New strategy to join children's services

In a consultation paper, Integrated Strategy for Early Years, published last month, the Executive outlines its plans to bring together the range of services from initiatives such as Sure Start Scotland with those provided by GPs, health visitors, childcare workers and pre-school staff.

The strategy proposes a single set of outcomes and indicators against which the Executive would measure the success of all services for families with young children. Some of the outcomes are already used to monitor the Executive's progress towards meeting its social justice targets, such as increasing the proportion of mothers breastfeeding.

Now the Executive has also put forward three new outcomes that it considers to be particularly relevant to early years. One is to help a greater proportion of five-year-olds achieve the normal levels of personal, social and emotional development for their age. Another is to improve parenting skills through helping more parents, including fathers, to access support and learning opportunities. The third is to 'increase access to, affordability and availability of suitable childcare provision, particularly for disadvantaged groups including lone and student parents, rural families, families affected by substance misuse and families in poverty.'