It was a brave move when Isabel Dunn, recently retired chair of the Scottish Preschool Playgroup Association (SPPA) asked me if I would give this year’s keynote speech to their annual SPPA Conference at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow.  I always enjoy coming to Scotland, not least because I get to spend time with the lovely Alice Sharp from Experiential Play, who fizzes with ideas and is a mainstay of the LEYF Annual Conference (this year to be held again at Pimlico Academy, on Friday 2 November).

Counter to the stereotype, I always receive a warm and generous reception in Scotland, having shared the LEYF way across this mountainous country from Stornaway to Inverary Jail. And this trip was equally pleasant, despite having traveled on EasyJet which needs to replace its strapline with ‘EasyJet – great travel for those willing to wait patiently in queues and who don’t mind a scrum’.  Apparently having listened to their customers they are going to reintroduce booked and allocated seats.  Alleluia and not before time.  How many more companies would have saved themselves a lot of reputational risk if they had listened to their customers?

I stayed at a Citizen M hotel – which is really a trick hotel! Firstly, there is no foyer or reception until you go upstairs.  Then you have to check in on a screen.  (Great I suppose if you are looking for a private room to conduct a torrid affair.)  Most notably, and especially if you are a Luddite, everything is controlled by remote control – and I mean everything, from blinds to lights to TV.  Not the best hotel to bring the husband then if the statistics are right, and they tend to hang on to the remote (or the ‘mote’ as one apprentice described it, having never heard it given its full descriptor in her house).

Another thing I love about Scotland is dinner; always a more generous affair with lots of chat well into the wee hours. And this time I was particularly pleased when my pudding request was understood, as the clue came through my recalling my favourite Scottish detective’s name – not Taggart but John Carnochan. (As I’m sure you rightly guessed, my pudding was a Cranachan.)

As a smaller, more cohesive country, the Scottish have always been willing to think more creatively about the service they offer to small children. They have also been extraordinarily strategic and focused, and their ambition to make Scotland the best place for children to grow up is laudable.  The conference was opened by the youthful Children’s Minister Aileen Campbell, who gave an overview of the raft of initiatives she has announced that left everyone so speechless they had to be coaxed to ask a question.  She talked about the Scottish strategy for Early Years including a specific strategy for parenting backed by a national campaign.

She reiterated the need for collaboration across the private, voluntary and statutory sectors in order to succeed – especially true if they are going to provide 600 hours free childcare for two-year-olds from poor and disadvantaged families. In the course of my own speech later on, when I gave them a more realistic version of the struggle we are having in the South to meet the 510 hour requirement, it struck me how we are planning to spend more than a billion pounds of tax payers’ money on supporting these children, yet there is no special advisor on Early Years.  (There is one for women and Scotland!) Aside from this, I had been asked about leadership, a subject I often talk about because it’s really hard to do.  If it were easy, we would not be so short of truly capable leaders across all sectors. In the end, the audience was lovely and responsive, and I enjoyed them as much as they seemed to enjoy me.

The Minister touched on three areas which have an equally high focus at LEYF at the moment: the parent journey, home learning and our multi-generational approach. I was delighted that Scottish colleagues have discovered the validity and importance of these ways of working.  I have already started to use Alice Sharp’s Tickle Giggle Experience and her home learning fun cards. At LEYF we have been leveraging the EPPE research for our approach to home learning, and especially the five activities that the EPPE team tested.  The Scottish have 30 ideas which I shall certainly share with my colleagues, including tickling your child and looking up in the sky to spot an aeroplane!

I also told the conference about how at our impending Staff Conference in November – A journey to a better future for more of London’s children - we have invited Alice and five colleagues from the Scottish Islands to help extend our multi-generational approach into all our nurseries, and learn more ways to create little villages through each nursery.

Another Scotsman – our Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove MP - gave a very uplifting speech at last year’s LEYF staff conference.  This year I asked a Londoner, our Mayor Boris Johnson, to open the event, but his people said ‘No’.  I have to admit that I was disappointed, as I think he would have added a real lift to the proceedings; not only for a London childcare organisation, but one that has been taking apprentices for many years without the encouragement of the Evening Standard. Well hey ho… or maybe Ho Hum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!

In any case, I’m delighted to say the LEYF Scotland partnership seems set to continue, so if anyone from a Scottish university or organisation would like to extend it – by helping us measure our Home Learning impact or the multi-generational impact – they would receive a very warm welcome, lots of tea, wine and curly wurlys – and we may even manage a Cranachan.

Not so long ago, David Stevens, Manager of the Angel Nursery, which for a while had 4 male staff out of a team of five, represented us at the Men in Childcare conference in Edinburgh. He had already been to the Men in Childcare Network Ireland International Conference, where he was the only UK representative and had to cope with the high jinks of the Irish and the Danes and the Scots! Enough said. Since then he has become even more interested in why there should be men in childcare and constantly urges me not to take it off the radar.

David and I have long questioned the actual reasons for having men in childcare. We are less than impressed by the standard responses we hear across the sector. The usual reasons trotted out are all about fear and barriers to entry. These include poor pay, lack of promotion opportunities, poor status, fear of accusations of abuse and paedophilia, discomfort working in such a highly female work environment and an expectation that one man can address the shortfall of positive male roles in so many children’s lives. Reading that would you want to come into childcare?

David feels all of this detracts from the main question which is “Do you want to work with children?” When speaking to our male LEYFstaff (of which there are 8% of the workforce) we found that they had all come into childcare because they thought they could be good Early Years Practitioners. For them being a sole man in a nursery was probably the biggest barrier and so we now try and place two men in each nursery, though this is not always possible. Generally, the men working at LEYF were both annoyed and depressed that all the talk of men in childcare became negative and focused on barriers to entry. Many reiterated that they always wanted to work with small children and that what we should be looking for is men who want to work with small children because they are interested in child development and how children learn and they think they have the ability to give them a really fun and exciting experience. The same argument or scenario does not play out in the Primary Schools as men ride up glass elevators to senior management and headteacher positions before you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

David has been involved with some very interested organisations drawn together by the Daycare Trust with the support of the DfE. However unlike Europe where Manner in Kitas received 14 million euros for theory based research into the benefit of men in childcare we are doing this on the usual barter and free gratis approach. Europe is also focusing on gender and equality issues which I think would be interesting and avoid us falling into the usual knee-jerk response that until men really take a hold in childcare we will see no improvements in pay or status. How depressing is that for a female led sector? What is needed is for the whole sector to be understood by the public and that policy makers help shape policies which assist the public to understand what we do… yes it’s more than smiling, washing hands and being patient while our male colleagues play really good rough and tumble while acting as surrogate uncle to all the children in female led families!

So here is what we are going to do:

1. Set up a London Men in Childcare Network beginning by bringing the LEYF male staff together to discuss the issues and formulate a shape.
2. Find out areas to research including David’s big question which asks us to compare the levels of physical and superhero play in nurseries with and without male colleagues? Then examine the impact that has on boys and girls play. Does it make a difference to their development?
3. Use Men in Childcare website set up by Kenny Spence to post new information.
4. Work more with our local Schools and Academies to promote men into childcare both through our apprenticeship programme but also as part of the schools careers options. (I feel a film coming on…)
5. Seek more engagement from parents in the issue. Get a sense of their views about the promotion of the role of men as carers and educators of children. I read recently that parents use blogs as their main source of information.  LEYF parents, have a look at this!

Men in Childcare is one aspect of a much bigger question which is what is the role of men in our society today? It’s certainly changing at different social, economic and political levels so let’s weave this into a much more comprehensive debate.

Happy New Year and welcome back to my blog. (Thank you in advance!)

