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Best Beginnings is the podcast for everyone working in or caring about the early years. Hosted by George Looker, CEO of Babyzone, each episode brings together leading researchers, clinicians, practitioners, policymakers and parents to explore the evidence, ideas and innovations shaping how we support children and families in the UK.
From infant mental health and attachment to workforce challenges and systems change, Best Beginnings goes beyond the headlines to have the conversations that matter most in early childhood.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
Best Beginnings is brought to you by Babyzone, a national charity operating free, evidence-based family hubs across England for families with children aged 0–5.
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:16:02
Unknown
9,597% of the UK population will say that is really important. I care about child now and I know that early childhood matters. So we people believe that. But then when you say, okay, so to what extent should this be a priority for government, it drops.
00:00:16:04 - 00:00:22:22
Unknown
So it's like, well what's going on there? Why do people think this matters but they don't think it's something government should be doing
00:00:22:24 - 00:00:46:12
Unknown
Welcome to Best Beginnings, a podcast from Baby Zone where we talk to the people working hardest to give every child the best possible start in life. My guest today has spent her career trying to answer a deceptively hard question why does a period that shapes all of us, from pregnancy through to the age five, so rarely get the attention or the investment that it deserves?
00:00:46:14 - 00:01:17:04
Unknown
Sally Hogg is the founding director of Start Strong, a ten year campaign to make early childhood impossible to ignore. It's a campaign built on a simple, uncomfortable observation that almost everyone agrees that early years matter. Yet as a country, we've never quite behaved as though it does. Before this, Sally worked across government, the NSPCC, the parent infant foundation where she founded the first 1001 Days Movement, a coalition of more than 200 organizations.
00:01:17:09 - 00:01:23:17
Unknown
And also at University of Cambridge and the Royal Foundation Center for Early Childhood, where she shaped the Shaping Us campaign.
00:01:23:17 - 00:01:40:00
Unknown
Very few people in the UK have thought as hard and for as long about how we get this right and why it's still so difficult. And this is a telling moment to be having this conversation. There's arguably more money and more political attention on the early years right now than there has been in a generation.
00:01:40:02 - 00:02:00:21
Unknown
Yet Sally's central argument is that attention is not the same as lasting change. We've been here before, more than once, and the only way to watch momentum quietly drain away again. So her work is not just about what we should do for young children now. It's how we can make sure the country actually keeps doing it long after the headlines have moved on.
00:02:00:22 - 00:02:02:14
Unknown
Sally, welcome to Best Beginnings.
00:02:02:18 - 00:02:02:24
Unknown
Thank you
00:02:02:24 - 00:02:12:09
Unknown
for inviting me to be here. Great to talk to you again. And yeah, tell me about Start Strong, the campaign that you started and where you hope to see it go.
00:02:12:11 - 00:02:17:17
Unknown
Yeah. So I mean, you gave us a great introduction to thank you very much. Start showing us still in very early days.
00:02:17:19 - 00:02:43:08
Unknown
It's Genesis is that six funding organizations came together who all do work in early childhood and thought, actually, we need to do something deeper here to really create the system change. And as you say that while we're going to get that really long term change in in supporting babies and young children in this country, because at the moment, although there's some great initiatives and great policies, they are just that.
00:02:43:10 - 00:03:07:19
Unknown
They're two years of funding for this thing, an initiative here. And actually babies and insurance outcomes aren't really changing. And all of the progress we make always feel so fragile. Actually, we, as happened with Sure Start, we can have these brilliant programs and then they can go again. And doing something on early childhood always feels like a sort of a nice extra thing that government is doing.
00:03:07:19 - 00:03:32:05
Unknown
And what we want to move to is a place where it is a core part of what every government is expected to do. A core part of our public infrastructure, so that just as it would be unacceptable to get rid of GPS or to get rid of of primary schools, actually we can't it would be unacceptable for a parliamentarian to come along and actually make let our early childhood services disintegrate in the way that's happened kind of repeatedly over the last few decades.
00:03:32:05 - 00:03:50:23
Unknown
and why do you think why do you think that's been the case? Why do you know you've spent time inside the system? You know, why do you think now is the moment to be making the case that you're making and start strong? Is is making, especially given your perspective from being inside the system, both in the UK and in Australia as well.
00:03:50:23 - 00:03:55:16
Unknown
What is the like? What is the timing that led to this moment right now?
00:03:55:18 - 00:04:12:05
Unknown
So I think in many ways it's a really positive moment. As you said, we're seeing more attention on early childhood than we've ever seen before. So that's great. And some of this is about wanting to cement that. But actually, if we look at the lives of our babies and young children, not what policy documents say, but actually what's going on, it's not great.
00:04:12:06 - 00:04:16:15
Unknown
We've got some really entrenched inequalities that just aren't shifting in this country.
00:04:16:15 - 00:04:32:06
Unknown
There was in the papers of end our infant mortality statistics. And actually the UK lags behind most countries in the in Europe, most wealthy countries in terms of a number of babies which are even surviving the first year of life, let alone thriving and seizing lots of opportunities.
00:04:32:06 - 00:04:56:05
Unknown
And the inequalities behind that are also really shocking. So you're the babies in the 10% of least advanced areas. Those private areas are twice as likely to die as those in the most advantaged areas. And there's loads of stats, whether we look at absentee or good levels of or mental health, whatever it might be. We know that actually too many children just aren't having that good start in life.
00:04:56:07 - 00:05:14:08
Unknown
And so we really need to galvanize action on this and to hold feet to the fire across the system of people saying, great, you're talking about the fact that this matter is, but are we really putting the effort and investment into the things that are going to actually shift the dial for children? And we know none of that's going to happen quickly.
00:05:14:09 - 00:05:31:03
Unknown
You know, if you if you just put two years of funding in to setting up a new service, that service only has time to recruit people and set up and get the first parents in the door. It doesn't have time to become trusted by the communities who most need it to do the long term work with families and communities, and to actually shift outcomes.
00:05:31:04 - 00:05:44:18
Unknown
So it's great what we've got on at the moment, all of the particularly the UK government and the best start in life strategy. But is it really going to shift the dial. And we're really going to keep not just say, okay, job done, we did that and now we're moving on to something else.
00:05:44:18 - 00:05:54:01
Unknown
And I guess, you know, I think the right framing is campaigning organization, but also being a voice, being able to advocate on behalf of families.
00:05:54:01 - 00:06:05:20
Unknown
How are you planning on doing that? What are the different mechanisms that you got in place to try and understand what it is that people want and need, as well as do the research and bring the research together from delivery organizations
00:06:05:23 - 00:06:17:02
Unknown
to. Yeah, so I prefer to think of Start Strong as a movement rather than a campaigning organization, because I think there are I mean, you know, from the people who work in baby's own and the people who work in lots of different organizations that you partner with.
00:06:17:03 - 00:06:34:15
Unknown
There are hundreds of thousands of people across this country who really care about babies and children, parents themselves and the people that work with them. And we want to harness that energy and empower those people to speak up and to drive the changes that they can make in their local areas, as well as to come together and drive something big nationally.
00:06:34:15 - 00:06:56:01
Unknown
So Start Strong isn't about us saying, well, we're a campaign, and could you all come along and sign our letter or sign our petition? It's saying, actually, how can we power you up across the country to drive this change in your places? And how can we come together collectively to really push this forward? There are loads of brilliant charities in this space, and lots of them do advocacy work.
00:06:56:01 - 00:07:27:06
Unknown
But actually, you know, I could go into Parliament 2 or 3 times a week and go to a different roundtable and see different policy report being published. And then actually, from parliamentarians point of view, actually, that becomes quite easy to ignore. There's just lots of stuff being said all the time. What if, rather than having all of those little things of everybody saying their own, slightly different take on early childhood, we came together with one story and a set of different voices saying the same thing, the same story, and actually really talking about babies and children and their experiences first and foremost, and then our own specific ass and things after that.
00:07:27:06 - 00:07:42:06
Unknown
So it's about making us all more powerful, bringing people together and creating that movement that's really going to drive change by powering up actors to act a lots of different points in the system, rather than saying, oh, no, one campaign that we centrally own is going to going to solve
00:07:42:10 - 00:07:52:01
Unknown
there. And you, you mentioned the sort of the long term thinking, the sort of time horizons and I think mentioned sort of ten years as the sort of current goal.
00:07:52:02 - 00:08:05:02
Unknown
What does success look like for you in ten years time? What do you hope to see in terms of outcomes, but also changes in the way the system operates and changes in the way that policymakers and parents think as well?
00:08:05:03 - 00:08:12:23
Unknown
Yeah. So I mean, there's lots of elements of that. Ultimately, we want to see more babies and young children in this country having a strong start in life.
00:08:12:23 - 00:08:36:02
Unknown
And that what does that look like? That looks like better experiences of early childhood. I'm really keen. We don't just talk about outcomes. This isn't just about getting kids to five. This is about babies who feel safe and loved, and children who are playing and happy and feel they belong. Those experiences have improved, and also we see those improvements in outcomes and closing the gaps across a range of health and development outcomes.
00:08:36:03 - 00:08:59:08
Unknown
More children being school ready, more children being happy, more children being physically healthy, more children moving, more children having the language and emotional skills that we know are so important to be happy now and to play and to have friends and to be confident going to school, but also that a foundational skills for the rest of life. So that's our kind of goal for children and what are the things we want to achieve to get there.
00:08:59:09 - 00:09:29:04
Unknown
So again, there are sort of a number of levels of this. We want action across all governments in the UK. And I say governments with an S because it's not just Westminster, it's the devolved nations, it's the combined and regional authorities and local government. We want action that is sustained, as I talked about. So moving away from early childhood, being a set of kind of short term programs to being a core set of services that exist and action that's invested in for the long term, that doesn't switch when every political party switches.
00:09:29:05 - 00:09:50:10
Unknown
We want action that is ambitious and outcomes focused. So really thinking about designing systems that are really going to shift the dial for those children in terms of their outcomes. And we want systemic action. So that means that LHR isn't just about those services that have children and families on the tin. It's about thinking, well, what's housing services doing for children?
00:09:50:10 - 00:10:08:12
Unknown
Because actually, if you we talk about bedtime stories as a good example and parents being, you know, being supported to have healthy behaviors at home, like reading stories or playing with their children, if you don't have a home or if you live in a terrible bit of temporary accommodation, or your child doesn't even have a bed, then of course you can't do those things.
00:10:08:12 - 00:10:20:12
Unknown
So actually thinking systemically about families, the communities for housing, their welfare, their poverty levels. So this is a cost government strategy rather than just about a set of services.
00:10:20:12 - 00:10:38:00
Unknown
so what we want in terms of action for government is those three things sustained, ambitious and systemic. Then in terms of kind of other asks, this is my long list, and we know we're an increasingly popular society, that actually what our politicians do is shaped by what the public has to do.
00:10:38:00 - 00:10:59:09
Unknown
And that's right. Right, right. We're in democracy. But and at the moment, this early childhood isn't an issue that people bring up on the doorsteps in voting campaigns. It feels it's not an issue that politicians are worried about not doing something on, because they think that there'd be some sort of public backlash. We haven't got that kind of public support for action.
00:10:59:09 - 00:11:21:12
Unknown
And so I want this to be an issue that is more visible to the public that people care about. We know they care about their own children. We know they care about this, but there's no salience at the moment. It's not something that they're prioritizing and telling government that they care about. So we want to get early childhood to be an issue that is impossible for decision makers to ignore, because the public groundswell of support for action is so great.
00:11:21:17 - 00:11:50:12
Unknown
And that national conversation, as you say, on the doorstep, as people are being asked questions on Question Time or whatever it might be, it's sort of going, how do we translate that huge ambition that you just outlined into the changes to the discourse, changes to the way that people are talking to elected politicians, to their local councilors, to people that work at their local schools or in their early years settings that they might live down the road from.
00:11:50:13 - 00:12:00:09
Unknown
How are you trying to inform those types of conversations, or picking up on the threads that are currently in there and kind of re bolstering them?
00:12:00:14 - 00:12:16:13
Unknown
Yeah. So we're doing some really interesting research and more in common at the moment, which has multiple strands to it. So we started by doing both huge surveys with big representative samples of the UK population and also focus groups to understand why people are at now.
00:12:16:14 - 00:12:33:17
Unknown
What do they think about early childhood? How much do they think of it as an issue. And then we're looking at actually how do we shift some of those views and mindsets? What stories do we need to tell to move people? So there are a few things that that we've seen and that we want to think about. How do we shift?
00:12:33:18 - 00:12:54:11
Unknown
One of them is salience. So what do I mean by that? I mean that's about how important people think this is and how much of a priority they think government is. It should be for government. So what we know is actually the public generally think believe early years matters. So if we say to people, to what extent do you think it's important that children are happy and healthy?
