£36 million to give vulnerable babies in Lambeth A Better Start in life

18 Jun 2014 03:13 PM

Ten thousand 0-3 year olds in Lambeth will have their lives improved with the help of a £36 million grant from the Big Lottery Fund.

The National Children’s Bureau is being awarded the funding to lead a local partnership to improve the lives of more than 10,000 children through radically changing the way agencies and services work with pregnant mothers, fathers, babies, their families and communities in order to strengthen families, improve parenting effectiveness and the wellbeing of families.

There is strong evidence showing that what happens in the womb and through the first three years of life can help determine a child’s future. The Big Lottery Fund’s A Better Startinvestment aims to prevent costly health problems such as heart disease and diabetes, difficult social problems such as neglect or poor mental health and low educational attainment - all of which can be traced back to some vulnerable children not having a good start in those first crucial years of development.

Over the ten years of the funding the project will aim to improve breastfeeding rates, reduce childhood and maternal obesity, reduce domestic violence, improve social, emotional, communication and language development. The projects will be delivered at 26 sites across Coldharbour, Stockwell, Tulse Hill and Vassall, 13 of those will be enhanced, eight of which will have improved outdoor spaces or play areas created.

The new spaces will allow all those working with families to use the same base, share information and work with parents so that health professionals such as health visitors and midwives can work much more closely with the council’s family support workers, social workers and ‘community champions’ to support families in a more coordinated way. More than 50 new community champions will be recruited in the first year and trained to promote key advice and build connections in the community to reduce the social isolation of some new parents.

Nat Sloane, Big Lottery Fund England Chair, said: “Parents want the best for their children and as a society we know that what happens in the first three years of life profoundly affects a child’s future life chances. A poor start in life can affect your health, wellbeing, outlook on life and how you form relationships. Prevention matters more in the early years as we have a much greater understanding of what can and might improve the life chances of a future generation. That is why this investment is focusing on the three key areas of social and emotional development, nutrition, and language and communication development.”

Elaine Simpson, Chair of the National Children’s Bureau said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded funding from the Big Lottery Fund, and incredibly excited to be part of what we believe is one of the most innovative investment programmes in recent years. We believe that this support can help to initiate a step-change in services which will improve the lives of children not only in Lambeth, but across England. We are committed to sharing learning and helping develop working practices and approaches which will ensure this happens.”

Lambeth is one of five areas in England - Southend, Nottingham, Blackpool and Bradford - sharing £215 million from the Big Lottery Fund’s A Better Start investment that will help improve the lives of more than 60,000 babies and children. The ground-breaking ten year test and learn initiative aims to see what methods are the best for laying the foundations for 0-3-year-olds to improve their future health, social and educational outcomes.

Evidence will be produced over the ten years to show which approaches work best to demonstrate the social and economic benefits of investing to prevent harm, in order to influence early years funding across the country.

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500572
Website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Twitter: @biglotteryfund #biglf #ABetterStart
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund

Notes to editors

• National Children’s Bureau (NCB) will be working in partnership with London Borough of Lambeth, NHS Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group, Lambeth & Southwark Public Health, Kings Health Partners (which includes Kings College Hospital Foundation Trust, Guy & St Thomas’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trsut), Stockwell Partnership, St Michael’s Fellowship, City Learning Centre, Metropolitan Police, Gaia Centre, Myatt’s Field Park Project.
• The University of Warwick, The Social Research Unit at Dartington and the London School of Economics have all been contracted to work on the A Better Start programme
• The Warwick Consortium, led by the University of Warwick, will measure the impact of this funding and share learning. The Warwick Consortium includes key figures in early years research from Oxford University, Ipsos Mori and Bryson Purdon Social Research.
• The London School of Economics will establish a robust cost-benefit framework that will measure the cashable savings to society and the public purse through A Better Start interventions.
• The Social Research Unit at Dartington supported the partnerships throughout the process by providing them with local data, helping them to identify the best evidence and facilitating community engagement.
• The Big Lottery Fund has invested an additional £65 million to A Better Start in order to provide funding to five areas.
• In the year ending 31 March 2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was returned to the Good Causes
• The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
• The Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since its inception in 2004 the Fund has awarded close to £6bn.
• The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, over £31 billion has now been raised and more than 400,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment