The Children’s Foundation is playing a key role in shaping a growing national conversation about how best to support babies and families, and our work has been recognised in a major new report by Barnardo's.
The Children’s Foundation’s Baby Box programme has been cited as an example of best practice, reflecting the impact of its work across the North East. The report explores the case for universal baby bundle provision across England, highlighting the importance of ensuring every child has the essentials they need at the very start of life.
While welcoming the report, we are urging policymakers and sector leaders to go further, calling for a shift from short-term provision to long-term developmental support.
Baby bundles, which provide essential items for newborns, can offer vital help at a critical moment, particularly for families facing financial hardship. However, we think these items are, by nature, finite and once used, many families can find themselves back at square one.
Instead, we are championing a developmental approach through our Baby Box programme, in partnership with British Baby Box supporting families not just in the early days, but across the first 1,001 critical days of a child’s life. The programme promotes
key early experiences such as reading, talking, counting and bonding, helping to build strong attachment and support school readiness at the earliest possible intervention.
Working alongside regional partners including the North East Combined Authority, North East Mayor Kim McGuinness, the North East Child Poverty Commission and Stiller Warehousing and Distribution, we have embedded this approach at scale across the region, with the support of local health visiting and midwifery teams from various NHS Trusts.
Despite being a relatively small organisation, we are delivering the programme region-wide, demonstrating that a more ambitious, developmental model is not only possible, but achievable.
The North East scheme, highlighted within the North East Child Poverty Strategy as a key recommendation, is demonstrating how a low-cost, practical, developmentally focused intervention can deliver immediate relief for families while supporting long-term child development outcomes.
Sean Soulsby, chief executive at The Children’s Foundation said “We’re incredibly proud to see our Baby Boxes recognised in this important national report. It’s clear there is growing ambition to ensure every child gets the best possible start in life, and we welcome that wholeheartedly, but this must be the beginning of the conversation, not the end. Providing essential items is vital, particularly when families have nothing, but those items don’t last forever. If we’re serious about tackling inequality and improving outcomes for children, we must also invest in the experiences that shape their development.
“Our approach focuses on supporting families to build strong bonds, encourage early learning and create the foundations for long-term wellbeing and prosperity, both for the families and for the region. We know this works, and we’ve shown it can be delivered at scale here in the North East. What began as a regional, community-led intervention is now shaping national policy discussions, with MPs recently urging Government to include Baby Boxes within the UK child poverty strategy, and the charity invited to submit evidence to inform its development.”
Each Baby Box provides developmentally rich toys, early learning materials, baby essentials and expert guidance for first-time parents. The model combines financial relief with relationship-based support delivered through midwives, health visitors, family hubs and community partners, easing the pressure on stretched public services and giving families the confidence, tools and knowledge to support their baby’s development from birth.
With the 3,000th Box now delivered, our project has become one of the most robustly evidenced early years schemes in England, offering practical insight as policymakers look for interventions that are preventative, scalable and capable of reducing inequalities from the earliest stage. We are now calling for further collaboration across the sector to strengthen how families are supported nationwide.
The report adds weight to a growing movement focused on early years intervention, with increasing recognition that investing in a child’s earliest experiences delivers long-term benefits for health, education and society.
To read the full Barnardo's report: