Agenda item

The Council’s Head of Achievement and Public Health Improvement Specialist will be in attendance to provide information about how improved educational outcomes can improve health inequalities.

The Chair welcomed representatives of the Council’s Achievement and Public Health Teams to the meeting and invited them to present information about how educational outcomes could reduce health inequalities.

 

Members were advised the Government’s Levelling-Up Agenda could provide £5 million of investment in education to areas with higher levels of deprivation, such as Middlesbrough.

 

The Panel was advised the Achievement Service supported 54 schools, 70 nurseries and 42 childminding services. Part of that support was to provide professional development and ensure children and young people were provided with the best possible life chances. It was noted there were several overlaps with the health service in this regard.

 

There were several initiatives that provided young people with the best possible life chances including the Best Start Pathway. As the first 1001 days of a child’s development were seen as crucial, Best Start was intended to support the most vulnerable families. As such, Best Start supported young parents, via the school readiness team, to make sure their young children were school ready. The scheme was piloted in three areas of Middlesbrough last year and was now open to all families across the town.

 

Other initiatives included the Health Eating and Nutrition for the Really Young (HENRY) and Fussy Eaters. This was an evidence based approach that aimed to support babies and young people gain the best possible start in their lives.

 

Again this initiative focusses on the first 1001 days of a child’s development whereby face to face interactions were made between practitioners and families to provide nutritional and healthy eating programmes. During 2021 102 families completed the programmes. As with all other initiatives of this kind, they were delivered virtually through the Covid-19 Pandemic.

 

To prepare children for school the Play and Learn Together initiative encouraged families to learn and play together in order to understand how to better interact with children in order to make them school ready. This was an eight week programme that was delivered jointly with the health service.

 

During 2021 136 families engaged with the programme, with 94 reporting an increase in their confidence to interact successfully with their children. This resulted in parents being able to verbalise their emotions and have a greater insight into their social and emotional positions. 

 

A recent initiative was the Support to Talk scheme which was created in response to evidence young children’s speech and language had been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The scheme was designed to work with families to improve this situation, especially for those babies that had been born during the pandemic. It was noted that the practice had been shared across Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and health and social care agencies.

 

Members were also advised that an Ethnic Minority Achievement Team worked with international new arrivals to ensure they were signposted to appropriate services so that families became familiar with their surroundings quickly and that children of those families were school ready as soon as possible after their arrival. 

 

Members also received information from the Council’s Public Health team about how improvements to educational attainment could help improve health inequalities. The Panel heard that the first 1001 days of a child’s development were crucial. As such Public Health were keen to intervene during this period in order to construct important building blocks for children to be school ready, especially in areas such as language and speech.

 

The Panel heard babies born in Middlesbrough today had a life expectancy 3.6 years less than the England average. Members were also made aware there were significant inequalities in the town itself. For example, average life expectancy in northern wards was 10 years less than those in southern wards. Members were also advised there was a wide range of initiatives carried out by the Public Health Teams including Public Health Literacy Programmes as well as programmes that went beyond school such as the Head Start Programme and offering advice around Covid-19.

 

A Member queried if individuals identified as Neurodiverse would have access to the Best Start pathway. It was clarified those individuals would be picked up under one of the 10 markers within that pathway.

 

A Member queried the details of the Boro Breastfeeding initiative and was informed it was created to challenge social norms, especially in South Tees that had a bottle feeding culture. It was also clarified it was in its infancy but would build on existing schemes.

 

A Member queried if projects begun using the Controlling Migration Fund had been able to continue as this funding stream had stopped. It was clarified lessons from that project were continuing to be implemented, namely though the Ethnic Minority Achievement Team.

 

A Member queried how many schools had engaged with the Head Start Programme.  It was clarified this information would be circulated to members. There was also a Mental Health in Schools project called Inside-Out that ran across Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland.

 

The Chair commented that programmes like HENRY and Fussy Eaters did not seem entirely new but welcomed their introduction. It was clarified those programmes focussed on parenting techniques and role modelling. It was also clarified that 102 families had completed the HENRY programme in 2021 and that work was continuing.

 

The Chair also commented that the Support to Talk resources was extremely useful. It was clarified that Support to Talk was a self-help tool that parents could use to develop verbalisation in their children. It was recognised that due to the Covid-19 Pandemic a significant amount of learning did not take place and this programme would help to bridge that gap.

 

The Chair thanked the officers for their presentation.

 

ORDERED that:

 

1.    Information relating to numbers of schools participating in Head Start be circulated and;

2.    The information presented be noted.