00:12:54:11 - 00:13:03:03
Unknown
Or we say, to what extent do you think early childhood matters for later life outcomes on both of those? The kind of current today measure and future outcomes,
00:13:03:05 - 00:13:19:05
Unknown
9,597% of the UK population will say that is really important. I care about child now and I know that early childhood matters. So we people believe that. But then when you say, okay, so to what extent should this be a priority for government, it drops.
00:13:19:07 - 00:13:23:18
Unknown
So it's like, well what's going on there? Why do people think this matters but they don't think it's something government should be doing
00:13:23:22 - 00:13:32:16
Unknown
about? And part of that is about people don't just don't aren't aware of the scale of the problem. They think our kids are kind of okay. So we've been looking at, well, what do we need to say?
00:13:32:18 - 00:13:49:23
Unknown
How do we what stories do we tell that actually shine a spotlight? And the fact that quite a lot of our kids are not okay. And so we found that, for example, talking about levels of inequality, really shining a spotlight on things like just a healthy pregnancy and how that means that some children are already out of there, even born.
00:13:50:01 - 00:14:06:22
Unknown
How kind of early childhood experiences mean that some children are entering school able to seize every opportunity and make friends and play, and some children aren't? That's resonating with the public and talking about some of the stats in that space. So actually, we can move people to think this is more of an urgent issue. There are other mindsets that hold back action as well.
00:14:06:22 - 00:14:36:14
Unknown
So one of the things that that we hear people say is, well, the issues in early childhood, I'm kind of quoting people here are about feckless, lazy parents. They're about parents that are not making good choices, that aren't doing the right things for their kids. That's what the problem is. And if people believe that, then they don't really support government action as much because they think actually, maybe there's nothing government can do or it's a set of undeserving parents, or those parents just need to sort it for themselves.
00:14:36:16 - 00:14:54:04
Unknown
Obviously, parents are the most important thing in children's lives, but what we know and what you know in babies own is that it's very, very hard to ever find a parent that doesn't love their child or want to be the best for them, but the parents who aren't doing the things that really support healthy development and often not doing them because they live in systems that make it much harder for them to do those things.
00:14:54:06 - 00:15:14:11
Unknown
You know, again, like I talked about with housing, poverty, parental stress, community cohesion, lots of things make it harder for parents to be present and do the things that children need. And so what we want to do is try and think about, well, what are the stories that we can tell that move people from thinking this is an issue of kind of parents who I'm not very sympathetic to, to thinking about?
00:15:14:12 - 00:15:25:06
Unknown
No, this is an issue for the whole of society, because we can create the context in which every parent can be the parent they want to be. And again, we're seeing through this research the stories that we can tell that shift, that
00:15:25:12 - 00:15:37:17
Unknown
it's interesting because there's like your kind of framing around stories that we can tell because we also look at the data and you can go, there's science around the brain development between Norton three.
00:15:37:17 - 00:16:02:18
Unknown
That's very well evidenced and articulated by quite well known scientists these days, and people that are informing policymakers. There's also economics and a lot of the work the Royal Foundation was doing around the economic impact of not investing in the early years. So we've kind of got science, we've got economic data, but we're still not necessarily just got the narrative out there as much that you would hope.
00:16:02:18 - 00:16:18:14
Unknown
Why do you think that is? Why do you think we haven't been able to triangulate the various pieces of information that we all know? The investment is critical. That window is the prime time to make the investment, but for whatever reason, it isn't as commonly known or isn't as widespread believed as it could
00:16:18:17 - 00:16:20:09
Unknown
be. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really interesting.
00:16:20:09 - 00:16:38:15
Unknown
So if we think about if we go into the ground, if you think about the people who work in a service, a practitioner, you would when they would talk, if they're talking to a family, they will think about, well, where are this family out. What's how do I need to help them? What do I need? How do I talk to them in a way that works for them?
00:16:38:17 - 00:16:53:08
Unknown
So we know that kind of being relational, thinking about what resonates with people is really important. But we haven't applied that thinking often to the way we do comes and campaigning. So we're like, well, this is compelling evidence that we just we just need to tell people and therefore their act. But that doesn't act. That doesn't work in any other part of life.
00:16:53:09 - 00:17:08:11
Unknown
Right? We need to tap into what people care about. We need to think about what stories we tell that when their hearts and minds. So the two examples you gave are really interesting ones. And I've been part of the movement telling those stories, and they work for certain places. The brain science one. I'm a developmental psychologist by background.
00:17:08:11 - 00:17:25:18
Unknown
That's my my, my undergraduate and master's career. I love the brain science, but it's not really, you know, if you talk to people about what they want, their kids, they don't want to say, oh, I want loads of neural connections. They say, I want a happy, healthy child. Right. So we're not are we tapping in? What are we telling that story?
00:17:25:18 - 00:17:43:09
Unknown
But also that story is one of how children develop. It's an important one of how children develop. And it's an important way to help parents understand why what they do matters. But it doesn't have any burning platform. So we can say what happens in early childhood really shapes children's brains in a way that shapes their later life outcomes.
00:17:43:10 - 00:18:02:23
Unknown
Well, our polling shows that the public generally get that what happens in early childhood shapes Johns Hopkins, whether they know about neural connections or not. What the brain story doesn't say is, and there are this many children having such experiences, that it's not developing a healthy brain or a healthy body or a healthy mind. So so that story doesn't bring the salience with it.
00:18:02:24 - 00:18:33:03
Unknown
It's very helpful for lots of people in citizen situations. But if we're trying to convince at a population level that we need to do something here, that story doesn't quite cut through. The economic one is brilliant if you're talking to Treasury. And when I was in government 20 years ago and Gordon Brown was in the Treasury, actually, he would have said, I want to do what's best for children, and I want you to tell me which of these options brings the best return on investment, where return is outcomes for children, that's very much change and return.
00:18:33:03 - 00:18:52:03
Unknown
In Treasury terms, now is an economic return. We have to you know, that's the case at which civil servants have to make every argument in the Westminster government. So providing them with the evidence that shows that acting on early childhood brings an economic return is really power to the elbow of those conversations with Treasury. So it matters in that context, but it doesn't work with the rest.
00:18:52:04 - 00:19:05:06
Unknown
You know, I don't want the government to look after my kids so that the tax revenues in the future are different or we've got better. I want the government to look after my kids because they're the most important thing in my life. And I just think as a society, that's what we should be doing, looking after our kids.
00:19:05:08 - 00:19:22:05
Unknown
So and I would like economic growth to serve, looking after my kids, not my kids looking to serve economic growth. So it doesn't work for the way we all think about our children. And it doesn't win hearts and minds. And it's also a long term argument. And we know human beings don't respond well to long term arguments. You know, we've learned that through public health messaging.
