No access to early years support could 'delay' child development, says Rutland psychologist
Action for Children say 43% of East Midlands parents are struggling to access pre-school child support
There's a growing crisis as more than four in ten parents of children under 5 are struggling to access vital child development and parenting support in the East Midlands.
That's according to Action for Children, who say 23% of these parents have no access to early years services.
Local expert in child psychology, Julie Griffin said:
'With parents and carers struggling to access child services, support to help them with their children, to help their children progress forwards, there could be a delay in the child's development.'
'When school starts at age four, teachers may notice that the children have got these different types of attachments, they may need to adjust the curriculum to help them through that bit, and to help them catch up.'
What are early years services?
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.
According to the charity's research, low-income parents across England were 40% more likely to have problems getting early years support in comparison to the highest income families (25%).
The charity says 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.
71% of the region’s parents told the charity they want more high-quality support available to help with their parenting.
Another price to pay in the living cost crisis
Financial barriers were also prevalent for parents, 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 to accessing early years support.
Nationally, Black, Asian and minority ethnic parents, younger parents, and fathers, were also more likely to have faced difficulty accessing services.
Now, to combat these issues, Action for Children are calling for the new Prime Minister to ensure every family has access to early years services as 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 East of England and across the country gets the foundations they need to thrive.”
A Government spokesperson from the Levelling Up department said:
“We have made an additional £3.7 billion available to councils this year alone to help them deliver key services and support families.
“We’re also backing families with better and earlier access to services that keep them safe and healthy by investing millions in expanding a network of Family Hubs all over England and with the Supporting Families programme, which is helping to keep up to 300,000 families together safely and provide loving homes for children. We have also set out plans to tackle the choice and availability of childcare.”