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Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

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In A fairer start

A new era of integration in the early years

This project started in July 2024 and will end in July 2025

Establishing a long-term vision for the design and governance of joined-up family support services.

Integrated family support systems are a proven, effective means of improving children’s outcomes by addressing families’ needs and empowering them to support their children. Many years of austerity, a pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have not only eroded families’ resources and resilience, but also the support available to them. Services once delivered via the Sure Start programme have seen their funding and scope significantly reduced. There is an urgent need to re-invigorate these approaches powered by a long-term vision, a clear set of targets and outcomes, and a strong national policy framework.

Impact goal

We want to leverage the early-years sector’s collective intelligence to inform a long-term vision for joined-up family support services, and the optimal design and governance of such a system.

Why are we doing this?

Robust evidence about the impacts of the Sure Start programme tells us that place-based family support systems that integrate services around the child or family are the best mechanism for delivering support to disadvantaged parents.

Since 2010, the funding supporting these initiatives has dramatically eroded. New initiatives, such as Family Hubs or Start for Life, are welcome in re-invigorating the idea of family-centred approaches but lack clarity on policy vision, funding, and scale necessary to drive nationwide progress.

Beyond a broad agreement on the importance of integrated family support systems, there is a lack of consensus on what the ultimate goals of these systems should be, and how they should function.

We believe progress can best be achieved by the sector working together collaboratively. This project, coordinated by Nesta and Ethos Foundation, will seek to align the sector around a policy framework which will enable strategic targeting of funding and resources to high-priority areas.

What are we doing?

The project will take a deliberative and collaborative approach to creating an effective central policy framework for integrated early-years support systems. To do this, the project is organised into the following three main workstreams.

Evidence gathering stage

This stage aims to gather evidence from a range of stakeholders on the essential preconditions of good integrated early-years delivery. This stage includes:

an open call for evidence - we will invite submissions from stakeholders on the essential preconditions of good integrated early-years delivery
a rapid literature review - this will synthesise findings from existing UK policy documents, evaluations and research into integrated early-years delivery
interviews and focus groups - we are holding 1:1 interviews with key experts and conducting focus groups with practitioners
family voices - finally we are gathering insights from families, ensuring we capture the experiences of those who have, and have not accessed integrated family support services.

Deliberation and consensus building stage

This stage involves:

a Delphi-inspired survey - a two-stage process in which sector experts are first surveyed to establish the range of opinion on several key parameters of integrated early-years delivery
hosting lived experience and expert workshops based on the initial findings, using a structured process to explore areas of agreement and disagreement, with the aim of reaching a consensus. Both the caregivers engaged in Phase 1, and the experts engaged in the Delphi process, will have this opportunity to co-create a policy vision.