hit the same barriers and miss out on the opportunities to really deliver for our children and young people. Instead, we must grasp the opportunities ahead of us and be bold in our approach to put the next generation at the heart of what we do.
Labour’s Approach to Family Hubs:
Now, I’m sure it has passed none of you by that we have recently had a General Election which has seen Labour enter into Government with a landslide majority.
But as with all elections, and as particularly highlighted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, this presents us with an opportunity for change. We can already see the new Education Secretary Bridget Philipson lean into this narrative in her drive to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child, and we can see her continued reference to her desire to improve the status and quality of our early years provision.
But despite this drive for change, much of the Government’s policy programme detail is still emerging, although I think we can glean some insights from their manifesto and recent statements.
Firstly, Labour has committed to expanding Family Hubs across the country. They’ve promised to open an additional 3,000 new school-based nurseries, create 100,000 new nursery places and introduce a new Young Futures programme in every community. These hubs are intended to “support young people’s mental health and avoid them being drawn into crime”.
The emphasis on mental health support is particularly noteworthy with the Government pledging to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so every young person has access to early intervention and support before they reach a crisis point.
Now back in my day, which is too long ago that I care to remember, mental health was never really discussed. Only recently has it become more public and mainstream about the damaging impacts of negative mental health and the way this affects the life chances of our young people.
As the Chair of the Select Committee, and as a Minister, I would hear harrowing accounts and statistics of the damage that poor mental health can have on a young person’s future. Post-pandemic, 1 in 6 young people identified as having a mental health issue and we know the rise of social media prevalence is further negatively impacting this.
For me, the answer is resilience and this must be born out of early intervention and support to be able to deal with the challenges of our modern world. We’re never going to be able to ban social media, but instead, through networks like Family Hubs, we can give young people the tools they need to deal with these problems head-on.
Another key element of Labour’s offer is SEND. Their manifesto outlines a ‘community-wide’ approach which aims to improve inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools while ensuring specialist schools can cater to those with the most complex needs.
And the final element of their programme for Government is their planned work on early years quality. This includes a goal to deliver half a million more children hitting Early Learning Goals by 2030, a new focus on supporting language skills and maths learning, and an early years numeracy drive to champion high-quality numeracy provision.
These are all laudable goals, and I was pleased to see that they have commissioned Sir David Bell, former Ofsted Chief Inspector to look at driving up standards in childcare.
But as I’ve already said, early years provision cannot just be looked at in isolation and I would urge Sir David to expand the scope of his work to look at how childcare and support for early years can be provided through Family Hubs, community services, and the existing mechanisms of support.
We don’t need to re-invent the wheel in this case – we know what works – instead, we just need an MOT of the system with a new change of tyres.
Conclusion:
The potential of 0-19s and family hubs is immense. These services have the power to change young lives for the better and set them on the path to climb the ladder of opportunity.
But there are challenges that they will face and which need to be tackled head on in order to see success.
- Funding sustainability. Many councils express concerns about maintaining services once initial Government funding ends. There needs to be stable, and long-term funding to enable Family Hubs to become firmly established amongst their communities.
- Workforce recruitment and retention. Shortages of key workers like health visitors are felt across many areas. Support and resources must be prioritised to attract and retain skilled staff fundamental to their success.
- Reaching families most in need. Ensuring equitable access and engaging harder-to-reach families remains and ongoing challenge. Digital offerings can help but for those without reliable internet connectivity, or a device itself, they will not be able to access these services and we could risk exacerbating existing inequalities.
- Measuring impact. While current evidence is positive, robust and longitudinal date on the outcomes of children and families that family hubs serve will be critical to demonstrate their value.
- Integration of services. Joining up different services and data systems can be complex. I used to work in Whitehall – believe me, I know! But we must overcome the practical and cultural barriers between providers and agencies to deliver the best outcomes for children.
Addressing these challenges will be critical to realising the full potential of family hubs but through targeted investment and sharing of best practice, I think we can work together to overcome many of these hurdles.
The evidence is clear that early intervention through initiatives have the power to transform lives and communities. By supporting children and families in these crucial early years we can improve health outcomes, boost educational attainment, increase social mobility and ultimately, build a more prosperous and equitable society.
The current rollout of Family Hubs across England represents a significant step forward but there is still much work that needs to be done.
Like baking a delicious cake, there are key ingredients that are needed to ensure it rises and tastes good.
The flour of our cake is to ensure that they are truly responsive to local needs and family voices, and that services are commissioned in such a way that focuses on outcomes and ideally looks at the procurement process – and the new flexibility under the new procurement rules for these types of services – to really engage with the market and how we can bring about real change.
The sugar is the need to leverage the expertise of all of you who are specialist providers of these services to help 0-19 services, family hubs and early intervention initiatives meet these needs.
The eggs are represented by the work that needs doing to address the challenges surrounding funding, workforce and service integration.
The butter which binds it all together has to be the expansion of coverage to ensure all families have access to a local family hub.
And the jam, cream, chocolate ganache – or whatever filling takes your fancy, must be to continue to build and develop the evidence base of what works well, and to use that to direct services: make use of the voluntary sector, empower and grow community capacity to support themselves and work to focus the resources we have, in the constrained environment we find ourselves in, where it will have the most impact.
As we move forward under the new Government, it will be critical to engage with their policy development surrounding early years interventions. The policy ideas we have seen so far align well with the principles I’ve talked about tonight, but we must work together to advocate for comprehensive, and funded support for all families.
The success of these initiatives will depend on effective collaboration between government, local authorities, schools and community organisations. But we have an opportunity now to get this right and to deliver the change we need to see. Success in those first 1,001 days will set children on a path to happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives. In doing so, we’ll be building stronger families, more resilient communities, and a brighter future for our entire country.
Thank you.
