We know that what happens in the very earliest years can influence someone’s whole life and we need to build on all the good work we've already done in Scotland, and going on around the country, to make sure we get it right for every baby.
The Scottish Government is seeking to transform how we work together to make sure all babies and young children experience the nurturing care they need from before they are born. The national CYPIC team are helping to coordinate and progress a programme bringing together policy areas from across government applying the Quality Improvement Journey. More information is available here: Early child development transformational change programme (www.gov.scot)
Language and communication development is the most frequent concern we are seeing at 27-30 months and is fundamental to wider development and outcomes. We are supporting a range of improvement work taking place to support Early Language and Communication Development.
The ELC QI Learning Exchange is a community of practice that works together to build learning on how to best improve outcomes during the early years using an evidence based QI approach. This includes sharing what is working nationally and locally, building our QI skills together and using our collective knowledge to work on some complex issues. We are currently supporting the network to focus on Terrific 2s with the aim of increasing uptake of the national 2 year old offer, building on previous work to support 2 year old uptake, and considering how we track and monitor the development and progress of our youngest children and use the data to act at individual, setting and authority level.
We recently worked with ELC policy colleagues to to run an improvement programme focussed on time spent undertaking outdoor learning and play in natural environments.
We are also working with local areas and national partners to build and share learning about how to improve support for families using quality improvement (QI) as our systematic method to build and share learning.
At the CYPIC National Conference 2022, Professor Linda Bauld outlined the current evidence and delegates told us what they think is working well and could be improved. Following on from this, we worked with experts to develop a national theory of change for Early Child Development (above), based on the evidence and the Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development (nurturing-care.org). This was introduced at the CYPIC National Conference 2023 on the main stage in a session about the importance of Focus, Connection and Method. The need for renewed focus on early child development was also discussed in the conference session for Children's Services Strategic Planning Leads: Improving Futures Through Children’s Services Planning Workshop - CYPIC 2023
You can explore data on early child development collected through child health reviews on the Public Health Scotland dashboard: HEYS Dashboard (shinyapps.io)