As I recover from cooking, eating, talking, reading and watching TV (little different there then, except this time a lot of it was done with my extended family, including the delights of my youngest brother and my nieces and nephews who are placed on this earth to remind us about our duty to listen to the young), I have checked out the predictions of Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, the I Ching and various political pundits in order to sound informed. Ironically, the best advice came from RiRi, my favourite pop singer of the moment, who in Fading (Away) tells us that life is too short to worry. The only downside to the lovely RiRi is her acceptance of lyrics which lack any reference to women’s rights or suffrage! She is certainly no feminist.

Back to the gloomy predictions of 2012: deflation, interest rises to 8%, employment increasing to 4%, tougher economic year than 2011, crazy election results, Eurozone debacle, cyclones, volcanoes, storms… and frankly more of the same. Hey ho.

Of course, here at LEYF we work with children – preparing them for this very future – so let’s take RiRI’s more optimistic, pragmatic view and challenge this dire outlook with a positive attitude. (We know that optimism breeds positive attitudes and a better chance of successful outcomes; in my book that means balance risks but don’t ignore the opportunities.)

For us, irrespective of the bigger issues, this year I hope to do more around our core LEYF values: being child focused, collaborative, courageous, creative and constant.

First and most important of all, we will strive to be even more child focused than ever before, as we know children are the ones most hurt by poverty and stupid adults.

We will collaborate more, particularly with parents. I learned a lot from a meeting I had with parents at our Noah’s Ark community nursery recently, and it’s a lesson I won’t forget. Parental perspectives matter and need to be valued and understood.

Even greater courage is required as we discover how many more children are suffering economically and emotionally from some of our leaders’ dim-witted policies. We really must do things differently, and so I hope we get our LEYF research hubs motoring in 2012. I want to have Meet-ups with parents and all those who want to talk about new ideas or anything that will get our little grey cells operating. (Yes, you guessed it – I received a box set of Poirot for Christmas!)

Creativity is a fascinating value and one that is demonstrated in many ways. For example, I have just finished the biographies of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton and his wife Isabel Burton, both great Victorian travellers. He was an irascible character with a fascination of the East and wrote prolifically, including a translation of Arabian Nights and Kama Sutra. He showed creativity in how he overcame the challenges of exploring and brokering relationships across unknown places; his grasp of languages and understanding of cultural behaviour was a clear means of ensuring that he could broker a mutual understanding. However, his creativity was less well received by the stuffy and hierarchical hide-bound Victorian society. When he died he was snubbed by the establishment and refused a burial place in Westminster Abbey, so his stalwart and loyal wife Isabel persuaded the British public to fund a mausoleum in a cemetery in Mortlake in the shape of a Bedouin tent, one that she designed. She was both constant and creative in her efforts to support her husband in a way that celebrates what we struggle with today; a genuine and honest appreciation of east and west.

So, whatever Nostradamus and his pals say, here at LEYF 2012 will be shaped by the 5 Cs from a positive, creative and optimistic outlook.

And if you don’t believe me, I completed the I Ching and asked what we might need to tackle. The answer came in the form of the hexagram KU. The translation is:

• Work on what has been spoiled
• Has supreme success
• It furthers one to cross the great water
• Afterwards there is order

Good Advice; let’s go forward. Happy 2012.

There has been so much for me to write about this week, it has been hard to choose! But as all blog guides say stick to one or two points, my views on the launch of the two year funding will have to wait for next week (sorry). In the meantime…

Global Enterprise Week kicked off with a youth-led event at the Westminster hub where we celebrated young entrepreneurs. I felt somewhat embarrassed to be on a panel of oldies, as most of the entrepreneurs were the same age as my children. I did however get an invitation to join a Chamber of Commerce, although could not be sure whether this was a compliment or reminder that I would never again be ‘down with the youth’!