00:19:22:11 - 00:19:51:09
Unknown
You talk to teenagers about why to stop smoking, you have to talk to them about why to do it now, because they don't care about how they're going to feel their lung disease. At 70, they have you have to give them a reason to not do things. Now, we know that we know from climate justice campaigning that talking to people about what the earth temperature is going to be like in 20 years time motivates no one or motivates a small group of people talking to people about what's going to happen in their community, you know, in the next two years, if if temperatures rise, gets people going.
00:19:51:10 - 00:20:11:03
Unknown
So telling a long term economic case is not the way to motivate the public generally. You know, an economic case that would motivate the public is, is my shopping weekly shop going to be cheaper next week? No. So therefore I don't get what does that even mean? But the public care about children now. So if we talk about children now, we tap into something.
00:20:11:06 - 00:20:39:21
Unknown
Yeah. You make a very compelling case. And at that scenario, you were sort of painting within Treasury. And those conversations with previous, historical, previous leaders, chancellors. And I think we mentioned at the top of the conversation right now, there does feel like a little bit of a tailwind behind early years and a bit of a tension, whether that's from the Princess of Wales and the and the Royal Foundation early childhood, whether that's the best start in life.
00:20:40:02 - 00:21:13:17
Unknown
Family hub rollout, GLD and understanding of the school readiness targets as well. Why is it still so fragile? Why is it still, you know, the fact that we've gone through these different waves and, you know, you spoke very eloquently around, let's just get a ten year target. This is very clear. Why have our politicians not absorbed that as, as something that just needs to be independent, perhaps, of those short political cycles that they operate in, or short budgetary cycles that local authorities are beholden to?
00:21:13:17 - 00:21:25:23
Unknown
And is there anyone that's doing it? Well, where has your kind of evidence taken you as you sort of searched far and wide to go? This is a model that actually the UK could emulate or aspire to, to look like.
00:21:26:00 - 00:21:34:03
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, there's lots of things to unpack in that question. I think for lots of reasons that that listeners and viewers will be aware of.
00:21:34:04 - 00:22:07:15
Unknown
Politics has been very short term in the UK and around the world. And if you're a politician and you only believe you're only going to be in in your position for a year or two years, and maybe your government is only going to be in a position, then you look for short term things you can do. And so it's it's much more tempting to think, well, I'm going to do a two year program that will deliver some things that I can go and cut the rivers of, or show or point at, rather than think I'm going to do the kind of grittier stuff that doesn't get a return straight away, but creates a kind of
00:22:07:16 - 00:22:17:03
Unknown
system that's going to work better in the future. So I think that has fed this sort of short term and in wanting an announcement. And so.
00:22:17:09 - 00:22:36:07
Unknown
The stuff around that Andrea Leadsom led around babies at the end of the conservative government, you know, she she led a review and she got this kind of chunk of money. I was like, got a chunk of money for a couple of years. What are we going to do? We're going to get a specific set of services developed in that time.
00:22:36:09 - 00:22:58:24
Unknown
And that was really there was a real clear need for that, and it created a real momentum and some brilliant services that existed. But actually at the same time, we had health services that were being decimated. We know that there were crisis and maternity care. Those fundamental long term systems were not being kind of propped up, and no one was doing the work on how do we get these, these services to actually work?
00:22:58:24 - 00:23:05:18
Unknown
Well, how do we change the kind of culture? It was a kind of well, here's here's a minister with the title and a program who's going to go and do that?
00:23:05:18 - 00:23:16:06
Unknown
And actually some of that stuff sort of pulled away a little bit from fixing the system. So I was working a lot on baby's mental health, which is kind of a difficult concept for lots of people to get.
00:23:16:06 - 00:23:43:19
Unknown
But basically, we know that we can support babies mental health through supporting what called specialist parent relationship services. So they support parents and babies in those important relationships, which we know are the key foundation for for mental health services. We'd been campaigning for a long time for mental health and funding and mental health governance to be providing those services, because actually, if we're going to have a note to 25 mental health services, then those services should sit as the 0 to 2 bit of that.
00:23:43:21 - 00:24:07:15
Unknown
What happened with that short term funding is that a set of parent infant services, local authorities were then funded, set up a set of parent infant services just in the local authorities with that money, which is great in that it got more services than we've had in a really long time. But it didn't change the fact that mental health services were systematically not serving babies, and actually gave them an excuse not to do it because someone was someone else's job now.
00:24:07:15 - 00:24:28:21
Unknown
So we didn't fit fix the long term systemic stuff. We just patched it, but we patched it with program funding. So when that program funding goes potentially, which is always more fragile, then those services might go with it. And we've still got a system that at its heart isn't working. So that's that sort of the long term versus short term and short term stuff.
00:24:28:21 - 00:24:42:10
Unknown
It can be great for creating momentum around it and accelerating and getting progress, but we've got to do the long term stuff as well and think, actually, how does this what happens if this money gets cut? How have we built this into actually what people's business as usual is?
00:24:42:10 - 00:24:47:21
Unknown
when I was in government in the early noughties, we had a lot of kind of longer term strategies.
00:24:47:21 - 00:25:07:13
Unknown
So there was a ten year childcare strategy and that spoke to actually where did we want the system to be in a long term. And what, what a ten year Treasury enables ministers to do is if you don't, then get a little bit of extra money because Treasury is failing generous, you can say, okay, well what's the next bit we could do to build towards this big goal that we've got?
00:25:07:14 - 00:25:24:07
Unknown
But also you've indicated to the whole system where you're aiming for so people can start to move there by themselves and they can anticipate what's coming. If you only work by kind of two year announcements, then it's never quite clear to people what your next announcement is going to be. And the system is not ready to act and people can't anticipate it.
00:25:24:08 - 00:25:45:22
Unknown
So I think there's something about saying, well, we can set out a long term goal and then we can make short term things that are building towards that and make decisions that are creating systems that will work in the future rather than decisions that service well now, but actually don't create these services. It's very it's very technocratic, I think, but really important
00:25:45:22 - 00:26:14:24
Unknown
And in real terms, we're likely to have a new prime minister in the next couple of weeks, maybe a new Secretary of State for Education or Health and potentially a new children's minister. What would you want them to be reading in that briefing pack on day one that talks about babies, children? Early years, early childhood? At the risk of there being another initiative, what would you you know, I suspect they're not going to have time to read through a ten year plan necessarily on day one.
00:26:14:24 - 00:26:23:13
Unknown
But what do you think that menu on the briefing note should say, in terms of priorities and and direction, that you'd hope for them to go in?
