Teresa Smith

Neighbourhood and Preventive Strategies with Children and Families: What Works?.

This paper argues that the 1989 Children Act has provided a poor context for discussing ‘prevention’. The Act has not helped the development of either a proper understanding of childhood disadvantages or policies to deal with it. This paper presents a fresh perspective on ‘prevention’ in the context of Government initiatives such as Sure Start, and argues for analysis of neighbourhood disadvantages and neighbourhood-based policies. The ‘geography of disadvantage’ has to be understood as well as the facts of disadvantage, that is, the concentrations and persistence of variations in income, health, and educational outcomes as they affect children. Examples of early years programmes and projects are reviewed for their impact on disadvantaged children and their families. Copyright

Early Years services in Britain 1997‐2007: a quiet revolution?

This article analyses UK Early Years policy in terms of service expansion and service transformation since the Labour Governments election in 1997. Childcare is now a matter of public policy, driven largely by concerns about child poverty and inequalities in childrens life chances. The evidence is considered, first, on service expansion, increased take‐up and increased employment by parents with young children, and, second, on service transformation and child outcomes: to what extent have changes benefited disadvantaged children, families and neighbourhoods? The Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) research shows that pre‐school can boost disadvantaged childrens intellectual development in particular, and the article concludes that programmes such as Sure Start and Neighbourhood Nurseries have been successfully targeted at the most disadvantaged areas, although better‐off families and neighbourhoods may have benefited even more, and that problems of cost and sustainability remain. It is too early to judge whether better integrated services now being developed will be successful in transforming the lives of the most disadvantaged children.

Targeting Educational Disadvantage by Area: Continuity and Change in Urban Areas in England, 1968-2014.

Focusing on data and policies from England, trends in educational disadvantage by area are traced from the late 1960s when the first pilot projects were established in the UK, to the present. The origins of these developments and the subsequent rises and falls of such area-based policies in England are reviewed. Specially collected data for the pilot areas from the 1960s and national data for England from 2000 are used to draw out some striking patterns of changes over the period. Though many of the areas remain highly disadvantaged, educational measures at age 16 and at entry to higher education (HE) indicate some important changes. Thus the settled, white working-class pilot area in the 1960s with just below average results had fallen back very substantially by 2013, particularly in entry to HE. By contrast the newly settled Asian immigrant area in Birmingham where educational performance was exceptionally poor in the 1960s had moved above average despite remaining highly disadvantaged. Analysis of the national results since 2000 using local area data showed that these trends were widespread across England. Disadvantaged ‘multicultural urban areas’ were doing markedly better than the disadvantaged white working-class urban areas, where in many cases traditional industries had closed. This was especially marked at entry to HE where multicultural areas had rates close to the national average of 40% while white working-class urban areas had rates of entry to HE of between 10% and 15% of the age group and this gap has widened rapidly in recent years. These trends are likely to be the source of major resentment, with one group finding itself increasingly excluded from higher level employment opportunities, and the other failing to find opportunities that match their expectations once they leave education.

Disadvantaged families are at greatest risk from austerity cuts to children's centres.

As authors of the research outlined in your report we were pleased by The BMJ ’s coverage of our findings on children’s centres.1 However, we also showed that the threat posed by austerity cuts was even greater in the 20% most financially disadvantaged …

A Review of the Services Offered by English Sure Start Children's Centres in 2011 and 2012.

This paper presents a review of the family services that were offered by a sample of 121 English Sure Start Children’s Centres in 2011 and 2012. Children’s Centres are community based facilities that aim to improve outcomes for at-risk families and children through the delivery of a range of services largely aimed at families with young children. Services commonly offered include: health advice, childcare and early education, employment advice, informal drop-in facilities, and specialist support on parenting. This paper provides a snapshot of Children’s Centre service provision in 2011 and 2012 and documents the extent of change. A picture of broad stability was observed in the numbers of services that centres reported offering (from a list of 47 services grouped into 11 categories). However, some Children’s Centres also appeared to be changing the focus of the services that they provided. Some centres seemed to be shifting towards providing greater outreach (rather than parent-support) and services which were targeted (rather than universal).

Children’s Centres: An English Intervention for Families Living in Disadvantaged Communities

The role of the parent has been clearly defined in the literature as having a positive influence on children’s emotional, behavioural and educational development, more so than other factors such as maternal education, poverty, peers socio-economic status and schooling (DfES in Every child matters (Green Paper). DfES, London, 2003; Desforges and Abouchaar in The impact of parental involvement, parental support and family education on pupil achievement and adjustment. A literature review. DfES, London, 2003). Supporting the capacity to parent is of prime interest when considering how to improve opportunities for the most disadvantaged families and their children. This chapter focuses on one particular English intervention entitled the ‘children’s centre’. Drawing on international literature and definitions of parenting support, this chapter will explore some of the research evidence collected by the Evaluation of Children’s Centres in England (ECCE) study which focuses on how children’s centres conceptualise, choose and deliver parenting and family support services to families. A number of characteristics of effective interventions have been identified within the literature as having the greatest impact on improving child outcomes (Glass in Child Soc 13(4): 257–264 1999; Sure Start in The aim of sure start. http://www.surestart.gov.uk, 2001; Johnson in Impact of social science on policy. http://www.esrc.ac.uk/_images/Sure_Start_final_report_tcm8-20116.pdf, 2011). These include the following: a two-generational focus that targets both the parent and child together; multifaceted approaches that include amongst others, enhancing family relationships; services which are non-stigmatising, lasting long enough to make a difference, locally driven, culturally appropriate, sensitive to user needs and centre-based. This chapter will explore these findings in order to address three research questions: (1) Who are children’s centres serving? (2) What are children’s centres doing? and (3) How are children’s centres approaching their work? The chapter will conclude with policy implications and future directions for programmes that share similar characteristics to English children’s centres.

A. H. Halsey: Oxford as a base for social research and educational reform

A. H. Halsey has been a professorial fellow (now emeritus) at Nuffield College in Oxford University since his appointment in 1962 as Director of Oxford’s Department of Social and Administrative Studies. This paper explores his contribution to education throughout his career, as an academic and as a national and international policy advisor, and the interface between these two. Halsey worked in what he termed the ‘political arithmetic’ tradition throughout his career, with the dual tasks of documenting the state of society, and addressing social and political issues through ‘experimental social administration’, that is the field testing of social innovation and social policy in advance of national implementation. The paper focuses on Halsey’s ‘activist’ role in policy development in the UK and internationally, through his work on educational reform at the OECD and as research advisor to Crosland at the DES with the introduction of comprehensive schooling in the UK and in particular the Educational Priority Areas (EPA) programme, and traces through the impact of his work. His major contribution as one of the leading sociologists of education in the second half of the 20th century is also discussed, but the wider impact of this aspect of his work requires a much more extensive assessment than is possible in this paper.