Growing number of children across Merseyside not ready to start school

A new report by Action for Children warns of a growing crisis facing children under 5 with four in ten (40%) parents struggling to access vital child development and parenting support across the North West, with over a fifth (21%) having no access to these ‘lifeline’ services.

63% of the region’s parents told the charity, they want more high-quality support available to help with their parenting.

With the attainment gap expected to widen even further between disadvantaged children and their peers,iii the research shows that families who could benefit the most from parenting support services were least likely to access them. In fact, low-income parents across England (35%) were 40% more likely to have problems getting early years support in comparison to the highest income families (25%), further widening the divide.

Concerningly, funding pressures have impacted the provision of early years services over recent years as nationally, the main barrier (27%) to accessing support was that the services were simply not available in local areas, with over a third (35%) of North West parents agreeing.

Financial barriers were prevalent for parents polled as the cost-of-living crisis worsens. Parents who weren’t within walking distance of services cited the cost of petrol or public transport as their biggest challenge.

Nationally, Black, Asian and minority ethnic parents, younger parents, and fathers, were also more likely to have faced difficulty accessing services.iv

Early years services, normally found in children’s centres and family hubs, include non-childcare programmes to support children’s education and development, such baby and toddler groups and parenting programmes. These types of services also allow professionals to early identify more serious issues facing families.

Findings show the most common worries from North West parents about the impact of being unable to access early years support include:

• Their own mental health and emotional wellbeing (52%)

• Feeling isolated or lonely (41%)

• Feeling scared, daunted or anxious about issues relating to parenting (37%)

• Their housing, finance and employment situation (33%)

• Their child’s ability to make friends and socialise with other children (31%)

Over a quarter (28%) of the region’s parents who had accessed parenting help had gone on to access further support, highlighting the crucial role the early years services play to identify and stop problems in their tracks. The report examined the likely number of referrals for further help that did not happen because parents missed out on parenting support, revealing 415,979 parents across England were likely to have missed out on further helpv.

The charity is calling on the new Prime Minister to ensure every family has access to key early years services in their local area as a core part of the ‘levelling up’ agenda with sustained investment for parenting support.

Rossanna Trudgian, head of campaigns and public affairs at Action for Children, said: “Every child deserves a chance at having the best start in life, that’s why we’re worried that disadvantaged children are being blocked from accessing the services that allow them to catch up and level up for when they start school.

“We know from our own frontline services that helping families as early as possible is more effective in the long-run so investing in high quality child support and parenting programmes in every community should be a core part of the ‘levelling-up’ agenda.

“We urge the next Prime Minister to take urgent action to deliver a long-term plan for early years services with sustained investment in parenting support to ensure every child in the North West and across the country gets the foundations they need to thrive.”

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