00:26:23:15 - 00:26:39:08
Unknown
I would like it to be framed first and foremost in terms of babies and children and their outcomes. So what what do I mean by that is it's very easy to say, oh, we've got this many more family herbs, and we've got this many more kids in education and childcare and all of these big successes that talk about kind of services.
00:26:39:10 - 00:26:55:08
Unknown
Like I said at the start, we're not those services aren't always delivering what babies and young children need. And I think the best government strategies come when we really think about what do we want to achieve for our children. And then we're curious about, well, what are the things that might get us there? And then we design services based on that.
00:26:55:08 - 00:27:18:13
Unknown
So I'd like I'd like the new prime minister to see on day one what we're doing well for our babies and children and what we're not to really galvanize attention on that, and then to hear about the services that we've got and the extent to which those are working for those things and where the gaps are. And I would like that to be holistic briefing in terms of thinking about maternity services.
00:27:18:13 - 00:27:41:05
Unknown
Health is in services, start for life, family hubs, early education and also things like housing to pull that together because it's so fragmented at the moment. And I really hoped when the missions came out that actually that would galvanize that kind of cross-government activity, focus on outcomes for children, but it hasn't quite worked the best start in life strategy.
00:27:41:06 - 00:27:55:08
Unknown
It's got some fabulous stuff in it. It's really good, but it just talks about a small set of services. It doesn't really do that analysis of what would really get us to having 75% of our five year old school ready. What are the things we need to do?
00:27:55:08 - 00:28:04:21
Unknown
And I think included in that, we have to have a really important and honest conversation about the quality of early education and childcare.
00:28:04:23 - 00:28:30:05
Unknown
There is such a focus on like on funding, on getting kids in, on, on getting families, the offer so that women can go back to work. It's not a system at the moment that it's being designed based on what will best service children's experiences and outcomes, and there's actually a real tension in early on in childcare between accessibility, affordability and quality.
00:28:30:07 - 00:28:52:07
Unknown
Actually, there used to be in new labor data was a triangle with those three and thinking about how do you constantly balance them. There's been a big pull towards affordability and accessibility in a way that's benefited lots of families, but quality has kind of been left behind. And the honest conversation we need to have is early on, and childcare only benefits babies and young children if it's good quality.
00:28:52:08 - 00:29:18:09
Unknown
Actually poor quality can can be harmful for some children, particularly very little ones. So there's a lot of kind of narrative at the moment of we've got this outcome that we're focusing on for children and we've got early and childcare that's going to get us there, but it won't necessarily get us there unless we focus on quality. So I think that analysis of how our babies and your children doing, how are the current policies working in terms of actually getting children towards that target, and where are the gaps?
00:29:18:10 - 00:29:32:06
Unknown
That's the analysis I'd like to see. Not this sort of mismatch between we'd like to improve outcomes. And here a load of things we've done that isn't honest about which ones are those are really working and where would we still have gaps?
00:29:32:06 - 00:29:58:17
Unknown
Yeah, galvanizing kind of moment, as you say, trying to bring cross-government departments, different ministers, different secretaries of state and the prime minister ultimately feeling like they've got responsibility for this. And I know that I've seen some of your recent LinkedIn posts around kind of also from a title perspective, and having someone that is the named responsible minister that sat around the cabinet table thinking about children and families as well.
00:29:58:18 - 00:30:00:08
Unknown
So that's something that you would like to see.
00:30:00:08 - 00:30:03:06
Unknown
Yeah, I think there's a nuanced hand that would be very easy just to change a job title.
00:30:03:07 - 00:30:26:11
Unknown
Right. And we don't just want that. And the model that I'm really thinking, I was actually private secretary to the Minister of Children, that was one of my early jobs in government. And at that point we had we did have a department for children, schools and families. So it was a slightly different machinery of government. So we had the Secretary of State for nominee for children, but we also had a minister for children, young people and families who could attend cabinet.
00:30:26:13 - 00:30:45:18
Unknown
And having both of them is really important because actually, the Secretary of State has got to make sure that schools run an early education settings run, and social care runs as services. Sometimes that's not always thinking about what children need. That's about a set of public services. So having someone else who is able to say, but how are our kids actually doing?
00:30:45:18 - 00:31:05:10
Unknown
And is this servicing them? You know, if you think about Covid, for example, there's a balance that, you know, how do we actually keep schools and the teachers union and all of those. But but somebody actually saying, but how are babies doing what? Who's keeping them in mind? So I think having both of those positions is really incredible.
00:31:05:12 - 00:31:24:01
Unknown
So I would like to beef up the Minister for children's role so that it's a ministerial, not a parliamentary and secretary of state, so that they can attend cabinet explicitly to champion babies, young children and families. It used to be a children. Young people and families were all, I'd like babies to be mentioned because we know if we don't talk about babies, we forget about them.
00:31:24:01 - 00:31:54:15
Unknown
We just start at kind of 2 or 5. So I'd love that, that job title, that role. But the most important thing is that person actually has the mandate and the power to act across government. So when that role existed in 2007, there were cross-government committees. There were targets and outcomes targets and the ability to really sort of bang heads together, if you will, to say, actually, no, we all need to be doing this to deliver and to go to where the government ministers and say your agenda is not delivering what children need.
00:31:54:15 - 00:32:27:12
Unknown
And if this is a mission across government, your agenda needs to deliver this to someone who's got sign off on government documents and is able to say, I'm sorry, I'm not signing this off until it does more for babies and children. So it can't just be adding a name to a role because what does that do? But I do think, you know, if if Benham was going to do one really simple thing just on day one, that would be a brilliant thing to do, you know, to give someone that power, that mandate the responsibility and to make sure that the views and perspectives and needs of babies, young children and children and young people, you
00:32:27:12 - 00:32:32:07
Unknown
know, the whole spectrum of childhood is really being brought into every discussion and decision.
00:32:32:07 - 00:32:56:09
Unknown
Well, I watch this space. Let's see if it acts off the back of this conversation. You know, your passion for this is palpable. It's clear in the conversation. And also been lucky enough to watch you present a couple of other forums as well. I mean, you created a lot of this movement, you know, the sort of the first and one days movement, that coalition of 200 different organizations when you're at the Parent Infant Foundation, I guess.
00:32:56:10 - 00:33:09:17
Unknown
What did building that coalition tell you about trying to get what is quite a fragmented sector to speak in one voice, like, what is it that you've learned over the arc of those experiences that you're taking into this role?
