Nursery World - Editor's view (295)

The joy and success of Sure Start has been the individual nature of its programmes, with services springing from each community, tailored to meet the needs of the families within the area. What helps Bangladeshi mothers in London's Tower Hamlets, for example, can be very different to what helps children in a poor rural ward in Devon. It is this approach that many involved in children's services have warned could be lost as the local programmes are transferred into the children's centre roll-out. And the row over the forthcoming national evaluation of Sure Start, due to show few or no improvements on a range of targets as a result of the initiative, makes this even more likely (see News, page 4, and To the Point, page 9).

It is this approach that many involved in children's services have warned could be lost as the local programmes are transferred into the children's centre roll-out. And the row over the forthcoming national evaluation of Sure Start, due to show few or no improvements on a range of targets as a result of the initiative, makes this even more likely (see News, page 4, and To the Point, page 9).

The obsession with measuring results - too soon and sometimes of the wrong things - provides ammunition for standardising services within children's centres and focusing on outcomes that can be measured more easily.

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