Education Commons^™

The Impact Of Sure Start Local Programmes On Three Year Olds And Their Families, Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky, Alastair H. Leyland, Angela Anning, Zarrina Kurtz, Jane Tunstill, Mog Ball, Pamela Meadows, Jacqueline Barnes, Martin Frost, Beverley Botting

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs), now Sure Start Children's Centres, aim to support young children and their families by integrating early education, childcare, healthcare and family support services in disadvantaged areas. The programmes aim to improve the health and well-being of families and young children, so that the children will have a greater opportunity to do well in school and later in life. This study investigates child and family functioning in over 9000 families in 150 SSLP areas, and makes comparisons with children and families in similarly disadvantaged areas not having a SSLP in order to evaluate whether there are …

Effects Of Fully-Established Sure Start Local Programmes On 3-Year-Old Children And Their Families Living In England: A Quasi-Experimental Observational Study, Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky, Alastair H. Leyland, Jacqueline Barnes

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background

Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) are area-based interventions to improve services for young children and their families in deprived communities, promote health and development, and reduce inequalities. We therefore investigated whether SSLPs affect the wellbeing of 3-year-old children and their families.

Methods

In a quasi-experimental observational study, we compared 5883 3-year-old children and their families from 93 disadvantaged SSLP areas with 1879 3-year-old children and their families from 72 similarly deprived areas in England who took part in the Millennium Cohort Study. We studied 14 outcomes—children's immunisations, accidents, language development, positive and negative social behaviours, and independence; parenting risk; …