{"id":308,"date":"2018-11-20T05:45:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edpsychuob.com\/?p=308"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:45:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:45:23","slug":"a-lament-for-universal-approaches-in-the-early-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/2018\/11\/20\/a-lament-for-universal-approaches-in-the-early-years\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lament for Universal Approaches in the Early Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Anita Soni and Anjam Sultana<\/em><\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-308 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/2018\/11\/20\/a-lament-for-universal-approaches-in-the-early-years\/play\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/129\/2018\/11\/play-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>World Children\u2019s Day was established by the United Nations in 1954, with the aim of promoting the welfare of children around the world. To mark this day we are considering how children\u2019s welfare in\u00a0England has been affected by the reduction of universal services for children and their families. Last month, the Children\u2019s Commissioner provided evidence of the impact of such cuts in her report, \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/A-Crying-Shame.pdf\">A Crying Shame<\/a>\u2019. This report highlights that 30,000 children aged 5 years and under, are living in high risk households but are not on child protection plans. Furthermore, the report suggests that 14,000 babies are growing up in households where there are parental mental health difficulties, domestic violence and substance abuse\u00a0and that\u00a0these children are not recognised as \u2018children in need\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>One causality of the recent budget cuts has been the reduction in the number of Children\u2019s Centres. A key initiative of the 1994-2010 Labour government, Children\u2019s Centres aimed to bring together services for families and offered universal support. They also enabled access to more specialist support, if required. Research by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.suttontrust.com\/newsarchive\/1000-childrens-centres-closed-since-2009\/\">University of Oxford<\/a> found a significant number of Centres have closed since 2009\u00a0and where Centres remain open, hours and services have been reduced. There have been fewer closures in disadvantaged areas and this\u00a0is due\u00a0to a narrowing of focus on targeted, rather than universal support.<\/p>\n<p>This is despite\u00a0research from the <a href=\"https:\/\/esrc.ukri.org\/news-events-and-publications\/news\/news-items\/attempts-to-ensure-all-children-are-ready-for-school-are-being-undermined-by-a-targeted-approach\/\">University of Nottingham<\/a> that suggests that universal approaches can be more effective\u00a0than targeted services, as targeted support can alienate families. The research explored how mothers in a small town in the East Midlands, use and experience resources offered to support their children\u2019s literacy development. The study found mothers\u00a0are less likely to engage with, or use services, which label them as \u2018vulnerable\u2019 or \u2018deficient\u2019 or where they feel that they are\u00a0being told how to raise their child.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside the shift towards more targeted services, there has been a push for children to enter formalised education earlier, as schools are being encouraged to open provision for younger children. This reinforces the idea that professionals know best how to promote children\u2019s development. In contrast, where mothers use classes, offering activities which encourage interaction between mother and child, parents\u00a0are more likely to feel empowered. They\u00a0are more likely continued these activities with children at home, once they had started at preschool.<\/p>\n<p>Such research illustrates the value of universal non-targeted approaches where the child, within the family unit, is the focus. Children Centres were once a site for such approaches but increasingly, services have been reduced to specialist and targeted support. Even here, there are not enough resources, as highlighted in \u2018A Crying Shame\u2019. Targeted resources can label children and their families as less able to cope and families may therefore be reluctant to use these resources. We suggest that it is\u00a0a better investment for the future to develop universal approaches such as Children Centres. It is indeed a crying shame!<\/p>\n<p><em>Anita Soni is a tutor on the initial training course for educational psychologists at the University of Birmingham<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Anjam Sultana works as an educational psychologist for\u00a0Dudley and\u00a0is an honorary tutor on the initial training course for educational psychologists at the University of Birmingham<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy reading our blog you can follow us and you will receive an email when we post a new blog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anita Soni and Anjam Sultana World Children\u2019s Day was established by the United Nations in 1954, with the aim of promoting the welfare of children around the world. To mark this day we are considering how children\u2019s welfare in\u00a0England has been affected by the reduction of universal services for children and their families. Last &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/2018\/11\/20\/a-lament-for-universal-approaches-in-the-early-years\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Lament for Universal Approaches in the Early Years&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,13,14,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-early-intervention","category-early-years","category-educational-psychology","category-prevention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/educationalpsychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}