A new plan, ‘Getting the BEST START’, sets out how young children and their families will be able to access a wider range of support and joined up services to enable children to reach their full potential starting from birth up until school age.
The priorities of the plan include:
- children’s healthy development, early mental health and emotional wellbeing
- parental readiness and resilience
- children’s communication and language skills
- children’s readiness to start school
- improving equalities so that all children can reach their individual potential
North Lincolnshire Council and the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) have worked alongside partners such as maternity and health visiting services, family learning, schools and early years settings to create the new plan.
The plan builds on existing excellent early education and childcare and local investment into children’s early learning such as Imagination Library. It aims to improve outcomes for young children and their families through further developing the quality of local early education and childcare, supporting and enabling children and their families to participate in their communities, and improving early access to specialist support for the most vulnerable children.
In North Lincolnshire there are around 9,400 children aged under five. Almost all Early Years settings are judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted and nine out of 10 eligible children access two-year-old funded early education and childcare here, compared to around eight out of 10 nationally.
Cllr Julie Reed, cabinet member for children and families, said:
“We are working in partnership with North Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group, community partners and local schools and early years settings to ensure we achieve the best outcomes for our children.
“Our One Family Approach has the ambition for children to be in their families, schools, and communities, and across the partnership we are committed to enabling families to improving outcomes for all, with a strong focus on the most vulnerable.
“In North Lincolnshire we have invested in a number of services and fantastic schemes to support families with young children, such as the Imagination Library. This plan aims to build upon our successes and sets out a really ambitious agenda for involving even more parents, carers, families, and communities in giving all children the best start.”
Alex Seale, Chief Operating Officer at North Lincolnshire CCG said:
“We are really pleased to be working in partnership on this important project.
“Our ambition at North Lincs CCG is to help local people live healthier lives; and by collaborating with local services to target support early in life, at young children and
their families, it is enabling people in North Lincolnshire to have the best start possible. We really look forward to seeing how these plans progress.”
