Healthy Early Years Settings: A Scoping Study

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Healthy Early Years SettingsA Scoping Study

• Ann Mooney, Janet Boddy,
• June Statham and Ian Warwick

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About the Study

• Overall purpose
• Identify how best to improve health and
  well-being of children, parents and staff in
  early years settings
• Aims to identify
• How early years settings promoting health of
  young children
• How current practice and policy relates to the
  National Healthy Schools Programme criteria
• Applicability of NHSP approach
• barriers and facilitators to using this approach
  in early years settings

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About the studyFour phases January to December
2006

• Consultations
• Key informants (early years healthy school
  programme coordinators)
• Literature overview
• Existing guidance/effective interventions
• Six case studies
• Good practice in promoting health
• Guidance development
• Dialogue with NHSP team

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Feedback and Keeping on Track

• Papers/reports dissemination
• Briefing paper
• Diversity early years settings
• Research report
• Findings from first three phases
• Development phase
• Guidance/criteria
• Advisory Group
• Representing policy, practice and research in
  early years and health promotion

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Early Years Provision

• Sector
• local authority, private-for-profit, voluntary
• Diverse provision
• Maintained and private nursery schools
• Sure Start Local Programmes
• Childrens centres
• Day nurseries
• Pre-school playgroups
• Childminders
• Compared to schools
• large number of settings relative to
  number of children
• higher turnover of children

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Differences Between Settings

• Services
• childcare and/or early education
• Workforce
• Children attending
• ages
• numbers
• Operating hours
• Premises
• All regulated by Ofsted
• separate systems for childcare and education
• common national standards for childcare, but
  specific criteria vary by setting

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Regulation And Curriculum

• National Standards for Under 8s Day Care and
  Childminding
• statutory
• Foundation Stage Curriculum
• statutory
• Birth to Three Matters
• non-statutory
• Quality Assurance Schemes
• non-statutory

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A Time Of Change

• The Childcare Bill
• frameworks in place by 2008
• The Early Years Foundation Stage
• draft this year
• published 2008

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Key issues

• Differences from school settings
• Diversity in the early years sector
• but common core features
• Current and future regulatory and curriculum
  frameworks

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Healthy Schools Programme Coordinators Survey

• Aimed to find out
• Which partnerships were working with early years
  settings
• The settings, age groups and work involved
• About accreditation and the criteria used
• Barriers and facilitators to early years work

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The Survey What We Did

• Short electronic questionnaire to all local
  programme coordinators
• 146 local authority/PCT partnerships surveyed
• 95 questionnaires returned (65 response rate)
• Response rate across the nine regions ranged from
  88 to 47

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Early Years Work

• 48 of the 95 programmes (51) had worked with
  early years settings
• Around a half targeted the 3-5 year age range and
  half included the whole age range from birth to 5
• Number of settings worked with often quite small
  (e.g., 73 worked with 10 or less settings
  likely to be small proportion of total settings
  in an area)

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Number of Programmes Working with Each Type of
Provision
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Types Of Support And Work

• Most common support
• information access to other agencies resources
  and training
• Two-thirds (30) had supported settings in
  involving parents in health related work
• All four HSP themes covered
• healthy eating and emotional health more than
  physical activity and PSHE
• Three-quarters (36) accredited settings
• 11 used HSP criteria unchanged 25 adapted or
  developed own criteria

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Difficulties In Developing Early Years Work

• 26 (54) had faced difficulties
• Most frequently mentioned were
• Capacity and funding (13)
• Specific criteria for the early years (8)
• Engaging parents and early years providers (4)

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Facilitating Early Years Work

• 39 (81) identified what had been most helpful
• Most frequently mentioned were
• Good partnerships/relationships between health,
  education and or early years teams (19)
• Enthusiasm of early years providers/professionals
  (16)
• Ethos or specific approach of early years
  provision (4)

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What Would Help?

• 86 (91) indicated what would help with early
  years work
• Increase in capacity (47)
• Increased funding (44)
• Specific criteria/guidance for early years (41)
• Training (17)
• Establishing good partnerships with early years
  (12)

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Conclusions

• Generally supportive of including early years
  settings
• Good health starts young. It is essential to
  engage early years in health promotion
• Concerns about capacity and ability to carry
  forward
• There are capacity issues, due to the number of
  EY providers. The healthy school programme, with
  its focus on compulsory schools as a setting, has
  a tangible and definable arena for work and
  development. Care is needed about stretching the
  programme too thinly. There are some specific
  expertise issues that would arise and concerns
  about lowering of standards to be suitable for
  nurseries/playgroups which are much smaller
  organisations.
• The need for criteria specific to early years
• It is crucial that whatever is developed blends
  with and extends current guidance and principles
  relating to the early years

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Healthy Early Years SettingsA Scoping Study

• Ann Mooney, Janet Boddy,
• June Statham and Ian Warwick