Nursery World - Anne Longfield: Why the Government's commitment to Family Hubs is 'not enough'

The chair of the Young Lives Commission and former Children's Commissioner for England, says the Government's ambition for Family Hubs is 'nowhere near the scale of what families need', nor is it enough to replace 'hundreds of closed Sure Start centres'.

Families are one of society’s greatest assets - a source of love, strength, protection, resilience, practical help, and advice. They have the greatest impact on children’s values, on their learning, their safety, and their success in life.

So, I have always found it strange how little attention Westminster pays to supporting them.

From more help with childcare to providing somewhere to turn when things go wrong, the default should be to support families to become more resilient to crisis and to have more assets to draw on if things go wrong.

Frequently though, we leave many without the help they need. We’re also spending billions on tackling family crises through the education, health, children’s social care, police, and criminal justice systems, leaving ourselves with less money for early help and for improving our schools and NHS.

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