The follow-up study to the initial evaluation of Sure Start found there were significant differences showing the positive effect of Sure Start for three-year-old children and their families in five out of 14 outcomes.
The study, published in The Lancet, found there was 'encouraging evidence' that three-year-olds and their families in disadvantaged areas with well-established Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) showed signs of more positive social behaviour and greater independence than those in similarly deprived areas without Sure Start.
They also found that families in SSLP areas showed less negative parenting and provided a better home learning environment.
Families in Sure Start areas also used more services designed to help families and children than those living in non-SSLP areas.
The research team for the National Evaluation of Sure Start compared 5,883 three-year-olds and their families from 93 disadvantaged areas with 1,879 three-year-old children and their families from 72 similarly deprived areas in England who took part in the Millennium Cohort Study.
Professor Jay Belsky, research director of the independent national evaluation team into Sure Start and director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at London’s Birkbeck College, said he was 'cautiously optimistic' about the results.
He stressed that the latest research was not directly comparable with the initial evaluation because the groups of children and their families studied were not the same and Sure Start local programmes had 'matured and changed', evolving into Sure Start Children's Centres. He said services were more focused and child-oriented, with a greater emphasis on outreach.
Professor Belsky said three-year-olds and their families in the latest research had been exposed to Sure Start through the children's entire lives and experienced 'a bigger dosage of better quality services.'
Researchers studied outcomes between SSLP areas and areas without Sure Start for children's physical health, child development, parenting, maternal well-being and the take-up of family services.
The initial 2005 evaluation, into the effects of SSLPs on nine-month-old and three-year-old children and their families, found that children from severely disadvantaged families - teenage mothers, lone parents and workless households - were adversely affected by living in a SSLP area, whereas those from relatively less disadvantaged households benefited 'somewhat' from living in SSLP areas (News, 8 December 2005).
The second part of the evaluation found 'no evidence of adverse effects previously detected'.
The new report noted that SSLPs have evolved into children's centres since the initial study. 'The changes included clearer specification of services, with a strong emphasis on child wellbeing and the need to reach the most vulnerable, and adjustment of service provision to the degree of family disadvantage.'
The report concluded, 'SSLPs have evolved with time and become children's centres with more clearly focused services, more emphasis on children's development, and greater attention to the most vulnerable children and families - partly in response to the findings of the first part of the evaluation. With seven years of acquired knowledge and experience, SSLPs have matured in their functioning, and staff skills shortages have been reduced. Thus children and families in the present study might well have been exposed to more effective services than those encountered by children and families in the earlier phase of the inquiry.'