On Tuesday I spoke at Understanding Social Enterprise in the very Christmassy Charing Cross Hotel; quite the Edwardian oasis in the busy forecourt of Charing Cross station. A great event, with so many people keen to change their business model to a social enterprise. It worries me though, just how many conversions and spin outs there are with only one customer. Social enterprises are businesses first and foremost and they need to know how they will survive in the market. Even more importantly, a social enterprise needs to be the best in the business, since any business operating from a social value is more open to criticism.

My constant advice is that you should:

• know your business
• know how it will make you a profit
• be able to explain your social value
• remember people choose you because you offer the highest standard in whatever sector you operate

Personally, I believe in social enterprises because the business is in itself the very means of reducing or dealing with a social problem.

The true purpose of business is to add value and make a difference – not just by providing useful services but also by adding value to the lives of employees, adding value to the life of the community, and adding value for the sake of future generations by treading as lightly as possible on the planet.”

Sinclair (2006)

Thursday was of course Social Enterprise Day when each year we give our Margaret Horn Lecture in celebration of a new and socially enterprising idea or issue relevant to Early Years.  I introduced this now annual event in 2006 to celebrate our first paid Director who gave 40 years of her life creating something special. As a pupil of Octavia Hill she learned that you could be a charity and still charge people, whilst being enterprising in your responses to local social and economic needs. This year I felt privileged to give the lecture, and better still as it was hosted by the RSA and chaired by Matthew Taylor.

June speaking at this year's Margaret Horn Lecture at the RSA

With the title ‘Child Poverty: why social franchising is a giant step in the right direction‘ this year’s lecture told the LEYF story, with a specific focus on the past 18 months.  During this time, we examined our model to see how effective it might be in helping many more children achieve their potential and then take on the challenges of a fast changing world. In particular, we took a close look at our actual delivery model to check if we had consistently woven all our good practice into an outstanding curriculum and organizational set of practices, knowledge and attitudes.  Working with the Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research at Middlesex University (supporting their work with Third Sector Research Centre at Birmingham University), we explored a number of approaches to growing the business; including a great deal of time looking at social franchising. As a key part of this project, we also spent a year measuring our Social Return on Investment.

We concluded that we have an almost moral obligation to scale up, with social franchising of the LEYF community nursery model a possible means of reducing child poverty whilst also adding more value by creating local social entrepreneurs.

Nearly every problem has been solved by someone, somewhere.  The challenge of the 21^st century is to find out what works and scale it up.”

President Bill Clinton

The event itself appeared to be well-received, and I hope it leads to us doing more research with the RSA.  I had been very nervous about being interviewed by Matthew Taylor, who often flexes his formidable intellect on the Moral Maze.  In a telephone call prior to the event Matthew reassured me that he is paid to be cantankerous on the radio programme, so far less likely to be the butt of his intellectual sophistication. Just in case, I went to bed reading Bertrand Russell. (Not quite TOWIE!)

On the very morning of the event, I was reminded how life is full of serendipitous moments, as Karen Buck (now Shadow Minister with responsibilities for Apprentices) came to meet our fantastic LEYF apprentices. Explaining that I had to leave to go to the RSA, she told me that she and Matthew Taylor were old friends.  I immediately relaxed.

We had invited Karen Buck to celebrate Social Enterprise Day with our apprentices and to hear their views about the LEYF Step into Learning induction programme, which we think is essential to a successful apprenticeship.  They were very pleased she was visiting; to such a degree that Wahid had a tie and Pedro a suit – and boy did they look smart!

Like any good politician, Karen asked questions that drew ideas and answers from them till they warmed up enough to gain in confidence. They talked about their experiences of work and learning, and the confidence that grew from both. It was best summed up in the Sun newspaper article last week.  Interviewing one of our apprentices, Alex Appleby based in Eastbury Children’s Centre Nursery in Dagenham, it headlined with “It’s a Neet idea”, a much better way of describing the many young people for whom school is a fairly unsuccessful experience.

