From Tiny Acorns: Communities Shaping the Future of Children’s Services

The scale of the challenge facing children’s services is such that it cannot be solved by more funding alone. An entirely new approach to service design and delivery focusing on prevention is required. This needs to be grounded in a much better understanding of the need of the children and families, as well as how the limited resources available could be better deployed to meet the need.

From Tiny Acorns: Communities shaping the future of children’s services makes a case for a future of children’s services that is led by children and families. It argues that to ensure the future sustainability of children’s services, we need to start in the community – to grow its capability and maximise the local assets.

Drawing from several emerging innovations at the local level, the report outlines three broad principles that should guide the future design and delivery of children’s services. For any local initiative to be further developed and its benefits maximised will require a strong policy framework at both the local and national level. The report therefore makes a number of recommendations to help shift the focus of children’s services to prevention and early intervention, through the involvement of children, families and the wider community.

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