Sure Start: More than a Quick Fix?

by Ingrid Hanson

A good start in life. Isn’t that what we’d all like for our children? It’s certainly the hope that Sure Start plays to with its feel-good name and sunny logo.
But is the reality of Sure Start as good as it sounds? Can a government-funded initiative with nationally decreed targets really make a lasting difference to our children? 
Our parenting? 
Our community? 

For local mother Tracey Sparkes Sure Start’s help came just when she most needed it. She had new twin babies and another child under three when her health visitor recommended that she take up Sure Start’s provision of 12 hours of childcare support, available to every family in the 1000-household area covered by the programme. 

‘At first I said no because Iwas too proud,’ she says. But later she agreed to take up the offer and Kim, one of the Sure Start workers, came to her home, bringing clothes for the babies and a little rucksack of soft play things for Cara, her older daughter. 

‘After that she asked how she might be useful,’ says Tracey. ‘Then things got better and better. We got used to each other and became friends. I can’t praise her enough.’ Kim came back several times to give Tracey time alone with Cara or simply to help with the children and housework. 
So far so good. Undoubtedly Sure Start workers on the ground are helping some parents with the stresses and strains of having young children. They are offering advice on subjects as various as breastfeeding, giving up smoking and a healthy diet for children. But what of the long term? Can Sure Start truly listen to local families – those whose voices are not often heard, as well as those that are?

Mother of three Rashida Hassanali has been involved with Sure Start since it first began in Burngreave. She has sat on committees, received personal childcare support and has now set up a Sure Start-supported project to encourage families to read with their children. She believes Sure Start can make a difference. 

‘So far, putting money into improvements in childcare is the best thing Sure Start has done – like extending the hours at Ellesmere Children’s Centre and putting money into Burngreave Young Children’s Centre,’ she says.

She admits, though, that genuine involvement of parents in the running and planning of Sure Start is limited. ‘Wherever I go, I see the same half a dozen people. The places I don’t go there may be a different group of faces. But it’s still a very small number out of the thousand households.’

This, surely, is a serious flaw. No matter how kind the workers, how good the funding projects, how admirable the intentions, Sure Start can only really be good news for your children and mine if the programme belongs to us, reflecting our various cultures and aspirations for our children. 

I put this to Jane Grinonneau, chair of Sure Start’s partnership board and an active member of Burngreave community. ‘Sure Start is essentially about strengthening families and communities, with a major focus on under-fours,’ she says. ‘We are committed to getting this programme parent-led. We’re listening to people through places where they’re already comfortable, through staff who reflect the cultural diversity and languages of the area. But we’re a long way off where we want to be.’

It has been a slow start for Sure Start. Many parents who tried to get involved in the early months have been put off by long, difficult meetings, patronising or defensive staff, or the long gaps in communication that characterised Sure Start’s beginnings. Others I’ve spoken to have still not heard of Sure Start, or feel it has nothing to do with them. 

‘The commitment of those of us involved in the programme is 100 per cent to everybody,’ says Jane Grinonneau. ‘But we can’t do it without the trust of local people. It’s about celebrating strengths, helping you in being who you are and who you want to be.’

It’s early days yet. Whether the reality lives up to the rhetoric remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: only genuine parental involvement at every level can make Sure Start an agent of lasting change rather than a passing quick fix.