Family centers that offer support for parents and youth services will be implemented in all the Councils of England, the ministers have announced.
The Department of Education is investing £ 500 million, aiming at disadvantaged communities, to establish a 'best start' family center in all local authorities in April 2026. The Secretary of Education said the scheme “would give a lifeguard to families.
This national expansion follows an initial launch to 75 local authorities in early 2024. Officials anticipate that the network will grow to include up to 1,000 centers by the end of 2028.
Among the services available in the locations are the birth registration, debt advice, midwife services and support for parents who are separating or separated.
Officials hope that spaces also provide families accessing other services and social care.
Bridget Phillipsson said: “It is the driving mission of this government to break the link between the background of a child and what they achieve: our new familiar centers of best start will put the first basic components of better possibilities of life for more children.
“I saw firsthand how initiatives such as the sure beginning helped at leveling the playing field in my own community, transforming children's lives by establishing family support in the first years of life, and as part of our change plan, we are building their legacy for the next generation of children.
“Make sure that working parents can benefit from earlier aid is a promise made, and the promise is maintained: to provide constant support throughout the country, ensuring health, social care and education work in unison to ensure that all children have the best beginning in life.”
The conservatives have said that the announcement “brings little clarity about what is really new and what simply changes the existing services.”
The Secretary of Shadow Education, Laura Trott, said: “That lack of clarity is part of a broader pattern.
“This is a government defined by broken promises and turns of or endless.”
Charity Save The Children has said that it is “pleased” to see the government “facilitating that families get the help they need.”
Dan Paskins, Executive Director of Policies, Defense and Campaigns at Save The Children UK, said: “Focusing on family services for children under five will be vital to ensure better results for children, and we appreciate the best home advertisement in life.
“We know for our work in local communities that gathering support services for parenting, health and education in one place is a approach that works, so we are pleased to see that the United Kingdom government is easier for families to get the help they need.
“With the ministers who now demonstrate an increasingly ambitious plan for children in the United Kingdom, we hope that this impulse for change will continue when the child poverty strategy is published in autumn.
“This must include the scrapping of the limit of two children to the universal credit, which is the only significant way to reduce the record rate of child poverty of the United Kingdom.”
The Chief of the Naht union welcomed the movement.
The general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “This is a positive step to ensure that all children have the best beginning, and we are pleased to see a tangible investment after this week's announcement of new objectives for school preparation.”
