The For Baby’s Sake Trust Response to the Best Start in Life Strategy 

We strongly support the renewed emphasis on joined-up services from pregnancy to age five and the investment in Best Start Family Hubs as a vital mechanism for delivering early help. 

We are pleased to see the expansion of Best Start Family Hubs across all local authorities, and the potential this has to reach many more babies, children and families impacted by domestic abuse. Our flagship programme, For Baby’s Sake, is already being delivered to families through Family Hubs in London and Blackpool. These hubs provide a trusted, single point of access to services across health, education and social care, and create the conditions for meaningful support that empowers families. 

However, we were concerned not to see a stronger position on domestic abuse and the impact on early years within the strategy. We believe this was a missed opportunity to make links between the missions and ensure a cross-Government response to the impact of domestic abuse on babies, children and families – key recommendations in the Domestic Abuse Commissioner report ‘Victims in their own right?’ [Source: DAC]. Domestic abuse is one of the most significant harms facing babies, and a primary factor in referrals to children’s social care across local authorities. Up to one in three domestic abuse cases begin or escalate during pregnancy [Source: SafeLives]. The first 1,001 days of a child’s life are a period of heightened risk and vulnerability – 1 year old children, and under, are the most likely age group to be killed by another person [Source: NSPCC]. Domestic abuse not only affects a parent’s mental and physical health, but can severely disrupt early bonding and child development, with consequences that often endure into adolescence and beyond. 

The Best Start in Life Strategy rightly identifies poverty, poor housing, mental health and ‘family stress’ as barriers to thriving but inexplicably fails to address the trauma and safeguarding risks posed by domestic abuse. 47% of Serious Incident Notifications, Rapid Reviews, and Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews include reports of domestic abuse [Source: Domestic Abuse Commissioner]. This is a missed opportunity to align the government’s early years vision with its Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy and the growing recognition of domestic abuse as a public health emergency.  

Furthermore, the strategy fails to adequately address the effect of race and ethnicity, and intersection with poverty, on pregnancy and birth outcomes. In the UK, Black women are four times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, and post-birth than white women [Source: MBRRACE:UK]. Furthermore, data from ONS highlights that babies in the Black ethnic group have the highest rates of stillbirths and infant deaths, with babies from the Asian ethnic group consistently the second highest. A higher proportion of live births within the Asian, Black and Any Other ethnic groups were in the most deprived areas compared with the White ethnic group [Source: ONS]. The omission of this when discussing childhood disadvantage in the context of race and early years, is deeply concerning for a strategy which aims to advocate for every child. 

If the government is serious about giving every child the best start in life, it must include targeted, trauma-informed support for families affected by domestic abuse, starting in pregnancy and continuing throughout the early years. This includes: 

1. Ringfenced funding for domestic abuse services within Best Start Family Hubs. 
2. Integrated care pathways between maternity, health visiting, safeguarding and domestic abuse services. 
3. Workforce training to equip professionals across the early years sector with the tools to recognise and respond safely to domestic abuse. 
4. Inclusion of authentic experience in the design of Best Start programmes and digital services, informed by the parents who most need those services.  

We welcome the strategy’s commitment to giving every baby the best start in life, and we urge the Department for Education to build on this by fully embedding domestic abuse as a priority within the Best Start Family Service and wider health and education reforms. 

Our whole-family, trauma-informed model works with both parents, whether a couple or not, through pregnancy and beyond, to break cycles of domestic abuse and adversity and build safe, nurturing relationships for babies and children. We would welcome the opportunity to share our learning and collaborate with government and local authorities to ensure that no child’s best start is undermined by the harm of domestic abuse. 

Reach out to our Policy and Public Affairs Officer, Honey Alma, to discuss collaboration: honeyalma@forbabyssake.org.uk