Give every child the best start in life - Print version

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This priority focuses on

  1. Reducing inequalities in the early development of physical and emotional health, cognitive, linguistic, and social skills.
  2. Working with families to support language development, including children with EAL (English as an Additional Language).
  3. Maximising the take up of 2, 3, and 4-year-old funded places.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.’

Legislation and government guidance to support the give every child the best start in life recommendation:

Links to service developments and strategies that support this recommendation:

Indicators

The indicators below will tell us how we are progressing:

  • School readiness
  • Parenting confidence

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:

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

Our services and activities:

Our delivery partners:

  • Coventry City Council Adult Education Service
  • Coventry City Council Children and Education Service
  • Coventry City Council Ethnic Minority Achievement Service
  • Coventry City Council SEND Early Years Team
  • Coventry City Council Housing and Homelessness Team
  • Coventry City Council Library Service
  • Coventry City Council Migration Team
  • Coventry City Council Public Health Team
  • Coventry Family Health and Lifestyle Service (0-19 years)
  • Coventry Safeguarding Children Partnership
  • Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care System
  • Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust
  • Early Years Providers
  • Healthcare Practitioners
  • Pharmacists
  • Perinatal Mental Health Team
  • Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Sector

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 funded places
  • % of parents taking up provision to increase their skills

Case Study 1 - Family Health and Lifestyle Service, MAMTA

Public Health commissioned the Family Health and Lifestyle 0-19 Service, which integrates seven services all working with children and families, with Marmot Principles and proportionate universalism at its core.

The service, delivered by South Warwickshire Foundation Trust includes:

  • Health Visiting
  • Infant Feeding
  • Family Nurse Partnership
  • School Nursing
  • Be Active, Be Healthy (family weight management)
  • Stop Smoking In Pregnancy
  • MAMTA, a targeted and culturally sensitive service delivered by FWT - a centre for women (a community organisation)

The service identified an inequality in outcomes for mothers and babies from ethnic minority groups. Using proportionate universalism as a model, MAMTA as a targeted service worked hard to re-design its core offer within its existing resources to increase access.

MAMTA now offer all pregnant women from a minority ethnic background in Coventry support and ‘Parent Craft’ run in conjunction with University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust maternity services.

Women are then triaged and offered a more targeted pathway proportionate to their needs, for example, women who are new to the country, where English is not their first language, or women who have more complex needs.

MAMTA has also received some additional funding recently from ‘Start for Life’ and Family Hubs which enabled them to enhance support with targeted groups around infant feeding and perinatal mental health, including baby massage.

Successes

  • Approximately 1,100 pregnant women were contacted and supported with key public health messages.
  • Over 70% of the women supported by MAMTA had recently arrived in the UK.
  • Every woman reported increased knowledge, confidence, and support to access health depending on her needs.
  • When followed up after the baby was born, many women commented positively on the support being vital for their wellbeing.
  • Links were made with partners and services around the social determinants of health, such as housing, skills, and income.

Service users' comments

“The sessions were very clear and explained in the simplest way. Didn’t know so much about it but the midwife explained and mentioned how important and educative it will be”

“I am new to this country and receiving a call made me happy and I now know that there are a lot of things available”.

“As I am new to the country, all the information was really useful, thank you”

Visit the Family Health and Lifestyle Service website [https://www.swft.nhs.uk/our-services/coventry-family-health-and-lifestyle-service-0-19-years] for more information.

Case Study 2 - Family Health and Lifestyle Service, Health Visiting; Coventry Parent and Infant Mental Health

The Health Visiting service improves the health and well-being of children and families in the crucial first years of life. It is available to all new parents, so it is a universal service, but it also offers a level of support and intervention that a parent may need at the time - proportionate to need. In addition, funding and support from the Family Hub and the Start for Life programme have enabled the service to extend its health visiting specialist team to deliver more perinatal mental health support, including baby massage and specialist Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) interventions.

An example of this is a Health Visitor and parent whom we will call Katie to protect identification. On the initial home visit, new mum Katie was a little bit tearful and explained to her Health Visitor she felt her baby was really unhappy and always cried in pain. Katie later shared she also had a history of depression and anxiety.