The reason why we invest so much in our apprentices is quite simple: we consider youth unemployment the second entry point into poverty, and so having an apprenticeship programme is a critical aspect of the LEYF model (even though it is often a loss maker). For a young person, being out of education, employment or training can have major ramifications, including long-term reductions in wages and increased chances of unemployment later in life – not to mention social or psychological problems as a result of sustained unemployment.

The systems in place to support younger apprentices, especially those who have limited educational success, are woefully funded. It would not take too much more money; perhaps a more creative use of the unemployment benefit – currently being wasted keeping people out of work – might be worth considering. The number of young Neets is growing, so we need to do something positive and concrete. In London Neet rates are very high, with levels greater than 20% persisting in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Westminster.

I believe we have a duty both as adults and employers. It’s great to see a growth in the number of apprentices, but to gain even more success we need to tweak the system. According to our own apprentices, we need better advertising using media that engages young people, together with face to face support and advice. Elsewhere, Mine Conkbayir who runs our programme wants greater incentives and reassurance for employers to ‘take a chance’ with an apprentice. This in effect means funding for pre apprenticeship modules (we call ours Step into Learning) with Key Skills woven directly into a well organized and logical programme.  Mine is also keen on much greater links with schools, so 16 year olds can step into an apprenticeship as soon as they graduate. We are nearly there: just a few more steps and we could have the best apprenticeships in Europe – and finally move away from the folly of believing everyone needs a degree to do their job – a folly which sees London with the highest level of unemployed graduates in the country (unemployed and laden with debt; those poor wretches).

To close Global Entrepreneurship Week in style, we took a stall on Saturday morning at the London Councils Summit 2011 in the Guildhall; a beautiful setting in the quiet of the City of London. (Bit tricky though, with the usual levels of engineering work going on across the tube network. I can only hope this will be improved before the Olympics.)

The reason we took a table at this event was to meet as many local councillors as possible and persuade them to have a conversation with us about the benefit of having LEYF work with them. I was also keen to say hello to local councillors from the five boroughs where we already have a presence.  Sadly these were in short supply – except for one councilor from Barking and Dagenham who appeared most bemused by me for some reason!

The main speech given by Ed Davey MP Minister for Employment was a bit lack lustre. Still, at least it did provoke a fair amount of energy from the floor about apprentices, when I was both heartened and disappointed to hear over and over about youth unemployment in London and the issues of giving apprentices some support at the early stages of their programme.  Ed Davey suggested alarm clocks and train tickets, all of which we do at LEYF – and pay for!  Soft skills were also a common theme and their importance born out by Vic Grimes of the National Apprenticeship Service. Frankly, I could have put Mine on the stage and she would have given them plenty of practical ideas to support apprentices!

Elsewhere, councillors raised the issue of graduates unable to get jobs. Given that many of them lack experience, maybe the re-introduction of a programme like Future Jobs Fund would be a good way of paying employers to give graduates six months in a work environment. This in turn may lead to a job, but if not would give them real experience to boost their confidence and skills base and so make them more employable. That said, there will still need to be jobs out there; at least this could be a bridge while they fix the Eurozone and squeeze a bit of extra cash out of the bankers.

I love a sense of connection and see the role of nurseries as being critical in helping to connect communities across the generations.

This week the history of connection came very much alive when we were visited by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, as she came to formally open the newly refurbished Bessborough Centre, of which our nursery has always been the heart. The royal connection was through the Queen Mother, who originally opened Bessborough nursery in 1937. She was also patron of London Early Years Foundation (first known as Westminster Health Society, then Westminster Children’s Society before becoming LEYF in 2009) until her death.

The Duchess was charming, relaxed and had no airs and graces.  I insisted on as many photos as possible for parents and staff, so we could make new connections and write a new story connecting the children and staff to a piece of local history.

