Rolling Out Children's Centres

THIS IS A PODCAST AND DOCUMENT ONLY EVENT The 5th Annual Sure Start Conference, Rolling Out Children’s Centres, brought together over 150 stakeholders, including senior managers from children’s centres, local authorities, central government, and voluntary organisations. Sure Start has been the cornerstone of Labour’s drive to tackle child poverty and social exclusion. Its successes have been clear – it has helped to lift 1 million children out of poverty since its launch in 1998. Yet the government’s deadline to half child poverty is less than three years away and much still needs to be done to reach this goal. What is more, recent research suggested that Sure Start has made no impact to children’s development, despite the government investing £21 billion in early years education since 1997. The conference investigated whether this research was a true reflection of children’s abilities today and how the roll out of children’s centres can help to meet the government’s child poverty targets. The event was chaired by Alison Garnham, Joint Chief Executive, Daycare Trust.