Initially this work focused on being available at health centres and clinics at times when young families were there. This was one strand of the wider menu of developments to boost language, literacy and numeracy within families.

These developments have recently been extended to include support for families in hostels and refuges. In the first six months a total of 156 parents and 204 children in 12 hostels have been worked with through a mix of workshops, short courses and book sharing sessions. 113 sessions have been held on topics to support early literacy and numeracy; use of books and maths games; early communications; parenting skills and behaviour management. The activities are supported by book loans within the hostels and families being encouraged to use the local libraries.

These developments link to others to create a network of support for children and families.

Targeted work is taking place to make sure that the resources in Day Nurseries, nursery schools, and private/community nurseries are of a high enough standard to ensure that all children can make progress in the development of their language, reading, understanding of shape and number etc.

More than 2,000 parents are actively engaged, through Inspire activities, with early years teachers focusing on understanding and supporting their child’s literacy, maths or language development.

Libraries have focused resources on increasing the use of their services by families with young children - leading to an increase in the numbers of young children regularly visiting libraries.

hese developments have taken place alongside activity from other city-wide and local initiatives to increase the number of childcare places; to train more local people to run holiday activities for families; to increase the support for families experiencing difficulties etc.

All of this is giving young children in Birmingham more of a flying start to their development than previously.