Narrowing The Gap — Overcoming Challenges And Promoting The Two-Year-Old Offer With Together For Twos
Felicity Stephenson shares news of PACEY’s Together for Twos project to improve the availability and take up of high quality early years provision for disadvantaged children with childminders.
Good early years education is the cornerstone of social mobility as children with strong foundations will start school in a position to progress. However, The Department for Education’s social mobility plan outlines that there is a significant ‘disadvantage gap’ for the country’s most vulnerable children. For example, by age three, disadvantaged children are — on average — almost a full year and a half behind their more affluent peers in their early language development.¹ This delay can have a lasting detrimental impact on early language development, making access to high quality education essential.
Part of the government’s initiative to support this is the offer of 15 hours of funded childcare per week for disadvantaged two-year-olds as research suggests that the use of formal childcare leads to better outcomes for disadvantaged children.² However, not only is there significant variation in take up across the country, over 30% of disadvantaged families are not taking up this offer. There is a serious lack of knowledge about the offer with many families simply not aware they are entitled to it. Another barrier to take up is the fact that many parents believe pre-schoolers should stay at home, they are not well informed about childcare options and most likely have concerns about quality.³
Childminders are particularly underrepresented in delivering the two-year-old offer despite evidence that they are beneficial for disadvantaged families.⁴ Disadvantaged families do not know they can take up the offer with childminders and some have perceptions that childminders as less desirable than group-based providers. This has left Government with a challenge to raise the take up of the two-year-old offer by both practitioners and families, overcoming barriers and supporting parents to make their own, informed, decision about their funding entitlements and childcare options available.
Tackling these challenges with PACEY’s Together for Twos (TfT) project
The Department for Education awarded PACEY a grant to improve the availability and take up of high quality early years provision for disadvantaged children with childminders which we are achieving through our Together for Twos project.
The project is taking place in seven local authorities (Greenwich, Bexley, Harrow, Hillingdon, Southend, Waltham Forest and Enfield) where the take up of two-year-old places was less than 65% at the start of the project. Here, childminder development workers are working with the local authority, a range of professionals including childminders, job centre plus, health visitors, social workers, children’s centres, libraries and other community groups.
This has led to a number of initiatives. For example, with the support of health clinics and Family Information Services they have been delivering a number of “taster” sessions whereby parents can meet with local childminders to get a better idea of what they can offer. As well as this, they have been attending family events across the country to promote the offer and childminding as an option. This project has also been combatting waiting list challenges. Some local authority areas are experiencing eligible two-year-olds missing out on a funded place because they are on waiting lists. So we are actively encouraging these settings to signpost to others, such as local childminders.
Using social media we have also launched two different campaigns. Firstly, we have supported the Department for Education’s Hungry Little Minds initiative through the creation of a series of #smallthings short videos to support parents with home learning. And secondly, PACEY’s #notababysitter campaign was launched to tackle a common misconception amongst parents that childminders are babysitters. It includes a set of downloadable graphics and media pack which promotes key facts about childminders who can ‘offer government-funded places’, provide a ‘unique learning space’ and are ‘experts in child development’. Alongside being shared on social media these images have been printed and given to children centres, libraries and GP surgeries.
Nationally the project has also been working with Job Centre Plus (JCP) to ensure that all job centres in England have up to date information about all the childcare options, and childcare careers. This information is stored on JCP’s knowledge hub. In addition, there are a number of District Childcare Champions who are responsible for cascading information locally.
We are already seeing the benefits of the Together for Twos team and their on the ground work with families and providers. For example at a Waltham Forest Job Centre event, one attendee commented:
“I don’t want to be on benefits for the rest of my life, it’s important that my children see me doing something. I’m always saying to them, ‘work hard at school and you’ll be able to get a good job’. I want to show them that’s true. And that all starts with finding some confidence. When I went to the work club event at my children’s centre, I thought, I can either sit at the back quietly and let other people talk, or I can speak up. I decided to ask the questions I needed to know the answers to and that’s when I found out I was eligible for the two-year-old funding from PACEY.”
We are so pleased with the progress this project has made, our latest data which will be published soon shows early indications that there has been an increase in the take up of funded two-year-old places in the seven areas and an increase in those parents choosing childminders.
Find out more about the project here — www.pacey.org.uk/TogetherForTwos
Endnotes
¹ Department for Education (2017) Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential. A plan for improving social mobility through education <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/667690/Social_Mobility_Action_Plan_-_for_printing.pdf>
² Melhuish, E., Gardiner, J., and Morris, S. (2017) Study of Early Education and Development (SEED): Impact Study on Early Education Use and Child Outcomes up to Age Three, Department for Education
³ Department for Education (2010) Towards Universal Early Years Provision: Analysis of Take-up by Disadvantaged Families From Recent Annual Childcare Surveys. <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/towards-universal-early-years-provision-analysis-of-take-up-bydisadvantaged-families-from-recent-annual-childcare-surveys>
⁴ Melhuish, E., Gardiner, J., and Morris, S. (2017) Study of Early Education and Development (SEED): Impact Study on Early Education Use and Child Outcomes up to Age Three, Department for Education
Felicity Stephenson started her career as a speech and language therapist and now as the Professional Association of Childcare and Early Year’s (PACEY)’s Policy and Communications Officer, she works to research and communicate all recent policy developments in the Early Years sector. This supports members to understand all the policy and regulations which are key to their amazing work.
