The Foundation Years Trust

What has influenced the case for Early Intervention? Michael Marmot, Fair Society Healthy Lives, final report, February 2010 Frank Field, The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults, December 2010 Graham Allen, Early Intervention: the Next Steps, January 2011/ Early Intervention: Smart Investment, Massive Savings, July 2011

The Foundation Years Trust Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances Strategy to address child poverty improve the life chances of poorer children so they start school on an equal footing with better-off children The Trust has a 3 pronged strategy Develop ‘Life Chance Indicators’ Test the Review’s findings by setting up a local intervention project, evaluate and disseminate it Develop wider parenting initiatives, initially in schools The Foundation Years Trust

Life Chance Indicators Starting School Successfully (Triple S) Basic Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI) – in last stage of research Index of Toddler Life Chances (I-TLC) – in development Antenatal Indicators – being debated The Foundation Years Trust

BESSI – 30 questions requiring an adult to agree or disagree with the statement. Examples of the 4 fields Behaviour adjustment (12 questions) e.g. ‘Is easily distracted’ Language and cognition (6 Qs) e.g. ‘Speaks clearly and is easily understood by adults’ Daily living skills (6 Qs) e.g. ‘Often appears aimless when asked to choose an activity’ Family support (6 Qs) e.g. ‘Regularly reads at home’ The Foundation Years Trust

Life Chance Indicators - early findings Children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) are, on average, about 12 months behind their peers for language and cognitive skills FSM and non-FSM groups show a striking contrast in family support, which fully explains the differences in child outcomes Younger siblings received less family support than first-born children The Foundation Years Trust

Life Chance Indicators - early findings Children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) are, on average, about 12 months behind their peers for language and cognitive skills FSM and non-FSM groups show a striking contrast in family support, which fully explains the differences in child outcomes Younger siblings received less family support than first-born children Reading regularly at home and talking about fun activities at home were the two most robust indicators of family support; the predictive effects of ‘fun at home’ were especially widespread and powerful The Foundation Years Trust

Elizabeth Washbrook’s Early Environments and Child Outcomes – translating a report into an intervention 1.Factors we can’t do anything about (e.g. gender of child) 2.Factors which governments might change (e.g. income, mothers’ education) 3.Things we can influence locally… The home learning environment parent child play and fun Parental warmth and sensitivity reflective parenting, attachment Parental mental health and well-being support in pregnancy and with babies What parents do is more important than who they are! Birkenhead Foundation Years project

Bump-Start Volunteer support from 20 th week of pregnancy to when baby is 6 months old Parent-lead: weekly contact by phone, text, or face-to-face but frequency and intensity of contact is determined by parent Birth partner offer Support to access benefits, attend appointments, access groups, support with reflective parenting

Birkenhead Foundation Years project Bump-Start – our experience 15 months of delivery experience, currently supporting 26 families Long lead in to develop referrals – midwives’ systems slow to change Many women don’t initially see the need First time mums often contact us from the delivery suite We are beginning to refer parents we are supporting when they fall pregnant with second and subsequent children A model jointly owned by Home-Start Wirral, Home-Start UK and the Trust Birkenhead Foundation Years project

Read It - Developed in collaboration with The Reader Organisation Builds upon a one-off group running in sheltered housing for teenage mums Reading (and singing and rhymes) with parents and children together Followed by children playing with play workers and parents reading separately Birkenhead Foundation Years project

- our experience Parents easier to recruit if structure is implicit – not explicit Joint parent and children activity is lively, stimulating, unusual Attracts small groups to a safe space - for those who need to think and talk to other parents We want to develop one-to-one antenatal reading – no takers yet! We expect the model to be owned by The Reader Organisation and the Trust Birkenhead Foundation Years project

What next? Negotiating an external evaluation – looking at following the journey of our children until they start school Interested in novel evaluation methods Need more funding for a 3 year full programme of delivery Other areas are interested in full pilots of the model or testing a single element – maybe you? Birkenhead Foundation Years project

Why to poor people’s children tend to grow up and become poor adults themselves? Statistics tell you what’s likely to happen, not what always happens Statistics can show characteristics of families which are associated with children developing less well – they can also show characteristics which can be the cause of problems. The point of this is try and change things for children now and in the future Birkenhead Foundation Years project