As part of the fifth-year celebrations of the A Better Start programme, Children and Young People Now interviewed representatives from each of the five sites, including our own Head of Programme, Gill Thornton, who spoke about the Personalised Midwifery Care Project delivered by the Clover Team pictured above.
The foundations for a happy, healthy life are laid during pregnancy and a child’s first few years. This is why The National Lottery Community Fund set up and funded A Better Start – a 10-year, £215m programme, designed to improve the life chances of babies and young children from pregnancy to four years old.
This month, the programme celebrates its fifth birthday and half a decade of National Lottery funding aimed at transforming the lives of thousands of children across England.
A Better Start works through five local multi-agency partnerships in Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham, and Southend that develop and test new approaches to boosting child development in their most deprived wards. It covers three key areas of child development – social and emotional development; speech, language and communication; and diet and nutrition.
Each partnership works closely with statutory services, voluntary and community sector organisations, and, most importantly, local families to devise and implement services the area needs.
From Southend’s Fathers Reading Every-Day scheme to Blackpool’s support services for mothers who experienced childhood trauma, no two partnerships are the same. ..