00:33:09:23 - 00:33:25:11
Unknown
So, I mean, that was great, but so I, I joined what was then called Pip UK, and Pip UK had been the secretariat to the thousand and one days all party parliamentary group, which Tim Loughton and Andrea Leadsom had set up and led.
00:33:25:12 - 00:33:49:19
Unknown
And this was the days pre-COVID where all party parliamentary groups met in Parliament and people would go and watch them, and we could fill a room of 100 people who travel from all over the country to come and watch this all party parliamentary group. And then and those people would often say, oh, you know, I've been in Parliament a day and, and then they would get very frustrated because they're like, well, we've been talking to MPs for years and we've had these big meetings.
00:33:49:19 - 00:34:22:24
Unknown
But why is nothing changing? And I think, well, because you're just talking to a small number of MPs who already get it. That's what an Appg is. And actually all you've done is come been in the audience for that. And then also Andrew and Tim were in government and do things in their own right, which is great, but we needed to create something that was separate and distinct as a kind of campaigning system that wasn't just people who watched the Appg that we had the Appg, but we also had all of these people around the country that cared who were leading local services, who were academics, who cared about this, powering them up to really
00:34:22:24 - 00:34:42:02
Unknown
think about what they were going to do to drive change, not just to kind of observe a few MPs who already cared. So the idea about creating the movement was to sort of separate this group out and really fire them up, and also to focus attention on what how do we get outside the echo chamber? Because actually we're all just talking to each other, and then we're wondering why change hasn't happening.
00:34:42:02 - 00:34:44:12
Unknown
So how do we like, speak outwards
00:34:44:14 - 00:35:03:04
Unknown
how do we create these pins movement? I talked earlier about having action at multiple parts of a system. You know, the APG was one thing and having ministers doing some stuff was another. But having a movement separately allowed us to say and do things. Maybe that challenged them with those ministers sometimes, and that brought a different perspective and that was independent of it.
00:35:03:04 - 00:35:18:07
Unknown
So that's why I created the movement. But there was already a lot of people that cared. So it was really about actually how do we channel this better and how do we power you up, and how do we use you to affect change in your local systems and then also come together? And I did, and we did a lot of really simple stuff.
00:35:18:08 - 00:35:37:04
Unknown
You know, it was kind of sharing evidence briefings, sharing slide decks with people. So it's to say, actually we don't all have the time or don't need to or be creating our own arguments to take to our own local councilors or our own commissioners to do this. We can do that centrally and we can give that out and then people can use those arguments.
00:35:37:04 - 00:36:01:10
Unknown
So it was about, yeah, using that movement to really drive change all over the UK and coming together we I in late 2019 done a big roadshow going around the country talking to these people who had been sort of tangentially involved in the Appg or in UK, and talking to them about what would a thousand a day movement be and how would they want it to work, what would the governance arrangements look like?
00:36:01:11 - 00:36:19:20
Unknown
What do they want it to do for them? What did they wanted to do for children? So we've done this big Cambridge, and we were just getting ready to launch when it was marched into 20. And obviously Covid happened and that really accelerated a lot of the stuff that happened. And we created this brilliant little working group of some of the big children.
00:36:20:01 - 00:36:41:21
Unknown
So Institute for health visiting with their NCB, NSPCC and others that I will forget. But a great but best beginnings were on it. Home. Start thinking about what is the pandemic doing for babies, young children and how can we be a voice for that. And we literally met every week to talk about what we were hearing from the ground, what government was doing, how we could challenge that.
00:36:41:22 - 00:37:06:05
Unknown
And so that accelerated progress with the age movement more than anything. And now Jodie talked to you on this podcast about actually, in some way, there were a lot of things that were accelerated for good and bad during that time. And actually it did cements the first movement and give us that sense of purpose and an understanding of what our unique role in the system was, which was speaking up for babies.
00:37:06:07 - 00:37:26:00
Unknown
And Jodi, through the work that I'd commissioned. And that research really kind of highlighted this idea of the baby blind spot. And we saw that so much UK and actually being able to say, hang on a minute, no one is keeping in mind what's going on for our youngest children in this situation. And that's a role that we can all come together and play.
00:37:26:01 - 00:37:46:14
Unknown
And you asked about how do you kind of herd cats? How do you get lots of people who care about different things come together? You do it by focusing on babies and children, because that's what we're all in this for, and we can all agree on. And if we keep focusing on them, their experiences, their outcomes and what they need and what their families need as well and what their parents say they need, we focus on that.
00:37:46:15 - 00:38:06:12
Unknown
Then actually, we can all unite across a lot if we start to get into very specific things about how does the pie get cut between this service and that service, and exactly what should the funding formula be, then we lose people. But that's not the point of these movements. The point of these movements is to put babies and your children in front center, and to challenge and hold people's feet to the fire for progress on that.
00:38:06:12 - 00:38:11:22
Unknown
And actually, if people care about Beijing and children, then all of those conversations about specific policy areas become easier anyway.
00:38:12:01 - 00:38:26:12
Unknown
Yeah. And I guess the other thing that we've touched on briefly, but I'd love to go in a little bit more detail now. We spoke about effective campaigners and voices on behalf of babies and children and a completely get your point around.
00:38:26:14 - 00:38:53:04
Unknown
It's not necessarily about having one celebrity backer or endorser, but there is obviously someone in the UK who is famously advocating on behalf of babies and young children and early childhood the Princess of Wales. And you obviously worked with the foundation in the center for Early Childhood, the Royal Foundation and the shaping US framework in particular, something that we know is enormously valuable to the practitioners that work within Baby Zone and the families that we we help as well.
00:38:53:04 - 00:39:03:18
Unknown
And that reached a really wide audience, I guess. What did that experience teach you? And working as part of the Royal Foundation as well, in terms of early childhood that perhaps you hadn't experienced
00:39:03:23 - 00:39:19:16
Unknown
before? Yeah, I mean, it was a great experience, a real honor to wear with the Princess and really interesting to work with that whole infrastructure of the princess and the palace and the Royal foundation. It's obviously absolutely incredible for this agenda that she's decided that that is where her life's work is going to be.
00:39:19:18 - 00:39:21:00
Unknown
And
00:39:21:02 - 00:39:34:08
Unknown
I felt a huge responsibility to think about how to use that. Well. So I've worked in small charities where we've had incredibly important things to say and really struggle to have a platform to say it. The Royal Foundation has the platform, how do you use it?
00:39:34:08 - 00:39:38:21
Unknown
And the Princess has a lot of her own passions and ideas, and she's incredibly knowledgeable about that.
