Healthy Happy Bairns Conference7th February 2012

Presentation - The Vision

Firstly,I know the power of getting it right in the early years. Getting it right for children and young people, families and carers from the start ensures that young children are healthy, happy and ready to succeed in life. To a very large extent, children’s life chances depend on the quality of experience they have in their first years; the secure and reliable attachments they have with parents and other adults important to them; the relationships they build with other children and within their families and communities; the quality of care they are given by parents and other carers; the richness of the learning opportunities they have; and the support and services which children, parents, families and carers can rely on.

The evidence for this spans decades and crosses cultures. It is there for all to see. We should not need to be persuaded. We just need to act.

Secondly, I know the power of collective effort – collective effort aimed at reaching agreed goals.

I believe that the old African saying holds true- “it does take a village to raise a child”.

While parents are the primary carers, have primary responsibility for their children in most situations – parents and children do best when they are connected to and engaged with families and communities that are caring and mutually supportive.

Are you with me on this?

Do we still need to be persuaded?

The aims of this conference are based on these two fundamental tenants’

-The importance of strong foundations in the early years

-The power of collective and community based action to help children and their families achieve those strong foundations.

Vision for East Lothian’s Children

We want to ensure all young children:

  • Have positive, parenting and good attachments
  • Build resilience
  • Are ready to learn and achieve
  • Can access quality child care
  • Are healthy and happy
  • Are protected from poverty
  • Have good play opportunities
  • Are protected from harm.

This vision can be seen as a set of outcomes for children – what do you think?

Can we all get behind the vision? Can we work together to achieve these outcomes?

So, how can we do this?

  • We are not beginning from a standing start. We should build on the positive beginnings made through the Equally Well test site, but we need to roll this out right across the county.
  • We have a Support from the Start Planning Board and an Early Years Review Group, these are our key strategic groups for early years. They are looking at need across the whole of East Lothian and link with Lothian and national resources. But we want this to be a two pronged approach to planning to meet children’s needs through these high level groups which could be seen as being “top down”. We also want to take a community based “bottom up” approach and so ………….
  • We are forming Support from the Start Champions Groups in each of East Lothian’s 6 school cluster areas - to test the model, we have already begun in 2 areas, Musselburgh and Prestonpans.
  • These Champions Groups will link with local community planning groups where these exist.
  • Each group will comprise of champions from a range of services and organisations from all sectors as well as parents and carers and others having an interest in the early years, including local employers and businesses. The champion’s groups should be empowered to engage with any relevant Council or Health department.

Council and Health colleagues on champions groups should be regarded as Early Years “Service Champions” who should think and act imaginatively and nimbly to assist local parents and communities to improve the quality of life of young children and their families.

  • To support the groups the Public Health Practitioner post holders will provide co-ordination to the groups as part of their roles. The groups will require administrative support. A key facilitative role of the public health practitioners will be to ensure that all parents and carers, especially those who do not have positive experiences of working in groups like these, have a voice.

Champions groups will be encouraged and supported to engage with local people, organisations and bodies to identify actions that the community itself can take to help improve the quality of life for young children and their families in their local areas. There will, in keeping with joining the dots be a bias for action and reporting will be kept to minimum. This is not a one size fits all approach, rather it is an approach which will help tailor local action and service provision to meet the discrete needs of children and communities. I am excited to say that the two champions groups which have just got off the ground are already taking action to make a difference for children in their areas

  • Each cluster based champion’s group will be provided with detailed information on their local area, including population trends and service availability and accessibility. This will be provided by Council and Health information analysts working together. Information would be updated on an annual basis. Updates will include data from the use of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) which will help provide an evidence base for early year’s community development. The EDI will, for example, provide detailed information on an area basis on children’s readiness for school and this will help champions groups to prioritise action. This data from EDI will be available next year but the establishment of champions groups should not wait until this is available. Groups should also gather and evaluate information about their own areas.

To be fully effective and to ensure appropriate governance, each early years champions group will integrate with local community forums where these exist and each champion’s group will have a representative on the Support from the Start Planning Board.

These measures will ensure that champions groups have a strong voice which is “knitted” into existing planning and decision making structures, and that unnecessary duplication and overlap is avoided.

In summary - we want to raise the profile of East Lothian as a shining example of a place where people work together to give all young children the best start in life. We want to embed an approach free from jargon and unnecessary red tape. We want to be open to and share information about imaginative sources of funding, help and learn about what works. We want to develop an approach which is sustainable in the long term, not a “flash in the pan” , helps local people to reach their own solutions and which is firmly rooted in our communities.

And now- since there is no such thing as a “free lunch” we are going to move into our community based workshops to discuss how we are going to do all this and commit ourselves to action.

Ronnie Hill

1/12/12