Introduction

This chapter addresses the role of professionals in the interdisciplinary work involved in meeting the varied needs of the local community. It is particularly concerned with the roles of librarians and other early years specialists as they seek to develop effective partnerships across the disciplines as well as to foster partnerships with parents and carers. It considers how these professionals can provide quality, focused services and help to break down the barriers to those services that may be apparent in the community. Drawing on practice, the chapter also discusses the issues of developing effective communication and providing greater accountability to the stakeholders across the disciplines.

We have updated only some aspects of this chapter since it was prepared for the first edition of Delivering the Best Start in 2008, written after the authors had undertaken research with early years practitioners – librarians and educators – in a variety of early years settings, and mostly particularly in the Sure Start Children's Centres (SSCCs). The New Labour government promised an SSCC in every locality and commenced with developing them in areas of deprivation.

The origins of Sure Start came from the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review led by Norman Glass, an economist, who had no experience of early years. Lees (2015, 101) demonstrates how Glass was asked ‘to quantify expenditure on young children and the effectiveness on outcomes for children’. According to Lees (2015, 101), the review was ‘extremely comprehensive, involving 11 different government departments (Glass, 1999; Eisenstadt, 2011; Lewis, 2011), and examined evidence from America, including Head Start and the Perry preschool programme, as well as UK research in child health’. The findings of the review concluded that a child's development in the early years is crucial and that children are more vulnerable to external adverse environmental conditions than had been realized.

Richardson's doctoral research in SSCCs (Richardson, 2013) found that Sure Start children's centres had enormous potential for supporting individual progress and possibilities for generating social change. She discovered that the reciprocity described in the staff–parent relationships and the value of the services offered emerged strongly through the detailed personal perspectives of the staff and parents. This provided insight into the challenging circumstances and complexities of individual lives and a framework for how social capital develops.