The year is once again fast drawing to a close. Each one seems to go by faster and faster; and this one especially was twelve months at quick march time. Still, there does appear to be a modicum of calm about this Christmas and the full horrors of commercialisation does not feel quite so overpowering somehow, I am relieved to say.

Our nurseries start their Christmas preparations in December (and not a day before), and so the festivities are now very much in full swing. Dress rehearsals for festive plays are round every corner, and Father Christmas is very busy popping up all over the place.

Some nurseries have also visited local homes for the elderly to sing Christmas songs with them. I hope that from now on this will be a core feature of our Christmas plan at LEYF, since those who have done so say the shared delight across the generations was lovely to behold and very uplifting. Surely, that is what the spirit of Christmas is all about; a reaching out to others, a time to think about how we weave a better and more connected society. Ubuntu time.

This year we have also started working with War Child, a small international charity set up to support children devastated by war. Three LEYF staff used their annual leave to volunteer in Uganda (the safest of the War Child countries) where they helped to develop a play based teaching plan. Shocked by the real trauma suffered, but inspired by the warmth, resilience and capability of the children, we have promised to do more.

As a very small start, this Christmas we have asked staff and parents to donate the cost of one present to War Child. I hope it works. For more on this and to make a small donation yourself, I implore you to read more by clicking here.

The year ends with the promise of more economic challenges, public sector cuts and rising unemployment, accompanied by tax rises and inflation. It’s not a joyful proposition. Still, despite all of this, opportunities do exist and we continue to explore better ways of supporting more children.

One way for us to do this would be as more people consider the LEYF model; this way we may finally see our intergenerational centre ideas accepted and perhaps also be able to expand our apprenticeship programmes. We are certainly working very hard to get people to listen. We are making stronger partnerships with like-minded organisations, and our project to measure our impact is progressing well, held up only by the slow completion of questionnaires (some things never change).

When I was a child I was often told I was a bold girl, it’s an Irish term for defiance. Goethe said that boldness had genius, power and magic in it. To overcome the challenges of 2011, I strongly believe that we must concoct our own version of boldness – and maybe sprinkle it with a little LEYF magic from our children, parents, staff, apprentices and supporters. It’s likely to be quite a spirited brew!

So, with thanks to everyone that has listened, read, acted and supported us over the past year – not least of all our own staff – may I wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

This week I overheard a member of staff commenting on my blog.  She had just begun to read it and was surprised at just how much it told her about what I do; about my efforts to ensure what we do at LEYF influences the world of childcare and so helps to build a better future for children everywhere.

Later in the week we had a staff forum where they made a similar observation, so I thought I would use this week’s blog to sum up our plans for franchising our model; to give some idea of what it might be like if we could successfully scale up and replicate what we do here at LEYF elsewhere. It fits into a particularly busy week of submitting tenders for nurseries, training services and strategic alliances – another means of getting a place at the table. Not surprisingly, I feel like Alice trying to get an invite to the Mad Hatters Tea Party, so we can have a turn to say our piece.

On the subject of tea – an occasion which should, in my humble opinion, be a compulsory 4 o’clock occurrence – it featured quite a few times this week, including a spontaneous invite to share tea at the House of Lords following my outburst at the APPG on Sure Start.

On this occasion, I was provoked by the number of people whinging and complaining about government changes rather than trying to find a solution. It’s all very well saying how everything was wonderful in the past – a fact both inaccurate and irritating, which then just limits any kind of solution-focused approach and so raises my blood pressure!  For my part, I presented the option of a social enterprise Children’s Centre in my usual, outspoken way.  This naturally resulted in a range of responses – including eyes rolling, amusement, attention, clapping and the aforementioned invitation. I avoided any caustic comments by using the time to network with the great and good.

