Our vision and approach
Every Child, Every Chance, Every Day
To meet the Marmot objective of ‘giving children the best start in life’ our strategic activity is built on research related to actions that will make the biggest difference in the early years of life:
- For every child, we will seize every chance and every opportunity to enable them to flourish; to learn and to develop physically, academically, emotionally, and socially to reach their individual potential.
- We will do this to a consistently high standard every day, to help families and communities to raise children who are resilient, happy, and healthy.
- We base everything we do on what is most important and relevant for all young children and families. We will achieve this across our coalition of services, working towards the Marmot Priorities.
Best start in life: why is this important?
The Marmot Review summarised the importance of quality provision for under-5s as
"Giving every child the best start in life is crucial for securing health and reducing health inequalities across the life course. The foundations for virtually every aspect of human development – physical, intellectual, and emotional – are laid in early childhood. What happens during these early years, starting in the womb, has life-long effects on many aspects of health and well-being."
Sir Michael Marmot
Marmot priority: give every child the best start in life
- reducing inequalities in the early development of physical and emotional health, cognitive, linguistic, and social skills
- working with families to support language development, including children with EAL (English as an Additional Language)
- maximising the take up of 2, 3, and 4-year-old funded places
- ensuring high-quality maternity services, parenting programmes, childcare and early years’ provision to meet need across the social gradient including support for families from ethnic minority backgrounds
- building the resilience and well-being of young children across the social gradient
Child friendly Cov
This strategy also aligns to the principles of ‘Child friendly Cov.’
This campaign, launched in 2024, aims to make Coventry a child and young person friendly city, ensuring that Coventry is a place where children and young people are valued, supported, and enjoy themselves.
Working together with local children and young people, led to the following themes becoming key priorities for how to make Coventry a child friendly city.
Children and young people in Coventry should always:
- be and feel valued
- be and feel safe
- have opportunities
- be and feel healthy
- be and feel loved
There are lots of things happening in Coventry which makes this a great city for children, young people, and their families. The Child Friendly Cov campaign wants to build on this, highlighting what we already do, and building further, so that everyone is committed to making Coventry a city which is truly child friendly.
