KEEP IT UNIVERSAL
Local authorities are currently deciding how the Early InterventionGrant should be spent to ensure the best outcomes for children, youngpeople and their families.
While understanding, and endorsing, the fact that limited resources haveto be targeted at the neediest and most disadvantaged families, I feelthere is a significant danger that targeted services delivered inisolation will become 'stigmatised', so discouraging many vulnerablefamilies from engaging with them. Placing targeted services within auniversal service enables families to use and benefit from any targetedservice in a non-stigmatising way.
Frank Field MP, in his Review on Poverty and Life Chances - theFoundation Years, advocates universal services in children's centres forthis very reason.
It is important, too, to recognise the extent to which universalservices can help prevent small problems from escalating to a levelwhere they require a targeted or specialist, and more expensive,service.
And how do we identify children and families facing isolation, stress ordifficulty if there are no universal services at the earliest stages ofa child's life?
The Government is expecting health visitors to make referrals, and plansto recruit more. But currently, health visitors often spend only ten to15 minutes with each family. If a problem is not apparent at the time oftheir visit, it is likely to be missed.
Problems are easier to detect through children's centre sessions such asbaby and toddler groups, which include families referred to them byhealth visitors and the like. Familiar children's centre staff are wellplaced to encourage families to accept targeted support where otherwisethey might have felt unable or unwilling to engage.
There is also the important issue of attachment to consider. In EarlyIntervention: the Next Steps, Graham Allen MP recommends that it isfostered as early as possible, through the baby groups and otheruniversal services. Such an approach can help make children socially andemotionally ready for school and later life.
I appeal to local authorities, then, to protect universal services, torecognise that preventative work is crucial in breaking the cycle ofdisadvantage and poverty, and to ensure that all staff working with theyoungest children are trained in understanding and promotingattachment.
Val Pope, manager, Pre-school Learning Alliance Lewisham
Our letter of the week wins 30 worth of books
OPT OUT OR ELSE
Liz Roberts may well have to revise her ideas of how many nurserieswithdraw from the 'free' entitlement provision (Editor's View, 17March).
I have heard that a good number of nurseries in our area are planning toopt out because staying in would be commercial suicide.
Unlike us, they have only one income stream, and the grant offered bythe LEA is simply insufficient. We can afford to subsidise the provisionthrough fees in our main school - though we'd rather not - so thesituation is not critical.
For the other providers, the choice is simple. Stay in and, in financialterms, bleed to death; or leave. Add to that the adult:child ratiosimposed by Government, and the system soon becomes unviable.
Admittedly, we live in what is probably the most expensive part of thecountry, but I cannot believe, from reading Nursery World, thatnurseries in other areas are not suffering.
And, in answer to Nick Pearce's question, can we design a system ofchildcare that benefits all families? (To the Point, 21 April) - no,there just isn't enough money out there for universal benefits.
In truth, there probably never was. The solution: means-test the damnsystem.
Give to the poorest and just get on with it. It's not a popularsolution, but it will have the twin benefits of being workable and, inthese straitened times, perhaps, more importantly, it will beaffordable.
Christopher Price, co-owner, Merton Court School, Sidcup, Kent
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