Changes in the Early Years' Sector and the Introduction of Every Child Matters - Coursework Example

The early yeas sector initially provided childcare, education and play work for children from birth to eight years. These were considered to be formative years in the child’s development. This sector suffered from low investment and low status. It was regarded as low paid sector with low levels of qualifications necessary to manage it (NGRF, 2004). Consequently the staff turnover was high and recruitment became difficult. This sector includes full day care, child minders, crèches, sessional care, out of school clubs and holiday play schemes, family centers, nannies, and nursery schools. The employers providing these facilities were required to register under the Children Act 1989 if they are not related to the children and are working for two or more hours outside the home and for a reward. There was a sudden rise in demand from 2003 and the sector faced problems due to tight labor market. Apart from recruitment, even retention was a problem because most employees were young women who left the job when they got their own children and the pay conditions were very poor compared to other professions. Gradually this sector demanding qualified professionals and it became difficult to find such people. To combat the problems in the sector, in 2003 the government project ‘Every Child Matters’ (ECM) was started with the objective that every child up to the age of 19 remains, healthy, safe, enjoys and achieves makes a positive contribution, and achieves economic well being. This requires that different service providers like school, hospitals, voluntary organizations and police team up to share information and work together to protect the children from harm and help them achieve what they want in life. While the child gets the best start in life, the parents have more choice about how to balance work and life under this program (HMSO, 2004). ECM recognizes that early childhood is of vital importance in their development. Parents face challenging circumstances trying to balance work and family life. This program provides greater choice to parents. Nine months paid maternity leave has already been accepted and this is expected to be extended to twelve months. The mother also has the right to transfer a portion of this to the father. Parents should be able spend time with their children particularly the first year of their life. Parents are the best judges of their families needs. While parental care is important, it is equally important that they do not grow up in poverty. Hence the framework of support for services should offer the parents choice how balance work and family life. Within ECM, the Sure Start Program has brought about immense changes in the early years sector. The government aims to ensure that every child has the potential to fulfill their potential and this can be done by reducing levels of educational failure. The outcomes that mattered most to children and young people were - being healthy, staying safe, developing the required skills for adulthood, making a positive contribution to the community and society and not allowing economic disadvantage to be a barrier for fulfilling their potential (ECM, 2003). This foundation has been assured by the government by the launch of the Sure Start program which has helped to eradicate child poverty. With the publication of the ECM the government introduced its ten-year strategy for children. The idea was to create a single quality framework of services for children between birth and 5 years. Sure Start is a government programme aimed to increase the availability of childcare for all children, improve health and emotional development for young children and provide support to parents as parents and also in their pursuit to obtain employment. They intend to achieve their aims by starting centers in disadvantaged areas and providing financial support to parents to afford childcare. Sure Start Childrens Centres (SSCC) are hubs where children from the age of 0-5 years and their families can receive seamless integrated services and information. These centers aim to give every child the best possible start in life and have a broad and lasting impact on children. While the services at each centre may vary but they generally include the following: Integrated early education and child care – all centers have minimum half-time qualified teacher. Support for parents enabling them to work and study. Advice on parenting and access to specialist services for children. Health screening, health visitor services to breast-feeding support. Reduction in child poverty and crime rates. The SSCC provide support to the child and their families from the antenatal period through till the child enters the primary school. The services for children start at the first antenatal visit. They provide guidance through pregnancy and prepare the parents for parenthood as well. They also advice the mothers to return to work after birth. The early learning is integrated with full day care provision which covers a minimum of ten hours per day and 48 weeks per year, serving five days a week. Professionally qualified teachers are employed to lead the development within the centers. Children with special needs are suitably taken care of apart from all support provided to the families. Change for children includes improving the outcomes of disabled children also. The needs of the disabled children are complex and they cross traditional service boundaries. Twenty-nine percent of the disabled children live under poverty and the disabled young people between 16 and 24 are less satisfied with their lives than their peers (Crown, 2006). Families with disabled children also report high level of unmet needs as only 4% of disabled children are supported by social services. These centers serve not only as a base for childminder networks but also as a link to other day care provision, out of school clubs and extended schools. Some centers also offer training for parents like teaching them the basic skills, honing up their English language, benefits advice and maintenance of toy libraries. While most centers take into account the local needs and start local programmes or neighborhood nurseries, they also encourage the local people to participate and contribute creatively to cater to local needs. Since March 2006 the local authorities have taken over the responsibility to manage the local centers (HOC, 2007). Local authorities manage the local service levels within the framework of the Memorandum Of Understanding set by the Government. Such centers require a wide range of staff to deliver integrated services. While the composition of staff may vary from one center to another they would generally include a manager, teachers, nursery assistants or nurses, family support staff, health professionals, childminders, a childminder network coordinator, Jobcentre Plus staff to assist the parents with training and obtaining job. The service staff is well trained to listen to the parents and their problems and assist them suitably. The