I visited a Babyzone project recently. They are a UK-based charity that aims to provide holistic support to disadvantaged families with children under the age of five. Their mission is to nurture a strong bond between parents and children while offering evidence-based classes and activities. It sounded right up my street, connecting with a previous role I held managing such a centre, and of course the objectives of Sure Start and children’s centres behind us, and the Family Hubs now and ahead of us. Given a choice of locations including Hammersmith & Fulham, Croydon, Barnet, and Warrington, I opted for the former. I expected to see activities and support, and activities for families with babies and toddlers, focusing on early childhood development. Free classes include sensory and massage, toddler sense, mini professors (science experiments), parent first aid, Reading Fairy, and a space for parents to meet, share experiences, and build support networks. I saw all of that, in free-flowing partnership between the staff and activity leaders.

Babyzone is primarily funded through donations and legacies, they also participate in match-funding campaigns, such as the Champions for Children Campaign, where donations are doubled. Additionally, Babyzone collaborates with local authorities, the NHS, and charitable organisations to provide resources and services to families.

The first thing that struck me was Babyzone was in a huge purpose-built Youth Zone building, one that was well resourced and cared for. Realising that youth centres are empty during the term-time day, Babyzone has taken the opportunity to develop and deliver their services one day a week between 9.30am and 2.30pm. It was clear that families and children were happily engaged in being in the space and with the activities on offer. What a great space and place it was.

The second thing that caught my attention was families were not required to book, nor were they registered in the familiar ways adopted by other services. A postcode and a warm welcome were thought to be enough. That prompted plenty of questions and challenge from me from the outset. I was thinking about safeguarding, monitoring and evaluation, reporting, referrals and signposting and the like. I pondered this approach and the difference between that and similar services that are government or LA funded and delivered. Everything I saw on the visit told me they hadn’t a problem with engagement and community outreach, and that families were getting involved in all the multiple ways we would hope and expect – and sometimes don’t always witness.

Babyzone knows that a balance should be created between accessibility and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).And let’s face it, previous models could have done much better on understanding and practicing inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impact.We learned that and should use it more than we have before.At Babyzone their M&E framework was co-designed with New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) and is explicitly structured to: measure meaningful change; enable continuous improvement and avoid creating friction for the families who most need support.Their methods include: analysis of access patterns, surveys, attendance, case studies, partner/stakeholder reporting, and real-time digital (app) engagement.

Given likely directions of travel in Family Hubs and the like, perhaps returning to some familiar brands or objectives, I thought everyone should think about how such services fit in a route-map or customer-journey that brings families and services together, and reaches those in greatest need, who mostly hold the least trust in those of us asked to work with them. I appreciate that often registering with a children’s centre, Family Hub, the Job Centre and the like can feel like starting a new benefits claim, with pages and pages of details being harvested by an official public service that has yet to build trust with the individual or family.

I love a middle ground, and I think we could all usefully consider moving carefully in both directions. LA run services could and should learn from accessible and trust-building models, whilst projects like Babyzone could and should move gently and carefully towards modern data/monitoring without causing harm to any of the relationships or trust. That way all our offers could be interesting to Government, local authorities, the voluntary sector, and the families who need support and assurances whilst they are bringing up their young children. We all rely upon stigma free engagement and outreach, whilst offering essential ‘front doors’ to wider services where needed.

I left thinking there was much to learn from Babyzone, and much for us all to consider in all children’s services.

Click here to find out more about Babyzone.