Editorial: Journal of Children’s Services Special Edition: the intersection of education and formal and community-based children’s services
| Date | 30 October 2024 |
| Pages | 137-141 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-09-2024-088 |
| Published date | 30 October 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
| Author | David Westlake,Angela Daly |
Guest editorial: Journal of Children’s
Services Special Edition: the
intersection of education and formal and
community-based children’s services
David Westlake and Angela Daly
Introduction
Most children spend a significant amount of their time in educational settings, and the role
of these settings in keeping children safe and promoting their wellbeing is increasingly
recognised. Equally, children’s services –in the broad sense that includes informal and
universal services as well as targeted and statutory services –have a key role to play in
promoting access to education and opportunities for learning. Until recently, relatively little
research explored the intersection between education and this range of children’s services,
including those delivered by local authority social care services, health professionals, non-
formal education, youth servicesand independent agencies.
Understandably, the focus of most of the research that ha s taken place in this area has been
on educational progress and outcomes for looked-after children. We know that children with
experience of formal children’s services tend to have poorer educ ational attendance and
attainment and are less likely to go on to further and higher education ( Children’s
Commissioner, 2023;Department for Education, 2024;Luke and O’Higgins, 2018;Stein,
2012). But even here the amount and quality of research has been generally limite d, especially
in relation to interventions (Department for Education, 2024) designed to address these issues
(Evans et al.,2017). Moreover, we know less about outcomes for children who are invo lved
with services and who have a lower level of need (Berridge et al., 2020), including those who
access informal children’s services, or about interventions tha t might improve these outcomes.
There is some evidence that focussing on this group is at least as impor tant as focussing on
children in care, due to the similarly poor outcomes they experi ence and the absence of the
benefits that alternative care can bring (Sinclair et al.,2019).
There is also reason to believe that less targeted services could play an important role in
helping disadvantaged children thrive. Here in the UK, new finding s from a longitudinal
analysis of Sure Start were published this year, showing the lon g-term impact of the high
profile and widespread service that was scaled across England in the first decade of the
2000s. Established in 1999 as a flagship early years policy of the New Labou r government,
Sure Start children’s centres and local programmes operated across Engl and, Scotland and
Wales[1]. The network brought together a range of support under one roof, and worked with
children under five years of age and their families in a way that signalled a shift in focus from
the more targeted provision that was available previously. The initiative bore similarit ies to
others in Australia, the USA and Canada, and by the start of the 2010s, there we re around
David Westlake is based at
Cardiff University, Cardiff,
UK. Angela Daly is based
at the School of Education,
Faculty of Arts Professional
and Social Studies,
Liverpool John Moores
University, Liverpool, UK.
DOI 10.1108/JCS-09-2024-088 VOL. 19 NO. 3 2024, pp. 137-141, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660 jJOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S SERVICES jPAGE 137
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