Early years champion in call for more family centres

FORMER Health Minister Susan Deacon, now the Scottish Government's "champion" of children's early years, has called for a new generation of family centres across Scotland.

Her report, Joining the Dots - A Better Start for Scotland's Children, also urged renewed emphasis on effective parenting and recognising the importance of intervening more quickly when a child is at severe risk of abuse and neglect.

She also called for much greater collaboration between public, private and voluntary sectors to help give parents and families the support they need.

Professor Deacon said: "We owe it to our children, families and communities to bring about real change in children's early years.

"Everyone agrees the early years lay the foundations for our children's future lives - we now need to build the same level of consensus on how we improve those early years and I hope the report is the starting point for that."