Reaching families in every community

ENGLAND – Every expectant parent will now get a personal introduction to their local Sure Start centre and their own Sure Start contact to give them advice throughout pregnancy and early years, the government has announced.

The announcement comes as the government reaches its target of 3500 Sure Start Children’s Centres throughout England – making them a universal service offering support to all parents, like schools and the NHS.

And as part of a package of measures to help young families and children, the government also announced:

• Improvements to maternity and early years services for families.
   
• The right of parents to ask for more flexible free childcare.
   
• A review of standards of nursery food.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “Over the last 10 years we’ve been building children centres in every community.

“It’s the revolution that we started 10 years ago with children centres spreading to the whole of the country, and now we’re trying to improve them bit by bit so they really are tailored to the needs of parents, parents who are working, parents who have got a number of children, parents who have got young children that need the benefit of early learning opportunities, because this is the most formative part of everyone’s life and children need the help to grow to the best of their ability.

“Our maternity services are getting better, and we’re giving people the choice and making sure that that choice is a safe choice, and at the same time, we’re saying ‘look, the hospital is catering for the mother and for the daughter or the son; it can cater for the father at the same time’. We’re determined to make life better for the newly-born child, but also for the mother and the father at this very important part of their lives.”

Ed Balls said: “Starting a new family is incredibly exciting but it also presents new challenges and pressures and we want to support expectant parents and those with young children at this crucial time in their lives.

“We have now reached our target of 3500 Sure Start Children’s Centres – which means every parent of a young child will be able to get help and advice on parenting, childcare, health and employment under one roof. This is a tremendous example of partnership and communities coming together to make a real difference for families and I want to thank all those who have made this possible.”