Our vision
Wirral’s ambition is to ensure that every baby and toddler (0-2 years) has the strongest start in life, with nurturing relationships, timely support, and an early years system that works seamlessly around them. The vision is for all children, particularly Wirral’s youngest and most vulnerable – to benefit from a fully joined-up approach across midwifery, health visiting, Family Hubs, Early Childhood Services, and voluntary sector partners. This vision sees early help beginning before birth, with parents feeling confident, connected and supported.
Why this matters
Babies aged 0-2 represent Wirral’s most vulnerable cohort, both because of their developmental stage and the critical nature of the ‘First 1001 Days’, when early brain development is rapid and profoundly shaped by relationships, nutrition, health, and environment. Positive attachment and interaction fuel intense neurological growth, with every touch, movement and emotion influencing brain development (UNICEF, 2001).
Wirral’s early years system faces several barriers that limit timely support for families with babies and toddlers, including inconsistent sharing of 28-week antenatal information between midwifery and health visiting, and delays in live-birth data being shared until children are around three months old – both of which reduce the opportunity to offer early breastfeeding, bonding and safer-sleep support when it matters most.
Engagement patterns show that while parents of 0-12 month olds are more likely to self-refer into services, this drops significantly for families with children aged 12-24 months, indicating the need for clearer, earlier information about available support. Locality data also highlights differing levels of need across Wirral, and some parents – such as care-experienced parents, fathers (and wider support networks), working families, and those with children who have SEND – face additional vulnerabilities that can make accessing support more challenging.
Our priorities
- Build a connected, data-informed Early Years system.
We will establish consistent, timely data-sharing across midwifery, health visiting, and Family Hubs to ensure universal early contact and streamline GDPR processes to avoid delays in live birth data reaching services. - Strengthen early and universal engagement.
We will promote proactive early engagement with services before birth through universal sharing of 28-week antenatal data, which will help us increase visibility of the universal offer, so parents understand available support immediately after birth. - Tailor support to vulnerable groups.
We will normalise conversations about the realities of parenting and challenge unrealistic social media expectations. We will ensure services are targeted at those who need it most. For example, develop joint approaches between Leaving Care services and early years services to ensure there is support for care-experienced parents and improving pathways for babies and toddlers who are showing signs that they may need additional support with their development. - Deliver evidence-based interventions in ways parents prefer.
Prioritise one-off workshops and short sessions over long-term multi-week programmes, reflecting parental preferences and engagement data. We want to ensure that parents and carers receive consistent messaging across the system on key items such as breastfeeding, safer sleep, ICON, bonding and early child development. - Increase opportunities for early attachment, bonding and breastfeeding.
Build on UNICEF BFI Gold standards to further increase breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates and prioritise early contact with services to support bonding, safer sleep, and early development messages.