Building on a decade of A Better Start
A Better Start (ABS) was a 10-year programme which ran from 2015 to 2025, that aimed to improve the life chances of babies and toddlers in England. We funded five partnerships in England to test and learn about what works in supporting families throughout pregnancy and the early years. Our ABS partnerships involved parents and carers in all stages of design, delivery and governance, working alongside professionals, local health services and policymakers, to give children the best possible start in life.
ABS supported babies from conception until their fourth birthday. A key part of ABS was to support a child’s development before birth, as this is the beginning of the most critical time for their development. We know that the first 1,001 days lay the foundations for how the brain behaves in later life, so we funded ABS partnerships in Lambeth, Southend, Bradford, Blackpool, and Nottingham to support pregnant women and people to have the best pregnancy possible and give their children the best start in life.
The scientific evidence around positive early childhood development is widely known. It impacts a child's lifelong development, their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical wellbeing, and sets the stage for future learning and success. People sometime talk about this phase in the sense of 'building babies’ brains' because in the first 1,001 days of life babies' brains develop fastest. We also know that poverty and disadvantage disproportionately affect a child's development, which is why ABS was delivered in areas with high levels of need by committed partnerships willing to deliver change.
I have had the pleasure of working on ABS since 2014, and I’ve been privileged see it develop from ‘conception’ to early development and through to full delivery stage. Like parenting, there have been many challenges along the way but ultimately ABS laid the foundations for a ‘systems change’ in how local services are commissioned and delivered with parents/carers as equal partners.
Success stories and impact
It has taken a long time to be able to get the full picture of how ABS has impacted families. Yes, we have case studies and some statistics, but it is only in the latter years of the programme that the richness of learning and evidence is really bearing fruit. Recently, evidence from our Nottingham partnership showed that children from ABS wards show greater levels of improvement of development by reception age than non-ABS wards and outperformed the national average. This is an incredible achievement for children from the most deprived wards in Nottingham.
Similarly, Blackpool saw an 11.3% decrease in dental decay in 5-year-olds between 2021 and 2025 (the equivalent national rate was 1%), and between 2021 and 2023 Blackpool saw the greatest improvement in children reaching all early learning goals in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile of the ten most deprived Local Authorities (5.3% compared to 2.2% nationally). In Lambeth, 2.5-year-olds who engaged with LEAP were 40% more likely to develop to expected levels than their non-engaged peers.
Success stories like this are mirrored right across the ABS areas, and evidence is being published in local evaluation reports and synthesised in our national evaluation of ABS.
Meet the parents
The big success of ABS is the way in which parents have shaped and delivered the programme. Parents not only use the services; they volunteer as parent champions, have become family mentors, sit on partnership boards and genuinely have an equal say in all aspects of the programme. They ensure that ABS has been place-based and that all services are genuinely co-produced with local families. In February, a dad from Nottingham joined the local director in parliament and gave evidence at the Women and Equalities Committee on shared parental leave and paternal leave. This was a special example of how ABS has enabled parents to speak directly to government and influence policy. Parents have literally influenced everything at all levels, and it is such a privilege to witness this.
ABS has empowered parents to get involved and influence what matters to their communities. It has enabled trusting relationships to be built between decision makers, the professional workforce and families, and ensured that they can work together to make a positive difference. At the recent ABS annual event there was a discussion about the end of our funding for ABS and one parent simply said that ‘it didn’t matter as parents were going to keep doing it anyway’. Good luck to any local commissioner of children’s services who ignores an ABS parent!
Whilst ABS improved outcomes for babies, the impact that the programme has had on parents and carers is profound. Parents frequently talk about how ABS took a whole family approach and helped with housing or financial issues during the hardest times. Other parents went from reluctant service users to becoming volunteers, and through training have gone on to secure employment. Parents often say ABS changed their lives. The LEAP evaluation shows that parents/carers who engaged in ABS saw mental health and wellbeing improve by 12% and parents’ and carers’ knowledge, skills, and behaviour increased by 5% (with greatest gains in the most deprived areas).
