\n<\/p>\n
One-stop shop family hubs will be rolled out across England to give parents advice and support, the government has announced. The centres will offer help with breastfeeding and housing issues, as well as supporting children\u2019s early development and language, ministers said.<\/p>\n
The \u00a3500m project will open 1,000 centres from April 2026, meaning every council in England will have a family hub by 2028. It will build on the existing family hubs and start for life programme to provide a single point of access for services in health, education and wellbeing.<\/p>\n
Parents will also be able to register births, access midwifery and maternity services, and get help to stop smoking. There will also be activities for children under five and youth service provision.<\/p>\n
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said the hubs would provide a \u201clifeline 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\u201d.<\/p>\n
The policy forms part of the government\u2019s push to replace services lost since 2010, which include the closure of more than 1,400 Sure Start centres.<\/p>\n
Research showed that children who lived near a Sure Start centre for their first five years were more likely to get five good GCSE grades at age 16.<\/p>\n
Family hubs were originally opened in 75 local authority areas at the start of 2024 by the then Conservative government.<\/p>\n
The announcement by the Department for Education comes ahead of the government unveiling its strategy on child development on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life plan will lay out how ministers hope to improve the development of children under five, and give support to parents and wider families.<\/p>\n
Phillipson said: \u201cIt\u2019s the driving mission of this government to break the link between a child\u2019s background and what they go on to achieve \u2013 our new Best Start Family Hubs will put the first building blocks of better life chances in place for more children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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\u2019re building on its legacy for the next generation of children.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n
Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n
Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cMaking sure hard-working parents are able to benefit from more early help is a promise made, and promise kept \u2013 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children\u2019s Bureau: \u201cThe prime minister\u2019s plan for change sets out his ambition to improve outcomes in early childhood. Now the government has put its money where its mouth is and committed to rolling out Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority.<\/p>\n \u201cWith indications of a funding boost for babies and young children already included in the 10-year health plan, I am delighted to see children and families being given clear priority in government spending decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservative shadow education secretary Laura Trott criticised the announcement, and said it \u201cbrings little clarity on what\u2019s genuinely new and what simply rebrands existing services\u201d.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cThat lack of clarity is part of a wider pattern. This is a government defined by broken promises and endless U-turns.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One-stop shop family hubs will be rolled out across England to give parents advice and support, the government has announced. The centres will offer help with breastfeeding and housing issues, as well as supporting children\u2019s early development and language, ministers said. The \u00a3500m project will open 1,000 centres from April 2026, meaning every council in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1607,166,914,488,2906,2907,2905,2908],"class_list":{"0":"post-10108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-areas","9":"tag-children","10":"tag-council","11":"tag-english","12":"tag-family","13":"tag-hubs","14":"tag-onestop","15":"tag-opened"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}