Sure Start could have changed everything for my family. Labour must be brave – and revitalise it | Terri White
Thursday 18th April 2024
A new report shows how transformational the initiative was. But Keir Starmer’s early-years plans lack the same vision
Sure Start did change the lives of children, a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) told us last week. It not only improved educational outcomes for children, particularly kids from deprived areas, but also reduced later need for education, health and care plans for those with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), and paid for itself. The confirmation that these centres for early years support were indeed a good thing was greeted by some as entirely surprising news that no one could have possibly predicted. If only we’d known!
Gordon Brown, the then-Labour chancellor who introduced Sure Start in 1998, helped retrieve my eyeballs from the bit of my skull I’d rolled them into, with his analysis: “These results tell us in detail what most parents already know. That if you provide a supportive environment to children in their early years and invest in their futures, the results will be life-transforming.”
Terri White is a journalist and the author of Coming Undone: A Memoir
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