Earlier this week I celebrated the announcement that the Lambeth Early Action Partnership has been awarded a £38m grant from the Big Lottery Fund, as one of just five areas across the country to win this funding. This is fantastic news for us, and is guaranteed to help change the lives of thousands of families in Lambeth.
The aim of LEAP is to help ensure that all children in Lambeth, regardless of their background, from their very earliest years, have the best start in life. It aims to help improve the lives of more than 10,000 children over the course of the 10 year project.
It will use evidence-based interventions, with specific focus on three clear areas of child development: language and communication, social and emotional development and nutrition.
The work of LEAP will build on the huge progress made by Labour in terms of early intervention through the Sure Start programme, the value of which has been woefully disregarded by the current government.
However, LEAP will go even further. It will have more specific goals and will deliver more clearly measurable outcomes, such as improving breastfeeding rates, reducing childhood and maternal obesity and reducing domestic violence.
And, through linking up more tangibly with health partners, interventions can be targeted earlier and more effectively than ever.
Furthermore, the project recognises that the social, emotional, communication and language development of babies and children is affected not just by the wellbeing of their parents, but their social networks, and the strength of their communities and the wider environment too.
Intervening early to create resilient communities is a key part of our policy agenda in Lambeth. It is a fact that delivering effective early support negates the need for costly intervention later on. In our current climate of austerity, projects like LEAP simply make sense.
Let’s be clear, this is a project that will save Lambeth money in the long run. But it is more than that; this financial outlay now is an investment for the future of our borough.
Furthermore, for me, LEAP is a great example of how our ambitions as a Labour council do not have to be dampened by the drastic cuts we are facing to our funding. It is testament to how new and more effective partnership working – including statutory bodies, the voluntary sector and the community itself – as well as identifying new sources of funding can subvert the direction of the cuts agenda.
The way we work in Lambeth has had to change, but progress does not have to stop.
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Lib Peck is the leader of Lambeth council
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Photo: Jack Hynes