A series of case studies from our Transforming Early Years programme, showing how better, lower-cost services can be delivered to families with young children.

Key findings:

• In Bradford’s redesigned service for families with young children, parent peer supporters called Community Ambassadors will work to build trust and rapport with local families.

• In Corby, parents are being used as agents for change as a team of volunteer parents, grandparents and carers as community or ‘street champions’, who will work with professionals to shape and deliver a set of services 

  that are community-led and focus on whole families.

• In Knowsley, a parents’ social network, volunteers and a community fund for social enterprise is being assembled.

• The Transforming Early Years project has led to a radical rethink of the way the Children’s Centre is run in Barking and Dagenham. The plan is to open a café and shop space.

• In West Basildo, The Transforming Early Years project brings together One Plus One and Parents 1st to work with families.

• Over the last three years Reading’s Directorate of Education and Children’s Services has improved performance and achieved cost savings of 12 per cent.

Transforming Early Years is a programme working with six localities  across the UK to find different, better and cheaper solutions to improving the  lives of families with very young children. The case studies covered in this report are based on insights gained from our work in our six areas: Bradford, Corby, Knowsley, Barking and Dagenham, West Basildo and Reading.

Transforming Early Years is based on research, undertaken by the Innovation Unit and funded by NESTA, looking at Radical Efficiency.

The Radical Efficiency concept was developed from observing the common principles that underpinned the success of 100 examples from around the  world of using innovation to achieve better outcomes at lower costs.

Author:

NESTA, Innovation Unit