00:39:38:21 - 00:40:03:03
Unknown
So it really shaped from her and from the heart. And there's a huge authenticity there, which was, you know, like I say, great honor and really interesting to work with. I'm really proud of a lot of the things we did, particularly around communicating about social and emotional development. So I wrote the kind of foundations for life guidebook, which lots of practitioners around the country and universities are now using, and the set of short films which I know babies are using.
00:40:03:05 - 00:40:36:18
Unknown
And the princess herself was asking for those things. How do we communicate? She is very passionate about the science of early development, and particularly social and emotional skills, and how important they are and relationships. And, you know, I've been as a developmental psychologist. I've been steeped in that stuff my whole career. So I'm also very passionate about the points of relationship association, development to to to write that stuff, to create those animations and then to use the platforms and the convening power of the Royal Foundation to get people to kind of engage with them and commit to using them and taking them up was really brilliant and fascinating.
00:40:36:20 - 00:41:04:07
Unknown
And I'm still in lots of contact with the Royal Foundation team. I think, you know, there's obviously the princess can say really valuable things about early childhood. There's also things that it's not appropriate for her to say. She can't comment on government policy. And so I think that we can play really complementary roles together about actually she can talk about how important early childhood is, and then we can say, well, if it's really important, we need to back that up with some action and investment from our governments.
00:41:04:11 - 00:41:30:13
Unknown
I was working just a bit of an anecdote when Angela had done her review under the conservative government about early childhood, and originally that had no money attached to it. And we were doing some insights work across government about why why are people not funding early childhood work, why is it not getting through? And then suddenly and everyone was saying lots of reasons.
00:41:30:13 - 00:41:52:19
Unknown
It's all very complicated and babies aren't visible, then they're not winners and etc.. And then suddenly Rishi Sunak announced, stood up and announced as chancellor that he was going to put 100 million behind. Andrea Leighton's work and friendly services across the country. And it's like, gosh, this is incredible. So we we got this insights work to suddenly pivot to say, well, hang on, what suddenly clicked?
00:41:52:20 - 00:42:10:10
Unknown
Why? Despite never really invested in this meaningfully for many years of a conservative government, have they suddenly acted. And two things came through. One was how powerful Andrea was an advocate and how great it was that she had some concrete proposals, because actually there was a sort of dearth of other things coming forward. So, you know, Andrew's where it was really powerful.
00:42:10:10 - 00:42:31:14
Unknown
But the other thing was that came out was Cenac really likes the royal family and the Princess of Wales. Doing work on this agenda is really caught his attention. So you know that without saying anything political or doing anything, the policy space the princess's work had led to a government investing in that, and that's huge. We might have liked the fact that I would love the answer to come back.
00:42:31:14 - 00:42:56:24
Unknown
Well, the great campaigning the sector did and all this evidence about babies has really cut through. But that wasn't in that case. What had made the difference? It was these powerful voices and the resonance that they had with particular audiences. So yeah, so I think it's incredibly powerful. And our job is to use the space at the Princess creates and the attention that she creates wisely and well, to drive some of the changes for children that she's very aware and needed.
00:42:56:24 - 00:43:01:21
Unknown
But it would be very inappropriate for the Royal Foundation to to get into that space.
00:43:02:02 - 00:43:07:06
Unknown
Absolutely. And then going from one voice to thousands of voices babies own.
00:43:07:06 - 00:43:31:23
Unknown
As an organization, we now work with about 1800 families every single week. Hopefully by the end of next year when we get up to 20 hubs, we'll have over 3000 families that we work with on a weekly basis. How can we best help you in terms of the voices that you need around the table, around the things that a charity like Baby Zone and other charities you've mentioned during the course of this conversation that can support the work that you're trying to achieve?
00:43:32:04 - 00:43:35:00
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, I think Babies in is wonderful and I've loved going out.
00:43:35:05 - 00:43:54:08
Unknown
I've seen a few different babies Indian actor now, and I am hugely passionate about the value of safe places for parents to drop in and stay and play with their kids. I benefited usually from that when my kids were little, just it wasn't the scale of babies, it was church or toddler groups. But actually that place where you don't have a set time to turn up.
00:43:54:08 - 00:44:11:03
Unknown
You turn it when you're ready, you know it'll be there. You know there'll be some funny faces and a cuppa and somewhere for your kids to play. And through those spaces, you know, I made some of my best friends who my kids are now always just left primary school. They're still the people that I rely on that I can call up if I need a lift or a help or whatever it might be.
00:44:11:05 - 00:44:36:03
Unknown
And they're the people that I have turned to. So I think those those there's something so important about creating communities for families and not intervening with them, not telling them things or giving them things, but creating spaces where they can be the parents that want to be create the communities around them and actually where they don't need to then keep turning to professional services because they've they've got those, they've got their own confidence and they've got their own networks.
00:44:36:03 - 00:44:53:12
Unknown
Eternity. So huge fan of what you do and have those kind of informal spaces as well. What can you do for Start Strong? I've talked a lot about sort of where where starts strong is focusing outwards. There's also a lot about how we work as an organization. That's very important to me. And one of those things is about shifting power.
00:44:53:13 - 00:45:11:04
Unknown
So I think one of the things we've got wrong in children's policy is this idea that it's kind of some experts and some evidence that are right, and then parents just need to get those things will be told. And if parents don't go to a service, then we need to work out how to get them there, rather than ask ourselves whether that's the right service.
00:45:11:04 - 00:45:32:05
Unknown
Or so I think there's something about really, we need to shift power. We need to value parents, voices and experiences as experts in the system, and we need to better rebalance between professional expertise, academic evidence, and parents voices as three very important sources of evidence that help us to find the right solution, none of which are more powerful important than the others.
00:45:32:05 - 00:45:54:22
Unknown
But they're all critical to get this right. So I want to start trying to model that. I want us to shift power back into communities to shift who's talking about this from kind of professional elites or people in Westminster and Whitehall who've not actually been on the ground with families to actually family's own voices coming through and the voices of people who are around families every day who know more than anybody what those families need.
00:45:54:23 - 00:46:24:08
Unknown
I want those voices to be heard more, because I think we'll shape better solutions if they are. And I want to start trying to model that. So a big part of how we work will be about as part of a movement, not start strong, just kind of asking people to do stuff around the country, but actually us listening into communities, using those trusted spaces where parents go and where parents are and where babies and children are to hear from those families what they need and feeling that back up so that that's shaping what we're saying as a national movement.
