Just how effective is the Government's Sure Start programme? asks Dr Helen Penn
ritain has more millionaires than any other European country, yet other countries have poverty levels which are much lower. In most of Scandinavia poverty is under 5 per cent, while in Flanders, a part of Belgium I recently visited, it is only 6 per cent. So why is one in three children in the UK living in poverty?
The Government is convinced the answer does not lie in any kind of redistribution of income through taxation or more money for public services. Whatever might have gone wrong in the past to create poverty, now the poor must be made to stand on their own feet. They must acquire 'social capital', learn new skills, find employment and take control over their lives.
I recently did some research for a local authority in the north of England about perceptions of family support, among parents and professionals. For some of the mothers I spoke to, poverty meant being so poor you bought your clothes from the #1 rail at charity shops; you could never afford a proper haircut; you had to plan an outing to the local swimming pool like a day trip to the seaside, saving and making arrangements weeks in advance; you worried about paying 60p for a loaf of bread and you were afraid when the holidays came because there were no free school dinners.
Under these circumstances a lot of the mothers were very depressed. A few had given up altogether and lived very chaotic lives, with their children in and out of care. Long-term ambitions were hard to hold on to as there was virtually no work in the area apart from bar and shop work, so getting a job, finding and paying for childcare, seemed an impossible aim. In the short term, what the women most wanted was a break from their ever-present responsibilities and chronic insecurity. Those with young children wanted some brief respite, some time on their own without the children.
One of the major programmes by which the Government considers it can help poor children is Sure Start. This programme is aimed at children under four living in poor communities. Although the amount allocated to Sure Start - 540 million over three years - is relatively little in terms of Government income and is only aimed at 5 per cent of young children, it is nevertheless a significant investment. The Treasury has, therefore, designated Sure Start as a PSA - a Public Service Agreement - whereby money spent must be accounted for in terms of measurable results by the end of the period in which the money was invested. The official targets for Sure Start are:
Improving the social and emotional well-being of children through improving parenting skills
Improving health, particularly the numbers of low birth-weight babies and a decrease in infant mortality
Achieving speech and development levels that are 90 per cent normal, and improving readiness to learn
Strengthening families and 'natural' communities
Increasing the productivity of operations - targeting the money effectively.
These aims are further broken down into 12 objectives, which can be measured at what the Treasury calls 'evidence points'. The precise evaluative methods have still to be negotiated.
However, public rhetoric is confusing. Sure Start is supposed to be a community initiative, which allows local communities to speak for themselves and find their own ways of addressing child poverty. Professionals from health, education and social services have been urged to work together to help communities address poverty. But this begs the questions of the Treasury's targets - would the 'natural' communities that have been designated as Sure Start 'trailblazers' have chosen for themselves such ways of relieving their poverty? Or of measuring its extent? The targets have produced a great deal of squabbling on the ground, for professionals think they can see what needs to be done, whereas local activists often have another view.
Even if one interprets these targets generously (which most seasoned economists do not) and assumes everyone agrees with them, how can they be put into practice? Here the new thinking seems hard to find. Budgets are disproportionately weighted towards capital rather than revenue, so long-term planning is difficult.
One suggestion that crops up frequently is that local mothers will be trained as home visitors, calling regularly on other mothers with new babies to offer a friendly and supportive chat and to point out local facilities, assuming of course they are affordable and can be reached on foot or by public transport. Another suggestion is more mother and toddler club facilities, a base where isolated mothers can get together for coffee and a chat, maybe with the occasional invited speaker.
If there is an on-site creche, perhaps mothers could have taster courses in IT or some other skilled or semi-skilled activity, which might ease their path back into the workforce, assuming childcare can be found. Another idea is parenting classes. Some mothers might want to learn to cook healthy, nutritious foods, assuming they can afford them. Some libraries or sports centres might offer special sessions. Local lists of childminders will be available, and some kind of placement service may even be offered. And with one or two notable exceptions - for example community education programmes, or combating domestic violence - that seems to be the sum of Sure Start. More of the same; the only difference is there will be more professionals who will be under a greater obligation to work together - an expensive way of retraining professionals.
Could the money be spent more effectively? One possibility would have been to think about what might help young children directly. Despite the growth of the private sector, professionals largely consider group care a bad thing, unless mothers have to work. Group care is certainly not seen as a matter for public subsidy. In fact, on an international basis, there has been nearly 30 years' work on what kind of environments are good for babies and toddlers, which I have reviewed in a recent booklet (see below). Adult/child and child/child relationships; the imaginative and creative use of space; what makes a healthy environment; how and what young children learn: - all these ideas have been rethought and reworked in those countries which have long traditions of infant care. But despite the great shortage of places for babies and toddlers, and the capital which could go to new buildings, few, if any, of the Sure Start programmes have chosen to include childcare.
Also there is a big gap when it comes to making links with other early years initiatives. How does Sure Start fit with the Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships? Or the new nursery education places for three-year-olds? Or the National Childcare Strategy ?
Maybe we can hope for some small results from Sure Start. Some lonely and distressed mothers may be less lonely and distressed. Some children will benefit from their mother's more robust state of mind. Some professionals will work better together. Like so many of the Government's initiatives, it is better than what went before and of course we want to do our best with whatever new resources are available. But will it significantly reduce child poverty? As one of my colleagues put it, Sure Start represents the triumph of hope over experience. And in this case it is not even the poor who are hopeful.
Dr Penn is professor of early childhood at the University of East London, Longbridge Road, Dagenham, Essex RM8 2AS.
How should we care for babies and toddlers?:
A review of practice in out of home care is available from www.childcarecanada.org or Dr Helen Penn at the address above.
For more on child poverty see 'Closing the gap' in last week's Nursery World.
