Review of Early Years, Children's Centres and Family Support (Phase 2)

Overview

Review of Early Years, Children’s Centres & Family Support

Currently there are 86,000 under-5’s living in Birmingham and the City Council has a duty to ensure sufficient provision of Children’s Centres and Early Education Entitlement places to meet the needs of these children. In addition, our partners across health services secure the provision of a range of services to support pre-school children and their families.

In 2013 a Green paper was published by the City Council entitled Safeguarding, Supporting and Educating Young People and this discussion document recommended a number of service reviews, including a review of Early Years, Children’s Centres and Family Support. This review commenced in February 2014 and was planned over three phases. These are:

• Phase 1 – Baseline review and report (Feb 2014 to July 2014)
• Phase 2 – Developing options for change (Aug 2014 to November 2014)
• Phase 3 – Developing the agreed way forward (December to March 2015)

We are now into the second phase of the review and this involves using the evidence we have collected during the first phase to help us to develop options for reshaping early years services in Birmingham. Our aim is to ensure that, against a background of shrinking local government resources, we are able to establish a sustainable, high quality service which combines a universal entitlement to early education with targeted support for those children and families in the greatest need.

This second phase will result in the identification and assessment of a range of options for change and will involve the engagement of a wide range of partners. We will be seeking to draw on their expertise to identify innovative as well as tried and tested approaches to the many challenges facing the service.

Why your views matter

We want to hear the views of citizens, including those with direct experience of using early years services and early years professionals.  This is so that we have as much information as possible when undertaking this next stage of the review and developing our options for change.