Sally Pearse, Sheffield Hallam University

The government has announced its strategy for “giving every child the best start in life”, laying out proposals covering early years care, education and support in England.

The strategy builds on the current local family hub model of services, which offer a range of support aimed at babies and young children. Best Start family hubs will further bring together early years and family services in a similar way to the previous Sure Start programme. The government’s commitment includes £1.5 billion in investment to implement these reforms.

The Best Start Hubs will be a one-stop shop to support families with their child’s early development, from breastfeeding advice to speech and language support and stay and play sessions. The hubs will also support families with wider challenges such as housing and benefits, and provide courses for parents.

The attempt to bring services together to deliver local, holistic support to families is understandable given the impact of the original Sure Start initiative, introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government.

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The Sure Start Local Programmes that were established from 1999 onwards had a significant positive effect on those families who had access to them. From 2010, though, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came into power, funding was cut and many Sure Start centres closed.

In May 2025 the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a summary report on the short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s lives.

They found that the impact of the Sure Start services for under-fives was remarkably long-lasting, with improvements during their teenage years in educational attainment and behaviour in school, and reductions in hospital admissions. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that these long-term benefits significantly outweigh the cost of the Sure Start programme.

Like Sure Start, the Best Start strategy has the potential to be transformational for young children and their families.

However, the current range of challenges faced by families and the depth of child poverty in the country will make bringing about this transformation challenging. A 2023 report from charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that there are one million children growing up destitute in the UK, without the means to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.

The challenge of poverty

The day after the Best Start strategy was launched, the children’s commissioner for England published a research report on children’s experience of growing up in a low-income family. Based on interviews with 128 children, the report outlines the “almost-Dickensian” levels of poverty experienced by children whose basic needs are not being met. Children described poor housing conditions, mouldy food and lack of hot water.

The significant impact that poverty has on children’s educational attainment, health and future lives will be difficult for the benefits that the Best Start programme may provide to negate.

I have witnessed these financial challenges and the wider range of issues families are dealing with on a daily basis in my own role as the director of the Early Years Community Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, and through my wider research with families.

In March 2024 I was part of a team of researchers who were commissioned by the Ministry for Housing, Community and Local Government to explore how multiple insecurities, such as financial difficulties, health problems, precarious work, poor housing and lack of support networks affected people’s lives.

Parents described the difficulties of making ends meet. They talked about having to deal with many different national and local agencies, the stress this created within their family and the toll on their health and wellbeing.

Even working full-time did not necessarily make families more secure. In one family, the working pattern the parents had to adopt to make ends meet meant that they only had one day a fortnight to be together.

We have to do stupid hours. I mean my partner, she works nights. I work mainly days … we’re kind of like passing ships in the night.

The places these families turned to were local community centres run by a range of organisations. The common themes about why they accessed these centres were the warm, welcoming, non-judgemental approach taken by staff, trusting relationships with staff and the range of services and support that were offered.

This bodes well for the Best Start strategy – if it is able to deliver the full range of services the government has outlined in a local trusted space. However, this will be a significant challenge in communities that have lacked support over recent years, are suffering the hardships of poverty and that may have lost trust in government services.

Sally Pearse, Strategic Lead for Early Years and Director of the Early Years Community Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University

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