Katie was supported by the Specialist Health Visitor with an infant massage referral for the baby and encouraged to self-refer to emotional well-being sessions for herself. She was offered the infant massage sessions at home to alleviate her anxiety. During this time Katie and her Health Visitor had concerns about Katie's mental health and obtained advice from the Perinatal Mental Health team. An urgent referral was made and an assessment was carried out straight away by professionals; Katie was put forward for counselling.

For the baby, Katie and her partner were supported to obtain specialist advice from a Paediatric surgeon, which led to a further referral to a consultant and a diagnosis of severe reflux. Katie was also referred to bespoke play and stimulation sessions, which included brain development discussions, the importance of communication, and bonding, which also became a space for Katie to share any worries or concerns.

Successes

Katie has now been discharged from the Specialist Health Visiting team.

When Katie entered the service her GAD-7 (generalised anxiety) score was 12, this decreased to 4. When Katie entered our service her EPDS (Edinburgh postnatal depression scale) score was 18, which decreased to 12.

Service user feedback:

‘’Hey (health visitor), I wanted to send you a message to let you know that baby has changed so much. He’s babbling now, only really at home but he’s all babababa or mamama, it's very cute. He’s also sitting up and eating well. I wanted to just update you that we are doing better, thanks for everything.’’

Visit the Family Health and Lifestyle  Service website  [https://www.swft.nhs.uk/our-services/coventry-family-health-and-lifestyle-service-0-19-years]for more information.

Case Study 3 - Active Tots, a Coventry Be Active Be Healthy Team Project

Be Active Be Healthy (BABH) (part of Coventry’s Family Health and Lifestyle 0-19 service) delivers its service and resources proportionate to need, with support being offered across the city but focused on communities shown to be most in need of support, to support the health and well- being of young children. The ‘Active Tots’ programme contributes to ‘giving every child the best start in life’ reducing inequalities in the early development of physical and emotional health, and cognitive, linguistic, and social skills.

Coventry Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) 2023 highlights that for some Coventry children, inequalities in reaching a good level of development can have established themselves by the age of five. When children experience the factors associated with family poverty, they are more likely to display delays in their development. Physical activity is well evidenced to help contribute to the development of skills such as: paying attention, understanding different points of view, regulating emotions, and language development, all key in ensuring a child’s ‘school readiness’.

What our organisation did

Active Tots is a group physical activity and learning programme, that gives parents and carers with a child aged under 5 the opportunity to help develop their physical health and development through coordinated exercise and is focussed on communities most in need.

Active Tots:

  • is an eight-to-twelve-week group programme incorporating fun, games, and exercise that focuses on healthy eating knowledge both for the children and parents /carers
  • provides an environment of peer support and learning that supports parents/ carers on the importance of physical activity for themselves and their child and information on reaching the government guidance on daily exercise levels.
  • is delivered in early years settings

The BABH team worked closely with the Health Visiting team to increase referrals to the scheme and shared ideas and session plans with workers from Early Years settings and childminders across Coventry.

Successes

Active Tots has proven to be very successful in early years settings, with the scheme now expanding to be delivered in parks and green spaces in the heart of those more deprived areas and communities for families. The scheme has evaluated the postcodes of those who attended to ensure it is reaching those it needs to.

Our parents and early years services' feedback

‘Thank you very much for the active tot’s sessions that you have provided our children this term. They have thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of our children do not have access to a garden and so this has been an important part of building their confidence with their physical development.

Staff and your team have been amazing with the children and our staff have picked up some good ideas to use with the children in the future.'

“NHS Active tots have completed a 10-week programme with our Pre School children. They have thoroughly enjoyed the sessions which has seen our children gain lots of confidence in trying new skills and challenging their own physical capabilities. The sessions have encouraged and promoted teamwork, getting involved, being active, and most importantly having fun while doing so.

The benefits of physical activity for children are endless and can include better physical control of their movements, muscle development, better sleep, and healthier lifestyles. These elements can also boost their energy and mood which further supports their motivation to accept more challenges throughout their day”.

“My daughter loves the sessions, they are great for learning how to work together with others, work independently, and be active and enjoy being active!”

“He loves the sessions. He’s learning to listen to simple instructions along with all the physical development from the exercise”.

“Great enjoyment with physical activities and bonding with my son. Helped practice following instructions and helped with language.”

For more information on Be Active Be Healthy visit the Family Health and Lifestyle Service  website. [https://www.swft.nhs.uk/our-services/coventry-family-health-and-lifestyle-service-0-19-years]

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