Collaboration and people
ABS has been successful because of the place-based partnerships that have been created, including parents as equal partners. The partnerships took time to evolve to include agencies who are involved in supporting babies’ development, such as health and education, and it’s safe to say that the trusting working relationships were not immediate.
Those trusting relationship had to be maintained throughout the 10 years of ABS, with key leaders, practitioners, and parents changing over time. However, working towards a common goal, with people who were dedicated to improving the lives of babies and young children, can have a significant impact - and who doesn’t want the best for children?
Local partners
Local partnerships take time to form and work effectively, and need constant attention to flourish. However, when they work well the collective impact they can have far exceeds what each member can achieve individually. Our role at the Fund has been that of a trusted partner. We recognise that the ABS partners are the experts - experts in their local area and experts in their particular field - and we are there to support and facilitate turning their vision into a reality.
ABS hasn’t always been straightforward and at various stages, each ABS partnerships has experienced challenges. As a funder, we could have withdrawn funding for fear of something not working but this isn’t how we work. On each occasion, we have taken a relational approach and have worked with partnerships to find solutions to local challenges and always kept the child front and centre of the collective decisions taken.
I have heard the phrase: 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' on many occasions. As an example, one ABS area took time to get their partnership fully operationalised, including key governance matters that required resolution. The Fund worked with the area to slow down the pace of implementing services and focus on getting governance matters agreed. It didn’t go unnoticed by the Fund that once this was resolved, the partnership had an energy and focus that resulted in a strong partnership that really made a difference to children’s lives.
Challenges and lessons learned
We probably couldn’t have predicted that the 10 years in which ABS ran were possibly the most challenging as the country dealt with: the Covid-19 pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, ward boundary changes, multiple prime ministerial changes, NHS reforms, changes to data protection regulations, and more! Every one of these impacted on local service delivery, and ABS partnerships had to respond to these changes and make sure family’s needs were met. You can read more about the impact of the pandemic and how ABS sites responded to existing and emerging needs in our insight report.
From a funding perspective, we have learned from ABS that we need to manage expectations and be patient. To measure change at a population level can take decades. Setting up a partnership, building trust, co-designing services with communities, implementing services and measuring change, all takes time. This is why celebrating successes and sharing personal stories and learnings is so crucial, and this is what we have been doing in our publications and through the ABS newsletter.
We have also learned that it is important to build trusting relationships, respect that communities and partners are the experts, understand that not everything will work as planned and the need for us to be flexible. Things will change over the period of a long programme, and we need to work with the grant holders and their communities to respond effectively to those changes and make the most of unexpected opportunities.
Looking ahead
In local areas, the legacy of ABS is clear. Families’ life chances have improved, local partners have committed to continuing much of what ABS built, and parents are now ‘baked in’ to local decision-making processes.
Nationally, the legacy of ABS has been through embedding learning into Westminster and into political conversations about improving the lives of babies, young children, and families. ABS has been cited as best practice in Start for Life guidance and has influenced the Family Hub programme. Evidence has fed into the First 1001 days movement and been cited twice in the Manifesto for Babies.
ABS evidence has also influenced the government’s Opportunity Mission, and in particular the Best Start in Life pillar. As I write this, the government has just published its ‘Giving Every Child the Best Start In Life’ strategy, and I know that ABS will continue to influence this as further details emerge. Our national evaluation of A Better Start, led by NatCen and partners, will publish the final evaluation report in April 2026. Additionally, NCB has been procured to share learning and best practice from ABS until December 2026.
Here at The National Lottery Community Fund we have publicly committed to build on the learning from A Better Start and invest £150 million in a National Early Years Partnership, and we hope to announce more about that in the near future.
About A Better Start
A Better Start is a ten-year project set up by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK.
Five A Better Start partnerships based in Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend are supporting families to give their babies and very young children the best possible start in life. Working with local parents, the A Better Start partnerships are developing and testing ways to improve their children’s diet and nutrition, social and emotional development, and speech, language and communication.
The National Children’s Bureau is coordinating an ambitious programme of shared learning for A Better Start, disseminating the partnerships’ experiences in creating innovative services far and wide, so that others working in early childhood development or place-based systems change can benefit.
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