00:46:24:08 - 00:46:40:05
Unknown
And I want that to be both kind of proactive and reactive. So I want to just be hearing that all the time. I want to be hearing what's going on, but also I want to be able to reach out when we've got particular pieces of work to say, okay, I've got this project or government's doing this piece of work, and I want to hear what parents and children themselves think about that.
00:46:40:05 - 00:46:51:01
Unknown
So can we work with you to hear that and to hear from your practitioners about what they think? So that what we're saying to government is really informed by that experience and expertise. Yeah, yeah.
00:46:51:01 - 00:46:59:17
Unknown
And we were delighted that Jess obviously was our director of Harvey's. Jess is able to help feed into the conversation that you've been having with lots of leaders across the sector as well.
00:46:59:20 - 00:47:23:06
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, it's great to have her as part of. So we've got this early childhood forum, which is 25 practitioners and academics from all corners of the UK working in lots of different bits of early childhood health, mental health, health is seeing and voluntary sector, and Jess is a great part of that. And they're kind of keeping me real and holding me to account and also providing so much useful insight.
00:47:23:08 - 00:47:36:17
Unknown
And it's been very important to me that they've been around the table co-producing start, strong strategy from the start, and that model of bringing that expertise together is just something I really want to, to keep going at every stage of what we do, because it will be so much better as a result.
00:47:36:19 - 00:47:39:03
Unknown
So I'm conscious that we could probably talk for a very long time.
00:47:39:05 - 00:47:53:24
Unknown
It's been a brilliant conversation. I'm going to close close off with a couple of quick fire questions, if that's okay. So what has taught you the most about this space? Is it your work in the government, working charities, work in academia, or having a family
00:47:54:01 - 00:48:04:10
Unknown
yourself? All of the above. You know, I came to this having studied developmental psychology and bringing that academic.
00:48:04:10 - 00:48:30:22
Unknown
And I think that's so important. I don't know how anyone can really make good decisions about what to do for babies and children, unless we understand actually how they develop and what they need. But then the reality of how we support families. My work at the NSPCC was wonderful because I had a national role, but I was also working really closely on the ground with services and thinking about how to make the best services possible and getting that kind of constant challenge of, okay, well, this is what the evidence says, but what do families respond to that?
00:48:30:22 - 00:48:33:01
Unknown
What do they need and how do we do this? Well,
00:48:33:03 - 00:48:52:13
Unknown
so all of that that I think I've just been so privileged to have a career that's allowed me. I've worked in local government, I've worked in frontline services. I've also led voluntary stuff. I was the head of my NCT branch when I was on mat leave, so I ran a kind of parent group there and I've got two kids myself and actually I'm good at this if I am good at this.
00:48:52:14 - 00:49:01:09
Unknown
It's because of all of these things and and at every stage along the way, I think my beliefs have been challenged and shaped by these experiences.
00:49:01:09 - 00:49:13:07
Unknown
And I think that reflects I bring academic expertise, lived experience as a parent and experience of having run services. And those, I think are the three things that coming together. Like I said, help us to understand this best.
00:49:13:11 - 00:49:25:18
Unknown
And it's very clear that that's again, it's palpable in hearing you speak and watching you today as well. Is there one stat or one thing about early childhood that you wish everybody knew?
00:49:25:20 - 00:49:27:15
Unknown
Oh gosh, that's really put me on spot.
00:49:27:15 - 00:50:02:05
Unknown
I think this is maybe not quite once that the most important thing in a baby young child's life is having an adult who gives them sensitive, nurturing care and attention. That is the most important thing that we can give any child, but that exists in a system and a structure, and for adults to be able to provide that, whether that's an adult in a child care setting or most importantly, a parent or a carer of some description, they need to be in a system that supports them practically and psychologically, to be able to be present and to provide their children with that nurturing care and attention.
00:50:02:05 - 00:50:11:19
Unknown
So it's the vital part of relationships, but also the fact that these relationships exist within systems and structures which can either enhance them or pull away from them.
00:50:11:21 - 00:50:19:12
Unknown
I love that, and what makes you the most optimistic about the next ten years and start Strong's mission?
00:50:19:14 - 00:50:28:05
Unknown
I mean, one thing that makes me autistic is just babies and children themselves. You can't help but if you're with a jolly two year old, you can't help but be hopeful and optimistic.
00:50:28:07 - 00:50:48:09
Unknown
But mostly it's going out to services like going out to some of the things that I saw in baby centers in the Swansea one a couple of weeks ago. Just amazing people. The babies are in staff, but also, you know, the people running the baby bank and the people doing some of the other classes to see them, to watch them in action and to see the either in the case of the baby bank, the sense of relief that brings families.
00:50:48:09 - 00:51:06:16
Unknown
But in the case of the kind of parent baby activities, the joy that that brings, families like you can't see that and not be hopeful and optimistic. And I think the interesting thing about early childhood is this is not like, I don't know, some rare disease or cancer where we don't know what the cure is. We know exactly what babies and young children and families need.
00:51:06:22 - 00:51:29:16
Unknown
They need things that support them to develop loving relationships, things that support them to play and thrive. And that looks like skilled people around them who can nurture them and support them. It's that kind of system of relationships around families. We know that. We know the things that help children to develop emotional language skills, and they are not difficult.
00:51:29:18 - 00:51:46:20
Unknown
They're about relationships and play, and we can do that anywhere. So that gives me hope and optimism, because this doesn't have to be that hard, actually. We just need to create the systems and the structures and the policies that support those things to thrive.
00:51:46:22 - 00:51:53:01
Unknown
I think that's a brilliant place to end the conversation. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you.
00:51:53:05 - 00:51:54:13
Unknown
It's been joy. Thank you very much.
00:51:54:13 - 00:52:17:01
Unknown
Talking to Sally as a reminder that the biggest barrier to giving children a good start isn't a lack of love or a lack of knowledge in individual families. It's that as a country, we haven't decided collectively that this period matters as much as it does. That's exactly the gap that organizations like ours, but also organizations like Start Strong are trying to close.
00:52:17:07 - 00:52:33:04
Unknown
If you remember one thing from this conversation, let it be this the early years are not a niche interest or a soft topic. They are the foundation that everything else is built on and changing how the country talks about this isn't a side project, it's the real work that governments need to prioritize.
00:52:33:06 - 00:52:37:02
Unknown
Thank you for listening. To Best Beginnings Baby Zone podcast.
00:52:37:04 - 00:52:47:16
Unknown
For more evidence informed support on babies and the early years, please subscribe to this channel if you found it helpful. Share it with someone who might need it. We'll see you next time.
00:52:47:18 - 00:52:48:00
Unknown
We.