About Flying StartAbout Flying Start
Flying Start is Luton’s pregnancy to five strategy. It aims to improve outcomes for children from pregnancy to their 5th birthday as a foundation to a healthy future. Flying Start interventions build on both national and international evidence. They focus on the very earliest years of a child’s life, starting in pregnancy with the aim of early intervention improving children’s outcomes and future life chances.
Flying Start aims to ensure that all young children in Luton will have a Flying Start. However it has a particular focus on those babies and children who are born in areas of the town with the highest levels of disadvantage and poorer outcomes. What we also know about health inequalities is that women from marginalized communities experience poor birth outcomes (Black women 5 times more likely to die and Asian women are twice more likely to die than white women- BBC Link). Flying Start will work to ensure these babies are given the very best start in life, reducing the impact of disadvantage on their future life chances.
Getting fathers involved is also a focus with Flying Start. Fathers today spend much more time with their young children than they did 30 years ago. Research shows that fathers play a crucial role in young children’s development and that the early years are particularly important.
Flying Start seeks to improve outcomes for children by intervening early when help and support is needed. Flying Start is delivering services that will:
1. Improve babies’ and young children’s communication and language skills
…so that significantly more children, by their 5th birthday, will have age-appropriate communication skills, will interact effectively with adults and children, resulting in better educational outcomes and improved employment opportunities.
2. Support healthy bonding between parents and their babies and young children
…so that more children are securely attached and emotionally resilient, with improved school readiness. In the longer term the impact of poor maternal mental health & associated risk factors on children’s outcomes will be reduced.
3. Support improved birth outcomes and encourage healthy diet and lifestyles for babies, young children and their families
… so that babies will have improved birth outcomes; with fewer women obese in pregnancy, improved understanding of nutrition and healthy behaviours, breastfeeding will be increased and fewer children are obese or have dental decay, with improved health and wellbeing into adulthood.
4) Within 5 years, parent and community-led decision making will positively and systematically change the lives and life chances of 0-5 year olds for future generation
Want to join our Working Together Group?
The Working Together Group is led by community members and will support feedback on and development of Flying Start programmes and services. It is a forum for constructive feedback and to develop ideas and solutions. Please click here to find out more about our ‘Working Together Group‘
