Providing a Sure Start


Book Description

Offering insight into the key debates on services for young children, this book tells how Sure Start was set up, the numerous changes it went through, and how it has changed the landscape of services for all young children in England.




Providing a Sure Start


Book Description

This book tells the story of Sure Start, one of the flagship programmes of the last government. It tells how Sure Start was set up, the numerous changes it went through, and how it has changed the landscape of services for all young children in England. Offering insight into the key debates on services for young children, as well as how decisions are made in a highly political context, it will be of keen interest to policy academics, senior managers of public services and all those with a keen interest in developing services for young children.




Implementing Sure Start Policy


Book Description

In 1997, the Labour Government came to power in the UK and committed to reforming public service delivery, particularly towards the improvement of children’s services. This book analyses Labour Party’s subsequent strategy towards public service delivery emphasising, on one level, devolving more power to frontline deliverers, while on the other, strengthening central control through a variety of means, leading to a ‘mixed-approach’ in its overall reforms. The book focuses on the implementation process involved in rolling out its Sure Start policy in order to understand and analyse the dynamics in Labour’s approach to delivery. In so-doing, it draws on implementation and policy network theories to offer an original analytical framework - ‘the implementation network approach’ - to explain the implementation process of Sure Start policy. This book will be undoubtedly appealing to the students and scholars engaged in the fields of Public Policy and British Politics.




Challenging the Politics of Early Intervention


Book Description

So often, the ills of society are blamed on negligent parenting, leading to the development of social service policies built around the concept of early intervention. Interrogating this concept, this book explores the history of our understanding of children, family, and parenting, and its implications for society. With a particular focus on the intersection of brain science and social policy, the authors challenge our long-held consensus on early intervention. Accessibly written and highly topical, Challenging the Politics of Early Intervention is a comprehensive and critical assay of our contemporary belief that so-called bad parents raise substandard future citizens unfit for the new capitalism.




A Sure Start to Later Life


Book Description




Parenting Matters


Book Description

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.




Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8


Book Description

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.




Delivering the Best Start


Book Description

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is now statutory in the UK for children from birth to five years, and other countries are experiencing similar developments; early years librarians, teachers, nursery nurses, playgroup leaders and childminders all require knowledge of how to promote and encourage communication, language and literary skills. Parental reading with young children is clearly vitally important, and libraries are uniquely placed to support the development of literacy skills in pre-school children. This book provides an understanding of how children develop such skills through enjoyable and meaningful learning experiences, and is a pioneering practical guide for library and information professionals involved in planning and delivering services in early years libraries. Drawing on the authors' underpinning contemporary research and examples from current best practice, it will equip practitioners with a broad range of knowledge and ideas. Key areas covered include: take them to the library: the role of the early years professional people and partnerships: working across interdisciplinary boundaries, and how to involve parents and carers buildings, design and space: the children's libraries of the future resources for early years libraries: books, toys and other delights reaching your audience: the librarian's role planning and organizing: projects and reading sessions. User-friendly and accessible, each chapter is clearly structured and sets outs the key issues for practitioners, scenarios offering insights into these, and practical ideas and resources for service provision. The book also includes case studies of successful pre-school library initiatives in a variety of global settings, useful information about relevant organizations, and links to helpful websites. This valuable text is essential reading for all library and information professionals working with young children - whether those with responsibility for the strategic planning of services, or those involved in delivering them at community level. Readership: Essential for students of library and information studies or childhood studies, and practitioners undertaking NVQ qualifications, it also provides a sound background in early years literacy and provision for a range of local authority practitioners, such as nursery teachers and Children's Centre managers.




Sure Start children's centres


Book Description

Incorporating HC 799-i and ii, session 2008-09




The Leader in Me


Book Description

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.