Give every child the best start in life

This priority focuses on:

• 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.

Background

The Marmot Review summarised the importance of quality provision for under-5s as ‘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.’

What we know

There are a number of programmes of work and interventions evidenced to positively support the aim to give every child the best start in life. These include:

• Integrated universal, targeted and specialist support to families from the antenatal period up to adolescence across the social gradient.
• Targeted high-quality family learning interventions to maximise children’s learning in the home environment for families across the social gradient.
• Interventions at the earliest opportunity for the multiple and complex problems families face.
• Early years provision to maximise children’s learning, development, and school readiness.
• General information and advice to parents and carers to support positive parenting and nurturing home environments.
• Programmes to help ensure that babies and toddlers stay safe in and around the home to reduce the number of unintentional injuries.

Legislation, Government guidance to support the give every child the best start in life recommendation:

• The Marmot Review Fair Society, Healthy Lives (2010)
• The Marmot Review 10 Years On
• HM Government: The Best Start for Life, A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days; The Early Years Healthy Development Review Report
• The best start for life: a progress report on delivering the vision (published February 2023)
• Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme (published February 2023)
• Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper

Links to service developments and strategies that support this recommendation:

• Coventry Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2019-2023
• The One Coventry Plan 2022-2030
• Coventry Integrated Early Years Strategy September 2021
• Coventry Early Help Strategy 2023-2025
• Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems Equity and Equality Plan
• Best Start in Life
• Supporting Families Programme Outcome 2; Good early years development
• Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Strategy
• Coventry and Warwickshire Health Inequalities Strategy 2022-27

Indicators

• School readiness
• Parenting confidence
• Children under the age of 5 who are in care

Programmes of work

• Family Hubs
• Positive Parenting Team
• Early Years Providers
• Supporting Families
• The Healthy Child Programme
• Healthy Start
• Family Nurse Partnership Programme
• 'Love Your Bump’ campaign
• Stay and Play groups
• Bumps and Babies’ groups
• Parenting programme 
• Easey Peasy
• Talk Boost
• Saplings Programme (SEN)
• Child Friendly Coventry
• Integrated 2 year old pilot
• Stop smoking in pregnancy
• Infant feeding including support for women from ethnic minority backgrounds
• Skills Strategy – Raising Aspiration for parents.

Delivery partners

• Coventry Family Health and Lifestyle Service (0-19 years)
• GPs and practice nurses
• Healthcare Practitioners
• Pharmacists
• Perinatal mental health team
• Early Years Providers
• Family Hubs
• Positive Parenting Practitioners 
• SEND (Special Educational Needs & Disabilities) Early Years Team
• Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector
• Coventry Early Years’ Service
• Portage
• Adult and Family Learning
• EMTAS
• Migration Team
• Housing Teams
• Children's Services
• Coventry Safeguarding Partnership
• Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care System
• Public Health Team CCC

How we will measure progress

• % Of children achieving a good level of development at the end of Reception compared to national
• % Of disadvantaged children achieving a Good Level of Development at the end of reception, compared to the national percentage gap between disadvantaged children and ALL other children
• % Schools where early years is judged Good and Outstanding by Ofsted
• % Early Years providers graded as Good or Outstanding
• % Uptake of places for eligible 2 years olds
• % Children accessing 3 & 4 year old
• % Of parents taking up provision to increase their skills