So, given that many of our own staff are beginning to read the blog, below is what I believe a LEYF franchise may mean in ten years time:

• Social enterprise nurseries are now considered the first and natural choice for all parents; they are recognised as having a critical role to play not only in providing the best childcare but also in supporting and connecting families in the local community;
• The design of a specifically social enterprise curriculum ensures social capital for all children;
• Social enterprise nurseries are founded on a principle of supporting and taking care of a child’s wider abilities, leading to a growing sense of social responsibility and a readiness to act; in so doing establishing a greater degree solidarity and tolerance;
• A quality mark exists to help parents clearly identify a social enterprise nursery in a crowded market; the mark is also a form of quality assurance, making sure the values of social enterprise are embedded and implemented to the full;
• Social enterprise childcare has become the leading example of best practice across the sector and so a symbol of quality for all children; no longer locked within such a limiting concept as so often bestowed on PVIs of being simply ‘good enough for the poor and disadvantaged’;
• Social enterprise childcare is now a recognised sector in itself, a real influence on corporate direction, part of corporate management programmes and considered critical to corporate social responsibility;
• The social enterprise childcare sector has become a leading driver for change in public services;
• Clear means of measuring and assessing the associated benefits of a social enterprise approach to childcare have been established and are now widely recognised within ‘value-added’ qualities or transitions, such as improved well-being, employability and active citizenship;
• A strong social enterprise childcare network now exists with the weight and purpose to shape and change both Early Years policy and community regeneration, along with development and contractual procurement on a local, regional, national and international scale;
• Links between social enterprise childcare services and the reduction of child poverty are clear, with a direct and measurable contribution to reducing the 3.9 million children living in poverty, with all the attendant health costs as they become adults;
• An intergenerational approach to everything is explicitly embedded in the social enterprise childcare model, recognising that sometimes the younger generation is best placed to deal with issues challenging their community such as drugs, disadvantage, poverty and race.

Does the above sound like a dream to you – or a nightmare?  Let me know what you think or how you see the future of social enterprise or childcare.  Simply rate or comment on this post below and share with colleagues via Twitter, Facebook or email using the usual, handy links!

I have had the most interesting week. Despite the weather and incompetent overground trains trying to keep me at home, the 209 bus and Piccadilly line ensured the commute from west London, although longer, was possible.  So hear hear for them.

Two activities spurred me on: a useful visit from a local politician with whom I could talk local community action, then two days at the School for Social Entrepreneurs exploring the intricacies of social franchise.

At LEYF we have been developing a means of franchising our social enterprise childcare model for the past year. Working with an academic partnership we have begun to codify the model and the processes. It’s no small challenge, since codifying a philosophy in a way that tells a clear story and has the right processes in place is much more complex than it first seems. The opportunities provided by the SSE to hear from commercial franchisors as well as the benefit of Geoff Mulgan from the Young Foundation proved sufficiently challenging to make my head spin.

In this climate, organisations can take two paths: one to keep small and lean, the other to grow, scale up or replicate the model.  Franchising is a good way to do the latter; and despite the doom and gloom, a well organised, canny social enterprise operator should be honing all their entrepreneurial skills to make the most of any opportunity. Indeed, we may never get these chances again.

For those of us in the world of childcare, now more than ever before, we have a real duty to do something.  Children from poorer backgrounds will be the losers in the current re-shifting of priorities, one of many clear points made in the recent Frank Field Report.

To this end, the franchise option seems to play out in three ways: the product, in our case community and Children Centre nurseries; the service we provide, and the way we do things.

At LEYF I hope to use this opportunity to hammer home what we have been saying for a long while, namely that intergenerational children’s centres are the way forward, nurseries need to be community based and socially enterprising approaches have a part to play in the nursery market place.

My week finished on an uplifting note: a cup of tea with a friend who is trying to stay positive in Tower Hamlets, followed by a fundraising carol concert for the wonderful charity Rainbow Trust, which supports children who have life threatening illnesses. The voices of the young choristers in Urban Voices rang out and uplifted us with their enthusiasm and optimism.  On a cold Friday night it was simply the icing on the cake.