On 14 May 2025, NCB hosted a summit that brought together around 100 senior representatives from across the early years sector to help shape a shared vision to improve outcomes for babies, young children and their families.
One of the participants was NCB's Chair of Trustees Alison O'Sullivan. Dedicating her career to improving the lives of children in the UK, Alison qualified as a social worker in 1978, working for many years in inner city Bradford before working in senior local authority and health roles until her retirement in 2016.
In the latest in a series of reflections from the NCB Summit and coinciding with the publication today of a letter signed by NCB and over 70 organisations calling on the Prime Minister to invest in early years services at the upcoming Spending Review, Alison shares her own perspective on the event and the challenges ahead for government and the sector.
Alison O'Sullivan, Chair of NCB Trustees
There was a great buzz in the room as around 100 experts in the field of early years came together to shape collective advice to the government about how to take forward their ambition to give children the best start in life.
There were nine tables in the room. The conversations around my table exemplified the value of bringing people together to give richness and depth to the thinking, as well as common sense and a reality check on what is realistic.
Rooted in reality, but ambitious for what could be achieved, all the participants were engaged and enthusiastic. Allied to the wealth of knowledge and experience in the room, it was the perfect blend to help us to develop the best possible way forward for babies, young children and their families.
The best thing about the day was the rich conversations, but there simply wasn’t enough time to talk to everyone you wanted to!
I am pleased to share a few memorable reflections from conversations on our table as just a tiny sample of the interesting and creative thinking, which NCB is in the process of collating and crystallising to help shape a shared vision for this important area of policy.
Policy context is important
With strong representation from the third sector and a senior civil servant from the Department of Health, our table recognised the challenging context we face to secure proper focus and attention for children.
The part that the third sector plays is vital to connecting with local communities: pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved, harnessing social capital and, in the right circumstances, driving real innovation.
We heard from one of the A Better Start partnerships about how creative delivery can work on the ground and how unleashing the potential of individual people in local communities can give real strength and sustainability to particular initiatives.
The things that work best for children and families often make a positive difference to the lives of local people too who get involved in shaping, developing and delivering local responses to need.
Policy is needed which promotes creativity, but also does not let up on the challenge of securing priority for children within and local health and social care systems and the NHS.
Workforce is also key
There was also a welcome recognition among participants of the importance of senior professionals such as midwives and health visitors. These are very skilled and highly qualified people, but that skill and experience comes at a cost and requires significant financial commitment.
Also, relying solely upon increasing numbers of professionals in these roles will not bring about the urgent change needed or indeed ensure that we reach all the people who need help.
Innovative approaches with multidisciplinary teams and local community leaders have shown that a broad-based approach can be very effective, with clinical oversight from those with expertise to keep things safe, focused and evidence-driven. So we need to think creatively about future workforce needs.
COVID-19 shapes our legacy
There are well described challenges, particularly affecting the cohorts of children who missed out on so much during the pandemic and continue to pay the price.
But there is also a creative digital legacy from aspects of the experience of dealing with the pandemic - particularly the potential to use new forms of contact and engagement through video and phone links.
We must remember that people quickly engaged with new platforms and digital offers – they may not always be the preferred option and are not suitable for every purpose, but are certainly now an important part of the mix going forward.
Jen Lexmond, CEO of EasyPeasy, told us about embedding local digital offers for earlier support within local systems and the potential for customisation and ensuring that it is complementary to other resources in local systems.
And the interactive nature of digital contacts means constant feedback on the things that people use the most and find most accessible, which in turn makes the offer more and more tuned into needs and requirements.
I am reminded of the power of this by getting special offers from the supermarket which (sometimes to my shame!) mirror my shopping habits! And the potential to personalise what is on offer, by the computer offering me stairlifts following my 60th birthday!
There is certainly a very real danger that if we don’t invest in giving children the best possible start in life there will be longer-term impact: underachievement in education and poor health and well-being, which will undermine not only individual opportunities, but also the prospects for our future adult population.
A cross-system approach is needed
There was much agreement that partnership working and collaboration are key. And it was encouraging to hear that it’s recognised that this is just as relevant to government departments as it is for local systems.
Collaborative approaches can be mandated, but they’re more effective when they’re developed and owned locally. Every local area is different and partnerships take time to build – particularly in turbulent times – so finding a hook or an anchor point is very much needed. Policy can provide this if it is realistic well-drafted and implemented with commitment.
Finally, we wondered what we might learn from the adult world, where there seem to be examples of whole system working that are more developed.
Arguably this is driven by a ‘burning platform’ of potential system failure: for example, hospitals being full and community support in danger of collapse.
We speculated on whether there is a similar state of urgency for the early years sector today.
There is certainly a very real danger that if we don’t invest in giving children the best possible start in life there will be longer-term impact: underachievement in education and poor health and well-being, which will undermine not only individual opportunities, but also the prospects for our future adult population.
A burning platform? Not a blazing deck perhaps, but certainly a moorland fire which can not be put out, so even more of a threat. Let’s hope that a strong commitment to children’s futures remains at the heart of the Best Start in Life strand of the government’s Plan for Change.