SSCCs were initially based in the 20% of the most disadvantaged wards and by January 2005 there were 188 designated centers. SSCC are based in schools, health centers, community centers or their own buildings (HOC, 2007). Public, private and voluntary organizations work together to provide a wide range of services to these families. A study by this report suggests that while the centers have been set up in the disadvantaged areas, not all centers were proactively seeking out the most disadvantaged families in these areas. Those parents that took advantage of the service and the facilities were happy with it but special needs children or small ethnic communities or single parents were not well served. Those with children needing special needs were not well informed of the services available to them. Emphasis is laid by the government on accountability and achievement of excellence. By 2010 they intended to increase the children’s centers from 1700 to 2500 and by 2010 to 3500 centers in the 30% of the most deprived communities (Siraj-Blatchford & Manni, 2006). All these require skilled leadership. Hence as per the policy now the programme aims to guarantee a center to every community which implies that the focus on serving the needs of the disadvantaged children will be lost. According to the National Audit only one third of the staff were qualified to perform well. The expansion of the programme is moving at a fast pace but the training of qualified teachers needed to execute this program does not commensurate with the demand envisaged for the net 2-3 years (HOC, 2007). The center managers lacked the necessary financial knowledge and received little support in this regard. There are signs of uncertainty of future funding and this could lead to difficulty in managing some centers. It is also feared that due to rapid increases in the number of centers the level of service would be diluted and the resources will be spread out thinly. It is planned to study the impact of the program in 2008-09 when it is possible to assess the benefits that children have received. It would not be possible to ascertain the benefits in the areas of academic performance or health but the evaluation could certainly indicate whether the families have benefited. The SSCC sector requires a skilled and diverse workforce. The government intends to recruit from minority ethnic backgrounds as this could have a better impact on the families that come to the centers for support and hence have wider community and cultural benefits. As of now it is basically the young women that work at these centers but the government aims to encourage young men to think of working here as a career option. This could enhance the level of service and reduce staff turnover. They want to change attitudes and perceptions of the people which would help in improving the services at these centers. Another goal of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is to provide the literacy skills. Sure Start also aims to give the children a good start in literacy skills and support a smooth transition from the early years to the stage of Primary I (Sure Start, 2008). By the age of five most children would be able to use their phonic knowledge to write simple words and make attempts to write more complex words. The EYFS is supposed to come into effect this September but research suggests that less than half the children achieve this milestone. This requires further investigation whether achieving this is realistic and if so how it can be ensured that children do benefit from the literacy program under Sure Start. It is thus seen that under ECM the Sure Start Children’s Center has gone a long way in achieving its aim to reduce poverty for children and support their families. It is definitely way ahead of what the government was doing for the early years sector before the ECM started. The government now aims to start a SSCC in every locality and community but it is feared that this could dilute the services and spread the resources thinly across the centers. It is also feared that the demand for qualified teachers would not be meet given the pace at which the expansion of the program is taking place. The managers too are not well equipped to handle the finances properly. The centers are managed locally and they also have to rely on other voluntary agencies for services. Despite these drawbacks, the Sure Start Centers have been assisting families and children between 0 and 5 years in different ways. Nevertheless, scope for improvement of services exists within the Sure Start program. Suggestions have been set forth by various agencies on improving the reach and benefits of the program. Home visiting is needed to ensure that the disadvantaged and the excluded families are informed and encouraged to avail of the services offered (EYFS, 2008). The local groups should be involved in service consultations. There are grants available fro those families that may not be able to afford the service even till the child is three or four years old but the parents may not be aware of these grants. Hence wider knowledge dissemination through local involvement and home visiting needs to be looked into to make this program a success. References: Crown (2006). Disabled children: facts and figures. Available from: http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/socialcare/disabledchildren/facts/ [accessed 02 July 2008] ECM (2003). Every Child Matters. Available from: http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/website/ich/academicunits/Centre_for_evidence_based_child_health/CustomMenu_02/Every_child_matters__2003.pdf [accessed 02 July 2008] EYFS (2008). Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment. Available from: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/EYFS%20-%20RIA%20_Partial_%20and%20REIA.pdf HMSO (2004). Choice for parents, the best start for children: a ten year strategy for childcare. Available from: http://www.everychildmatters.co.uk/_files/C7A546CB579620B7381308E1C161A9D.pdf [accessed 02 July 2008] HOC (2007). Sure Start Childrens Centres. House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts. Available from: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmpubacc/261/261.pdf [accessed 02 July 2008] NGRF (2008). Early years education, childcare and playwork Sector Information. Avauilable from: http://www.guidance-research.org/future-trends/earlyyears/info [accessed 02 July 2008] Siraj-Blatchford, I. & Manni, L. (2006). Effective Leadership in the Early Years Sector (ELEYS) Study. Available from: http://www.gtce.org.uk/shared/contentlibs/126795/93128/120213/eleys_study.pdf [accessed 02 July 2008] Sure Start (2008). EYFS literacy goals to be reviewed. Available from: http://www.surestart.gov.uk/events/newsevents/whatsnew/index.cfm?news=365 [accessed 02 July 2008] Official websites used: http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/earlyyears/surestart/centres/ http://www.surestart.gov.uk/aboutsurestart/about/thesurestartprinciples2/ http://www.surestart.gov.uk/resources/recruitment/recruitmentcampaign/ Read More