Foreword
Coventry is committed to giving every child a Bold Start and a Bright Future. This ambition sits at the heart of our city’s drive to reduce inequalities and improve long‑term outcomes for all families. In a context of rapid demographic change, increasing diversity, and ongoing social and economic pressures, we must come together as one system to support children and families from pregnancy through to school entry.
The earliest years shape a child’s health, learning, wellbeing and life chances, and while Coventry has seen encouraging improvements, persistent disadvantage gaps, rising linguistic diversity, increased numbers of children with SEND and newly arrived families highlight where greater focus is required. Supporting children’s early communication, language and socio‑emotional development therefore remains a central priority.
Coventry’s Best Start Family Hubs and strong partnership arrangements provide the foundations for a truly integrated early years system. By bringing together health, early education, public health, SEND services, Families First Partnerships and community, voluntary and faith‑based providers, we can ensure families receive timely, coordinated and effective support. Our Marmot commitment reinforces a whole‑system focus on tackling inequalities to ensure all children get the best start in life (BSiL).
The local area is committed to working alongside parents as equal partners, recognising the insight they bring to their child’s development. Through respectful collaboration and shared decision‑making, the BSiL partnership ensures services are responsive, inclusive and aligned with what matters most to families, strengthening relationships and building trust across the system.
This strategy champions equity, inclusion and belonging. Improving outcomes in the earliest years, also means addressing wider determinants of family wellbeing, including housing, income, parental mental health and access to high‑quality early education. Best Start in Life provides the strategic framework that connects early childhood development, family support, public health and education improvement, setting out how we will act collectively as a multi‑agency coalition to ensure every child can thrive from the very beginning.