Labor must revive its inspired Sure Start program | Letters

In defending the nanny state, Keir Starmer runs straight into the objections often leveled against it, namely that governments should not try to change behavior such as eating the right foods and brushing your teeth (Starmer calls the ‘nanny state’ embrace plan for teeth brushing in schools, January 10). Where in these valuable proposals is an understanding of how children develop? Most of us know in our hearts that the better you are cared for, the better the outcome. This is done not through instruction, but through attentive care, the capacity of which is undermined by poverty and insecurity.

Why then doesn’t Labor restore its most inspired welfare scheme for under-fives, Sure Start? This was set up in 1998 with funding from the Treasury under the leadership of the brilliant Irish-born civil servant Norman Glass, who ensured that Whitehall colleagues from various departments contributed to its design and that parents became active partners in the efforts thus created communities. As long as children’s centers were centrally funded they were successful, but this was only convincingly demonstrated a decade after Conservative cuts began to close them, destroying the rest of the social fabric on which families depended.

Starmer’s proposal to end the mental health crisis, mentioned in his article (Britain has suffered terribly under these Tories, especially our children. The only word for it is neglect, January 10), is : “8,500 additional mental health staff in the system,” but this is already too late. By studying the rates of mental and physical hospital admissions, the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed in 2021 that the poorest preschoolers in Sure Start areas made the biggest progress in health. into their teenage years.

In addition to saving more than a third of the cost of the entire program, this result is just the tip of an iceberg of socially promoted resilience; nothing to do with a nanny state. A children’s center is more than a place for families to do things. It is also a micro-neighborhood where they – and the staff – do things for each other. As former shadow minister Kate Green put it in 2021, “the mothers who met at Sure Start are still the bedrock of our community”.
Dr. Sebastian Kraemer
London

I read Keir Starmer’s article with increasing dismay. While he recognizes that the dire state of the mental and physical health of British children requires a range of new initiatives in a wide range of areas (health, dentistry, education, the food and drink industry are some he mentions), there is no word on housing.

It’s like the Beveridge Report had never happened before. Expecting the NHS or the schools themselves to tackle the now desperate situation caused by what amounts to decades of neglect by both the Tories and New Labor of children’s everyday living conditions is no longer tenable. Our health and theirs (physical and mental) depend on many things, but especially on the homes in which we live.

It is central. Leaving such a crucial issue to the tender mercies of the private sector has proven to be a multi-generational betrayal, with predictable results. Yet there have been too many stories lately about social landlords who also betray their tenants.

Housing must be one of the central features of any manifesto that seeks to promote and protect the health of the nation’s children. It is a field that urgently needs serious attention.
Johannes Anderson
London

We read with interest the PvdA’s announcement about their new one child health action plan, designed to address inequities in children’s health. The plan included several policies that aligned with our own campaign for the next UK government to put babies, children and young people at the heart of government policymaking.

We were particularly pleased to see the recognition that a child’s well-being is determined by their mental health as well as their physical health. Reducing NHS waiting times for mental health care and providing specialist mental health care in all schools would be transformative.

We also welcomed the commitment to establish a cross-departmental healthcare board that prioritizes children’s health. We now want all political parties and leaders, including Labour, to commit to an ambitious, intergovernmental strategy and framework for results that will drive improvements for babies, children and young people in all areas of their lives in a coherent way. This must be backed by a commitment to ending child poverty once and for all – a harm that damages and destroys the lives of many children.
Paul Carberry CEO, Action for Children, Lynn Perry CEO, Barnardo’s, Mark Russel, CEO, The Children’s Association, Anna Feuchtwang CEO, National Children’s Agency, Sir Peter Wanless CEO, NSPCC

The discussion about supervised teeth brushing for young children makes me think about what happened to the dental service at school. In the 1950s, dental check-ups were carried out at school, with follow-ups in the school clinic. The school clinics continued to operate until the 1970s, when my own children benefited from them, including orthodontic work and the application of fluoride gel. All free of course. That service has gone the way of school nurses, eye tests for everyone, and so on. What an economic and prosperity disaster.
Janet Lail
Nottingham

Many of the public figures railing against the “nanny state” were raised by nannies. Is there a connection?
Gabriel Palmer
Cambridge