Sharing the vision

These are exciting times to be working in children's centres. Currently we have 800, and by 2010 there should be 3,500, representing one in every community. Tony Blair described children's centres as the new frontier for the welfare state and the education system. I think children's centres can be much more than a frontier. They can be a whole new territory.

Staff in children's centres are working towards equality of opportunity and social justice, they are developing social and cultural capital in areas where families are experiencing poverty and they are developing their centres as learning communities.

Some of us may still feel that we are not going far enough, that we are not working fast enough and that the investment is insufficient. But with children's centres we are going in the right direction.

Parents as partners

Children's centres challenge traditional ways of working. They are meant to. Services have to support the needs of children and their parents alike.

Adult community education with basic skills, family learning, access to GCSEs and A-levels, assertiveness training, and a range of other courses are offered, alongside quality early childhood education. Services are offered all the year round, across the day, evening and weekends. Teachers, early years educators, adult educators, community social workers and health practitioners work collaboratively and reflectively.

Staff have to be research-active, as Pen Green staff have been since the 1980s. Evaluating and demonstrating the efficacy of our work was the only way we could secure funding, locally, nationally and internationally.

Parents are closely involved in research activity and are committed to documenting their children's learning and development. Children's centre staff are committed to a strengths-based approach: valuing parents as their child's best educators and encouraging them to be passionate advocates.

Children's centres challenge professional practice. They aim to rebalance the power relationships between citizens and professionals. They develop the capacity of children and parents to be competent users of services. Not just 'clients' or 'consumers', passively receiving generous dollops of welfare state services, but equal and active partners in developing and reviewing the effectiveness of what's on offer.

New model of leadership

Children's centres also challenge our picture of leadership. The complex demands of running a children's centre mean that the leader or team which runs it has to co-ordinate different models of early education, childcare, family support and adult community learning, into one institution. This requires a distinctive model of leadership development.

The creation of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) means that for the first time, we have a new professional development approach to leadership which celebrates complexity and actively promotes diversity.

In children's centres there is a real recognition that there is not one solution to any problem. They have to respond to their local community, so they will all look different.

Children's centre leaders have to be community activists. The objective of the NPQICL is to offer professional development and professional support to those who have taken on this challenging role.

It seems to me there are four critical factors that must be taken into account if children's centres are to work. The first and perhaps most important factor, is that staff have to have a shared philosophy, a shared vision and values, and a principled approach to practice. Shared leadership and a consistent way of working are critical.

Sustaining and supporting the achievement of children's centre leaders has been a privilege for staff and consultants at Pen Green over the past five years. The NPQICL is a national response to the need to both support and challenge leaders in their job. It is an integrated response led by the National College for School Leadership. The national and international evaluations of the pilot course (2005) and the current course (2006-07) being delivered across all the government regions clearly show it has had a huge impact on the leaders involved.

We are convinced that the opportunity for these leaders to develop a collective and shared understanding of their jobs and how to do them better is crucial to the success of the children's centre initiative. There are still opportunities to apply for next year's course. Places are fully funded, and information and application forms are available through the NCSL website www.ncsl.org.uk until 31 May.

Further information

* Dr Margy Whalley can be contacted at Pen Green Research Base on mwhalley@ northamptonshire.gov.uk. Pen Green Research Base offers training and consultancy services across the UK and would like to thank colleagues at Demos for the inspiration for this article.