The Best Start in Life plan outlines how services are continuing to be brought together to offer earlier help and easier access to support for parents and young children across the city.

It follows new national guidance from UK Government on how councils should deliver family support through Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies services over the next three years, as part of their Families First for Children Pathfinder programme.

In Wolverhampton, the focus will be on making it simpler for families to get help when they need it and support starting earlier to prevent any issues escalating.

Cabinet member for Children, Young People and Education, Councillor Jacqui Coogan, said: “The publication of our Best Start in Life plan is an important step in our work around continuing to improve support for families across Wolverhampton. It outlines the next steps to developing a ‘Best Start City’ through providing support and intervention earlier, collaborating across sectors, and focusing on what matters most to families.

“By working closely with our partners and listening to families, we can make services easier to access and better connected, helping more children to grow up healthy, safe and ready to learn.”

The Best Start in Life plan also marks a national change in branding, with Family Hubs now known as Best Start Family Hubs. The updated approach brings together support for parents and children in one place, covering everything from pregnancy through to a child starting school.

Executive Director of Families, Alison Hinds, said: “The council’s Best Start in Life plan gives a strategic overview and vision for transformed family services, setting out the vision and delivery expectations for Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies until March 2029, and building on learning from programmes which have gone before, such as Start for Life and Family Hubs.

“Our shared ambition is for more of our babies, children and young people to grow up safe, healthy, happy, learning and engaged, enabling them to achieve their full potential. We want parents to be able to get the right help at the right time.”