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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background
1.1 The earliest years of a child's life are crucial to his or her development and the health behaviours of the mother at the pre-conception stage and during pregnancy are also important in determining the health and life chances of children.
1.2 In the first years, inequalities in health, education and employment opportunities are frequently passed from one generation to another resulting in inter-generational poverty. Breaking this cycle requires a complex set of interventions at an early stage in a child's life. Improvement in child well-being is evident in their behaviour, educational attainment, employment and relationships.
1.3 In a joint policy statement published by the Scottish Government and COSLA, they state their commitment that local authorities and the Scottish Government will work together to ensure that there is an effective approach to early intervention and the early years in Scotland. The Scottish Government in partnership with COSLA and a range of early years partners, is currently developing the new Early Years Framework which is due to be launched later in 2008. It will be a ten year framework addressing the needs of families with children from pre-birth to 8 years old. It will cover the range of services that support children and their families including: education, health, family support and social services. It will include services for parents and carers that have a critical impact on their children, for example housing.
1.4 The Early Years Framework will take a long term, strategic approach to turning these inequalities around and achieving better outcomes for Scotland's children. It will mean a shift in resources from tackling the results of past failures to addressing the reasons lying at the root of these failures - treating the causes rather than the effects. The Government will however continue to provide support to those people who have already experienced inequalities in early life.
1.5 The Early Years Framework is being developed on a strong, robust evidence base and one element of building this base is the research that GEN has carried out with parents, carers and children to explore their views and experiences of early interventions, early years services and support for families with young children.
Aims and objectives of the research
1.6 The study was commissioned by the Scottish Government Education Directorate. It was a qualitative research exercise which has supplemented the work being carried out by the Task Groups that are working on developing the framework.
1.7 The aim of the research was to gather qualitative information on the views of families (parents and children), including those who are users and non-users of services to explore:
- Their needs relating to, and their experiences of, early years services; and
- Any gaps that parents or children feel may exist in current early years service provision.
1.8 The study aimed to explore both targeted and universal early years services, for example:
- Childcare (including after and out of school care);
- Schools;
- Family/children's centres;
- Family support services (including health related services);
- Outreach support;
- Ante-natal and postnatal care;
- Parenting groups; and
- Playgroups and parenting programmes.
1.9 The objectives of the research were to gain parent and/or child perspectives on the following research questions:
- What formal and informal support and services have different groups of parents received?
- How do these meet their needs and what are the areas of unmet need? How could those needs best be met and by whom?
- What do parents need at different stages of their child's development?
- What are the particular support needs of vulnerable families?
- What encourages parents and children to engage with services? Is there anything that has hindered them in their engagement with or use of services?
- What are the impacts on families of using a number of service providers - e.g. using a combination of childcare providers?
- What do children and families need in terms of physical and social environment, particularly in relation to play?
- Views of children and parents on peer support as opposed to formal support services.
1.10 GEN explored the service needs of families with children aged between 0-8 and during the pre-conception and ante-natal phases. We looked at the experiences of using existing services and we explored the gaps in services for example in type of services, their efficacy, age group, accessibility, geography and affordability. We have set out the findings of each theme in separate chapters around needs, experiences and gaps. In each we have integrated the findings from the adults and children.
1.11 Our work solely consisted of qualitative research with parents, carers and children to feed in to the development of the framework and so the findings are descriptive, designed to form part of the overall analysis that will underpin the framework.
Report structure
1.12 The report is set out as follows:
- Chapter 2 describes our approach and methods;
- Chapter 3 sets out the study findings relating to preconception, ante and post-natal care;
- Chapter 4 provides the findings on early education and childcare;
- Chapter 5 contains the findings about play and leisure;
- Chapter 6 describes the findings about health and health behaviour;
- Chapter 7 sets out the findings about parent and family support services; and
- Chapter 8 summarises the main messages coming out of the research.
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