Dingley’s Promise welcomes the Government’s ‘Best Start in Life’ Strategy and its vital focus on valuing and investing in early childhood. For too long, children with SEND have not been able to access their early years entitlements in the same way as other children, leaving them further behind their peers, and their families feeling isolated and frustrated.
The Government states that it will “increase access for children with SEND, by investing in the help available to them to support inclusion, and early intervention to prevent the escalation of needs.” We have actively called for changes to the system to improve access and life outcomes for children with SEND, and for a system which puts children and families at the centre and ensures collaboration for the best outcomes of each individual child. We are delighted that the Strategy aligns with many of our recommendations for early years SEND Inclusion.
There was recognition that ‘the early years funding system creates a barrier to delivering provision for children with SEND.’ We are pleased to see increased investment in early years SEND, through a new, easy to access funding stream in early years settings. This is intended to ‘help fund extra resources for providers to invest in inclusion and early intervention and prevent the escalation of needs at a time when additional support can have the biggest impact in a child’s development.’
In addition, we welcome the proposed funded partnership working between early years settings and schools, to allow for smoother transitions for children, seeing first-hand the impact of effective and ineffective transitions on long term educational outcomes for children.
Having developed an outreach service in each of our communities as well as online information sessions and digital resources, we are happy to see the expansion of Family Hubs. Having a dedicated professional in each hub who is trained to support families of children with SEND is absolutely critical. We welcome the drive towards ‘helping to identify children with SEND who may need extra help early on’ as well as building links with early years settings and health services and assisting parents at this early stage. We believe this approach will have significant impacts on families, many of whom have expressed the importance of feeling included and supported at what can be a confusing and isolating time.
The issues raised by families in our recent parent roundtable held in Westminster highlighted the complexity and ineffectiveness of current family support systems and just how critical it is for families to have this kind of support, information and signposting in the early years.
Dingley’s Promise has long called for an inclusive approach to early years education. We were encouraged to see a recognition of the importance of ‘strong inclusive practice’ for all children. The Government has demonstrated their intention to ‘make inclusive practice standard practice in the early years by embedding an inclusive approach in our workforce education, training and leadership opportunities.’ Our own research with providers reflected that 77% believe that inclusion training is a priority for their teams, and when considering inclusion as a whole, 63% of settings felt the best way to improve their support to children is through staff training. We have seen first-hand the impacts on individuals and settings who undertake high quality inclusive practice training, increasing confidence and knowledge to support a broad range of needs and welcome more children into their settings.
Chief Executive Catherine Mole MBE welcomes the proposed Best Start Strategy: “This strategy reflects the Government’s commitment to prioritising early years and children with SEND, and we are delighted that it addresses many of the barriers we have highlighted in recent months. Dingley’s Promise believes that these initiatives will make a significant difference to children with SEND and their families in the early years, opening up more places in early years settings, and driving strong inclusive practice within a skilled and valued workforce, from which all children will benefit. We are committed to working with the Government to bring this strategy to life and recognise that this is the first step in a longer process that we hope will enable every child to thrive in the early years.”
We look forward to hearing more about the direction of the strategy and the specific SEND reforms which will be outlined in the Schools White Paper in the autumn.