Local MPs, James Duddridge and Sir David Amess met with ABSS parent champions, Jo and Lucy, together Natalie from SAVS and senior members of the team today to learn more about our programme and its impact.

Jo and Lucy talked about how their role as parent champions had given them the opportunity to collaborate in the development of our programme, including co-production work on YourFamily, the local, friendly community for families and their children.  They explained how becoming a parent champion had enabled them to ‘find their voice’ and how each has been able to use their power to become early years advocates within local community groups, the local Health & Wellbeing Board and other fora.  Jo has become a national advocate for breastfeeding and is now an active member of the All-Parliamentary Infant Feeding Group.

Not surprisingly, both MPs quickly requested invitations from our parents to attend local ABSS events.  They also expressed interest and support in our legacy plans.  By happy coincidence, James Duddridge is running the marathon this weekend with Colchester MP, Will Quince, who has recently been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of Education.  His portfolio includes early learning and childcare.  James offered to take the opportunity as they start their run together to talk to Will about ABSS’ work and legacy and to seek his support and involvement.  The MPs also offered an introduction to Andrea Leadsom, author of The best start for life: a vision for the 1,001 critical days (March 2021) which sets out a vision for best practice across the health system for babies and young children.

Sir David Amess is MP for only one of our wards, Westborough.  He was an early advocate for Southend getting the National Lottery bid and was disappointed that our areas do not include Blenheim ward in particular.  He was reassured to hear that some of our services are now more widely available and that our legacy plans are Southend-wide.  These include our ambition to roll-out YourFamily across the borough.

Both MPs were keen to find out how our grant from the National Lottery is being spent and what impact our programme is having. We were able to report that nearly 40% of families in our wards are using our services and overall, there is a narrowing of the gaps between ABSS wards and non-ABSS wards in Southend on a wide range of outcomes across all workstream areas.

The meeting concluded with James Duddridge offering us some practical advice on how to approach our legacy plans following the conclusion of our funding in 2025.  In a nutshell, he recommended that we start to invest time in this now, quickly agree on what innovations have had greatest impact and work with partners to ensure the work continues.  We are very grateful to both James and David for taking time to be with us this afternoon.