Following my previous article about the child health strategy, through which we announced the biggest-ever investment in services for disabled children (5 March), I am delighted to share with Nursery World readers details of the success of our Early Support programme.
Early Support is a national programme to improve the way that services for young children with disabilities in England work together. It's a way of working with families that keep them at the heart of any discussions and decisions about their child. The programme provides a standard framework and set of materials that can be used in many different circumstances, and a set of expectations about how services should work with families. This means that parents of disabled children can be clear about what support they should expect, and to what standard.
Since the Government announced the mainstreaming of the programme in 2007, Early Support has become an integral part of service planning and delivery. The programme is relevant to all agencies that provide services for families, including hospital and clinical settings, early years settings, Sure Start Children's Centres and voluntary organisations.
Use of the programme is explained in Statutory Guidance on the Early Years Outcomes Duty, the National Service Framework for Children and the Child Health Promotion programme. It is also incorporated within the Early Years Foundation Stage and is an essential part of the Children's Centre offer.
Initial findings show us the programme has been well received. We have some wonderful case studies showing how this programme is revolutionising the support received by families. One of its most lauded elements is having one person, a keyworker, pulling together a wide range of resources and working with the family on a straightforward but tailored package of support, specifically meeting the needs of the family and the child. Not only does this person know the exacting needs of the child and family, but they provide a stable and familiar face for vulnerable families to trust.
There has been steady progress with Early Support at local level, and now more than 130 local authorities are in the process of implementing it. As a direct result of using Early Support, we estimate around 10,000 families are benefiting from improved services this year - a number that can only increase as many more areas adopt this programme.
And you, the frontline workers using and implementing the framework, are providing overwhelmingly positive feedback about how it impacts on your workload. In collating responses to the programme, we have heard how effective use of Early Support reduces duplication of effort, makes more effective use of the resources that are available, and enables you to share information about and with families better. The programme helps a wide network of practitioners understand how what you do fits into the range of local services provided for families, prevents you from working alone and without support of colleagues in health services and, perhaps most importantly, increases job satisfaction.
From next month, Early Support will be integrated into our wider Aiming High for Disabled Children programme and responsibility for providing central support for the programme will sit firmly within the DCSF. We are working with the Early Support team based at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf to ensure that the programme is successfully transferred into the department and that its success continues long into the future.
Beverley Hughes is the Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families
Further information is available from the Department for Children, Schools and Families at www.dcsf.gov.uk
