One of the main focuses of our work is the support, challenging and monitoring of Local Authorities’ and other agencies’ progress in improving outcomes for children under 13 and their families. This covers the delivery of Sure Start Children’s Centres, Extended Schools and sufficient childcare. We also work with partners throughout the region to help put into practice the aims of the Childcare Act.
Sure Start Children’s Centres form a key part of the delivery of early year’s services by Local Authorities increasingly, as a major element in the planning and delivery of children’s trusts arrangements. They are crucial to the implementation of the Government’s ten year childcare strategy, Choices for Parents, the Best Start for Children, and contribute to improving the child outcomes set out in Every Child Matters.
Sure Start Children’s Centres will provide a range of services depending on local need and parental choice. The aim is for a network of centres across the region, offering information, advice and support to fathers, mothers and carers, as well as early years provision (i.e. integrated childcare and early learning), health services, family support, parental outreach and employment advice for disadvantaged families. Services offered will not be the same everywhere, because needs and communities vary greatly, but the greatest resource for children’s centres will go to those children most in need.
The aim is to ensure every community has access to a Sure Start children’s centre by 2010. By April 2008 there are expected to be over 330 children’s centres developed across the Yorkshire and Humber region reaching over 228,000 of our children under the age of 5. Many of these centres are being developed from existing Early Excellence centres, Neighbourhood Nurseries and Sure Start Local Programmes, and in collaboration with schools and childcare settings and family support centres within the private, voluntary and independent sector.
