The new requirement from the Government to create Best Start in Life plans is a moment of opportunity. But how do we get started on a path to deliver the genuine and sustainable integration needed to help babies, children and families thrive?
The new promised Government funding is welcome, but the tight timescales create significant pressure. Along with our partners at Dartington Service Design Lab and Ideas Alliance, we believe that – despite the short timeframes – it's crucial that local areas create plans that lay long term foundations for connected, holistic and co-produced support, with better outcomes for babies, children and families at the heart.
While we wait for the publication of government Best Start guidance in October, local authorities can start as they mean to go on by laying the groundwork for sustainable change. This requires a focus not only on service delivery, but also on creating the conditions for local systems to work more effectively together to improve outcomes in a sustainable way. At Collaborate we often refer to this as ‘system stewardship'.
What could this role look like for local authorities embarking on Best Start Plans?
Fostering trusting relationships
Bringing together health, children and family services, nurseries, childminders, schools, community organisations, businesses (and more) to connect across traditional boundaries. A focus on developing trust and understanding as a foundation for collaboration will in turn support a more relational and joined up approach to working with children and families.
Convening around a common purpose
Helping develop collective understanding of the local system, identifying the priorities that will make the biggest difference to the outcomes that matter most (especially for babies, children and families themselves) and working out how to make best use of collective insight and resources to achieve these ambitions.
Enabling shared learning
Creating a learning culture that brings together evidence on ‘what works' alongside the experiences of children and families, and the knowledge of people working with them, to adapt and improve as you test new ways of working. Partners need to get comfortable with test and learn approaches and develop the infrastructure to share and act on collective insights.
Rebalancing power
Fostering more equal relationships between local partners and with children and families to overcome power imbalances and ensure everyone is heard. To shrink rather than widen disparities in outcomes, we need to acknowledge the inequalities some babies, children and families face in terms of income, housing and health outcomes and access to support, and work to address the structural barriers they face, including amongst those from racially and ethnically minoritised backgrounds.
Inspiring hope and collective responsibility
Helping people see what's possible and play their part in helping children and families thrive through creating clear ways to get involved and fostering shared accountability.
Putting the voice and participation of children and families, as well as local partners, at the centre of developing the plan is crucial throughout. Given the tight timescales, it may be tempting to write-off co-design as an impossibility. Whatever your starting point, build on what you have (ie. existing insight and engagement mechanisms) to co-design as much as you can, and make sure meaningful co-design is a core priority for implementation from April 2026 onwards. Be explicit about who needs to be involved and the processes that will support this, and embed co-design in ongoing development, delivery and quality assessment, rather than one-off engagement.
Now's the time for us to come together to work out how to make best use of collective relationships, insights and resources to create meaningful change that lasts. Under time and resource pressure, it would be easy to focus on short-term horizons, immediate deliverables and ‘silver bullet' interventions.
In our experience, however, it's the places that take the brave step to think long-term and create shared, asset-based approaches, that will unlock the most possibility in delivering with, and for, children and families. And in doing so, they will achieve better and more equitable lasting outcomes. Local authorities are uniquely placed to champion and steward these bold approaches. Let's not miss the opportunity that children and families really need us to make the most of.
Dawn Plimmer is Director of Practice at Collaborate CIC, an innovative social consultancy pioneering collaborative thinking and practice to tackle complex challenges across the UK. Find out more about how they are supporting the development and implementation of Best Start Plans.
