Learning from the national evaluation of A Better Start – a briefing for early years practitioners

A new resource, Working with families to support early childhood development: Learning from the evaluation of A Better Start is now available. This is a briefing that presents key messages for Early Years practitioners from the first annual report of the national evaluation of A Better Start.

What is A Better Start?

A Better Start (ABS) is the ten-year (2015-2025), £215 million programme set-up by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. Five ABS 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 ABS partnerships are developing and testing ways to improve their children’s diet and nutrition, social and emotional development, and speech, language, and communication. The work of the programme is grounded in scientific evidence and research. ABS is place-based and enabling systems change. It aims to improve the way that organisations work together and with families to shift attitudes and spending towards preventing problems that can start in early life.

ABS is one of five major programmes set up by The National Lottery Community Fund to test and learn from new approaches to designing services which aim to make people’s lives healthier and happier. Learning and evidence from ABS enables The National Lottery Community Fund to present evidence to inform local and national policy and practice initiatives addressing early childhood development. 

The national evaluation of ABS is running until Spring 2026. It is being led by NatCen Social Research with their partners: University of Sussex; Research in Practice; National Children’s Bureau; and RSM. Findings from the evaluation are shared as they emerge to provide evidence to support ABS grant holders to improve delivery outcomes throughout the lifetime of the programme and to enable The Fund to confidently present evidence to inform policy and practice initiatives in early childhood develop.

About this briefing for practitioners

The first annual report, published in May 2023, presents emerging evidence and interim findings from across the key evaluation questions. This briefing for practitioners highlights the findings from the annual report that are particularly relevant to practitioners. It draws evidence from interviews with both families and practitioners. In sharing these findings, we hope to support Early Years practitioners to learn from what is working well in ABS, reflect on their own practice for learning and improvement.

Evidence in the briefing is organised under five interconnected themes:

• messaging and communication;
• building relationships with families and communities;
• responding to local context;
• accessibility of services; and
• professional development.

Readers will learn about the approaches and strategies have been working well for A Better Start partnerships so far and questions are included throughout to prompt reflection on how insights can be applied to practice. The evidence presented in this briefing is relevant to both ABS providers and non-ABS providers of early years provision.

What’s next for A Better Start?

The national evaluation of A Better Start is ongoing and runs alongside the ABS programme until 2025. Analysis will then continue after the ABS programme comes to an end and the final report will be published in 2026. The next annual report is due to be published in spring 2024 and will be accompanied by another briefing for practitioners.