Early years support rolled out for parents and children

The government are starting to roll out ‘Best Start Family Hubs’ across every local authority in England by April 2026, offering help and support for parents.

Best Start Family Hubs will be able to assist on a range of issues, from children’s language development to housing issues, as well as interventions and courses such as stay and play groups to help parents meet one another or sessions to manage children’s emotional needs.

Providing a single point of access for services across health, education and wellbeing, the development is backed by over £500 million to create up to 1,000 hubs across the country by the end of 2028.

Accessible support is vital for parents, with one in four families with children under five unable to access local children’s centres or Family Hubs, rising to one in three lower income families. Thousands of parents are therefore left ostracised from community support networks and specialist services, which has a devastating impact on both parents’ wellbeing but also children’s life chances.

Additional services include SEND support, infant feed support, reducing parental conflict, debt and welfare advice, as well as mental health services, and will be available to all children and parents.

A new Best Start digital service will also be launched to allow parents to access evidence-based guidance within seconds.

Early years provision is proven to be indispensable. Sure Start, for example, revolutionised family and community services, with research showing that children who lived within a short distance of a Sure Start centre for their first five years were 0.9 percentage points more likely to achieve five good GCSE grades at age 16. The new plans, launched today, take inspiration from the current Family Hubs and Start for Life programme.

Education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said “It’s driving the mission of this government to break the link between a child’s background and what they go on to achieve—our new Best Start Family hubs will put the first building blocks of better life chances in a place for more children.

“I saw firsthand how initiatives like Sure Start helped level the playing field in my own community, transforming the lives of children by putting in place family support in the earliest years of life, and as part of our Plan for Change, we’re building on its legacy for the next generation of children

“Making sure hard-working parents are able to benefit from more early help is a promise made, and promise kept—delivering a lifeline of consistent support across the nation, ensuring health, social care and education work in unison to ensure all children get the very best start in life.”

Commenting on Phillipson’s announcement, Daniel Kebede general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “Prioritising more support for families in these early years will have multiple benefits. The NEU is pleased to to see these will be rolled out nationally and that it is local authorities that are going to be funded to do this, though the initiative will need to be funded appropriately to have the benefit and impact needed.

“Family Hubs will give more opportunities to get early intervention right—getting the necessary support and referrals to families, when they need it. Expert staff, with good qualifications, will be needed in the Hubs.

“This is a really good idea, but the funding will have to be at the right level to reap the benefits—at its peak Sure Start invested over £2 billion annually. Sure Start was a transformational policy which changed childhood and what a tragedy it was that the Conservative government dismantled something that was working so well to empower so many children.”