1. Parachute exercise: issues and questions identified during the morning
 1001 days: importance
of development from
conception to 2 years –
implications for
services?
 Achieving a balance
between targeted and
universal provision
 Challenge to continuing
to improve and develop services with ever decreasing budgets
 Conception to two - 1001
 Convincing government, both central and local, of the importance of children’s centres and
libraries
 Delivery with no budget?
 Great theory: now how do we make it all work in reality?
 How can we improve our work at ages 0-2?
 How can we link better with professionals with these links?
 How do libraries get involved when there isn't the will from directors / council?
 How do we, as deliverers of bookstart, evidence the personal and social capital that bookstart
generates?
 How does it work at a local level?
 If all the various projects ?? literacy were as successful as we sometimes think, why is overall
literacy so low in the UK?
 If the Mother is going through stress while pregnant, how is the father coping? Eg ‘am I causing
my wife to be stressed’?
 Informative - how do we do it locally?
 Inspired by the passion from Andrea and Margy
 Inspiring talks so far: Great quotes for concepts too, eg “chuffedness” and “sweat the assets”
 Let's work together more creatively!
 Library service, or library buildings?
 Perhaps we are missing on some key customers, so libraries need to link ?? on this offer? Joint
working
 Reinforced my view that deprived communities need high quality services and high quality
environment, raising aspirations
 Severe reductions in funding: not a climate that promotes innovation: balance between
universal and targeted services
 Size: how big? range of services: how wide? + Children's centre
 The need to engage with expectant parents better
 To what extent should services be targeted rather than universal?
 We need to buy a ‘yurt’ – gazebos are boring
 Where are resources coming from for focus from -0 to 5 for Children's Centres?
 Where do we start with taking services forward in this period of great change?
 Will parent-infant projects be nation-wide one day?