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On Friday, we enjoyed our annual Staff Conference, this year entitled Building a Better Future: Making Every Experience Count. Held at the new Pimlico Academy, a stunning building full of space, light and glass, it played host to our first invited guest, Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan from the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit. A charming and eloquent speaker, he told us the story of David who, born to a mother with alcohol dependency, ended up arrested for murder aged 15 years. The theme of his talk to our staff was Early Intervention – and his 30 minutes could have easily extended to half a day!  His argument that Early Intervention is critical was powerful and passionate, as he reminded us how we all have a huge responsibility to make every experience count. His reference to relationships, nurture, brain development, parent engagement and communication picked up on all the key themes of the day, later reflected in the fantastic selection of workshops available to all 320 LEYF staff.  He certainly got my vote when he said that nurseries needed to be multi-generational if they are to engage some of the people that might have helped David avoid ending up in prison.

We had invited Michael Gove MP, the Secretary of State for Education to address the conference – and right up to the end we were unsure if he would make it!  He did however turn up, having been forced to cut short his half-term holiday with his children once already for a vote in the Commons.  Another eloquent speaker, Mr Gove was polished and professional in his delivery.  There were bits that were neutral enough to fit any audience, but he did specifically pick up on the importance of a qualified Early Years workforce, announcing the Nutbrown Review to examine the relevance of qualifications for Early Years staff. At one point he started to talk about school readiness (a concept which I worry can be too narrow and pushes little children into school too early), but he redeemed himself by saying there is a broad pedagogical philosophy within the sector, all of which has value once it helps children cope with our ever changing world.

He singled out the LEYF model as one he admired because of the way we ensure social mix and cultural capital, working hard to overcome disadvantage and poor practice, not least through the high ambitions we hold for our children. He concluded his speech with a cry for the kind of creativity found in the Neolithic caves of France his children were visiting that day. He alluded to evidence showing that many of the cave drawings were done by children, but instead of alone, with the guiding hands of adults.  He reverted to politician-type when answering the very sensible questions posed by LEYF staff, one of which raised the concern of how we support hard-working, independent and low paid two parent families now squeezed at every level and who make up the highest proportion of LEYF parents.  However, overall Mr Gove scored well – as the little clues that escaped all his professionalism to reveal his genuine concern and compassion finally won the day.

Head of HR at LEYF, Neil King is responsible for each year’s conference and always keeps a surprise back for the end of the day.  This time we had to build a rollercoaster!  Using IKEA type instructions and in groups  of six across three long rows, each team was tasked with constructing a section of a cardboard contraption that would enable a basketball to roll down and up and down (with no help…yeah, yeah!) to the end of each row into a cage, where the final force from the speed of the ball would release two helium balloons.  It was hysterical, as each group tried to understand how to complete their own individual tasks, let alone join them all together!  But the competitive LEYF spirit took over in the end, as everyone took it seriously – especially when certain teams tried to borrow or swop cardboard tubes.  Such a great way to end such a lively and rewarding day.

But the week did not end there, oh no!  Spending Friday racing back and forth between our Staff Conference and Earls Court, our Marketing & Communications Manager, Neil Hart spent the entire weekend with a rota of enthusiastic LEYF staff (as well as invaluable friends from iNHouse PR and Experiential Play) at the Baby Show.  For the first time this year, we were asking the countless new, experienced and to-be parents what they felt were the most important things they could do as parents to build a better future for their own children (as you can imagine many simple, profound and often hilarious ideas were submitted.. more of which once the results are in).

As parents reflected on this weighty question, our staff learned some of their concerns, and so were able to provide advice about going back to work and the right choice of childcare for them and their child.  At the same time, we were being given first hand indicators of where there might be a shortage of nurseries.  (Ealing and Oxford appeared to be most popular during my stint at the show, so must add these to our expansion plan.)

Meanwhile, everyone was given our brand new ‘LEYF Parent Reward Chart’.  The first of its kind ‘in the known universe..’ (so Neil assures me), this simple but ingeniously  designed check list aims to encourage and support parents in spending more time actually doing things with their children.

Elsewhere, wandering around the exhibition, I did have to wonder how on earth I ever gave birth to and reared three children without the range of accoutrements on offer across the myriad of stalls: every shape of cushion, buggy and nappy bag were available (and that’s just for starters). Still, among all the high tech buggies and Cath Kidston-type bags, I noticed that knitted blankets were popular – much to my relief, as finally I had found something that my own children had when they were small!

Finally, I am looking forward to seeing my official début on the Guardian’s Social Enterprise Network (Ed: now published here).  For my very first outing, I’m hopeful to see the argument prove sufficiently provocative to merit a retweet or two in cyberspace.  Back here on earth, it’s Sunday night and time I stopped working.

More importantly, time for TOWIE and a cup of tea.

I have not written a blog for a week because some of you said you could not keep up with my output.  Others have since asked ‘where is the blog?’ So I hope to now see a huge surge in readership.  Either way…

It has been a week of conferences and events; not least one where I spent the morning talking about retaining good staff at the Nursery World Business Summit, and the afternoon joining Neil King our Head of HR as he presented on the concept of wellbeing at work. Neil is an engaging presenter, so I was very proud to witness such a good performance.

At this particular event, the question posed by the employers and HR people was this: how do you recruit and retain good staff in a sector that is by its very nature not well rewarded?  Interestingly, pay was not a feature of retention, especially for those moving up the scale.  More crucial factors are job satisfaction, good conditions, fun activities, induction, training, working for an organisation that shows its staff in the best light; and most of all a manager who makes you feel important.  I often say to staff that we have a long way to go to praise our staff with the same vigour and enthusiasm and warmth that we use when praising the children.  There is, of course, a whole set of reasons for this and one is culture.

Earlier this week, Neil Fenton and I attended a Leadership Bootcamp organised for all 25 winners of the Big Venture Challenge.  I had no idea what to expect, but I wore boots just in case. The trainer began the day by asking if anyone was from North America.  There was silence, and then she said

Well, I am going to ask you to do something very North American and give yourselves a round of applause.” (or bualadh bos as we say inIreland).

The group responded obediently with a timid clap, and I cringed.  To me all this is a bit over the top; praise has to be earned and valued by those receiving it.  At that point, I hadn’t done anything that I thought merited a bualadh bos except to find the venue and arrive on time.  (Actually, the whole of LEYF is probably applauding now, as my time-keeping can be somewhat erratic!)

Praise giving and receiving in the UK is much more of a timorous  affair. We tend to be diffident about drawing attention to ourselves, and in some ways that shows sensitivity and courtesy.  But we do have to get a better balance; we need to be more able to praise more often and in a way that is valued by those giving and receiving.  Thank you for turning up is never going to do it – unless of course it’s snowing and you have walked across two boroughs to get to work.

On Friday this week, we will be having our Annual Staff Conference in Pimlico Academy, a state of the art local community academy run by an Irish head teacher.  When we first met we both commented on the difference between our own school buildings and the academy. The only similarity to mine was that we had two staircases, except one was for the nuns and dignitaries.

The conference and the attention to detail we try to apply is one way we celebrate and give public acclamation to each and every staff member. It’s a great occasion that sees the whole of LEYF come together.  It might sound cheesy but it’s not; it’s good old fashioned meeting up, eating, playing, laughing, learning, catching up and sharing ideas via the roving Vox Pop.  We will also be catered for by LEYF chefs, which guarantees us really good food.

We have had great conferences since we started them five years ago, and this one will be no exception – with speakers including Chief Superintendent John Carnochan from the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, talking about the power of early intervention (something he knows a lot about, as he sees the results in action every day).  In fact, Scotland is already a key feature of LEYF events in the form of Alice Sharp, a gifted and entertaining presenter who really connects big concepts such as early intervention into real behaviour with children and parents.

Finally this year, we are promised a visit from Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, and I sincerely hope he comes.  I heard him speak with passion about teachers – not that they appeared to value this! – and I want to hear the same power and passion shared with and about Early Years at our conference.  A public affirmation for each and every LEYF staff member from the top.  So again, I hope he comes.

After the day’s opening speeches, the day is littered with great learning workshops which aim to stretch, extend, collect and collate all the things we do and can do to make the whole of LEYF communication rich. From, flip charts to post-its, blackberries to iPhones, we will do our best to ensure plenty of shout-outs and tweeting.  So, if you want to hear about what’s going on or want to interact with one of the best sector, staff-lead learning events, send us a message with the hashtag #leyfconf11!

This week I went to visit Dara Hogan at Fledglings Nurseries, part of An Cosán, a community organisation and charity in Tallaght, Co Dublin.  I was accompanied by Heather Fernandez, our lead Research Associate on social franchising, scaling and replication, with Middlesex University.

The term franchising freaks many people out because they associate it with aggressive, profit-focused commercial growth like McDonalds. Instead, I like the opportunity it presents as a business model with the potential to help replicate good, socially enterprising nurseries across the UK.  In doing so, many more children would benefit, more quickly and effectively, and greater strides could be taken toward eradicating child poverty; hence our research.

It is also the shared view of Dara Hogan who I met on a Scaling Up programme run by the School of Social Entrepreneurs in January this year.  He has set up five nurseries in this deprived part of Dublin, on the basis that good quality Early Years can help mitigate some of the worst aspects of social deprivation and potential educational failure.   Like me, he thinks franchising may be a good model to speed up the dissemination of good nurseries and touch the lives of many more children, and so he is in the process of growing the nursery group.

The Irish are renowned for their friendliness and hospitality and this was very evident during our visit.  We were taxied around Dublin by Denis, who gave us a guide to each locality and pointed out a range of areas of interest from a political and social perspective.  He could compete with London’s best Black Cab drivers with his knowledge of heritage sites in central Dublin.

Our programme of visits was wide and varied, but each person gave generously of their time and engaged in a way that made us feel we had something to offer them – although at times I could see their puzzlement, as we tried to understand the different ways we design and support similar services.

The social problems of Dublin and London are not dissimilar; drugs and alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and emotional deprivation are the issues of the day, and the people we visited are looking for solutions that work just as we are, solutions that can be scaled up and measured to show a benefit, both now and in the future.

Our two day visit began in Tallaght with a visit was to Breda at Barnardos. She runs a Government funded childcare and family support programme in a building down a littered windswept alley.  Her passion and enthusiasm was palpable, and she could link to the work being done in the UK through her daughter – an educational psychologist in Southwark who had been challenging her to dump the notion of school readiness in favour of ready schools.  It initiated an interesting philosophical debate. She was keen on giving a voice to the practitioner, whilst also finding a way to support free childcare for more two year olds.  I was pleased to be able to say that we were going to develop this in the UK as a result of a successful pilot.  She introduced me to Maria Aarts and Marte Meo and was as shocked that I had not heard of her as I was when she told me that Irish Barnardos were not in anyway connected to the UK charity.

Our second visit was to a very modern, architect designed building which housed the Childhood Development Initiative.  We were welcomed with a pot of tea by Grainne Smith and her colleagues Marguerite and Tara.  They are part of a commissioning and evaluation team developing childcare initiatives, funded by government and matched charity funds. We had a lively conversation about evaluations and randomised control trials of organisations and services with a heavy emphasis on evaluating process.  I was particularly intrigued to hear this, as it’s something I am keen to develop as part of our multi-generational project.

After a lunch which included homemade scones, we spoke to Jean Courtney who confirmed the importance of business skills among childcare providers in all sectors, but especially in areas where the continued success of nurseries and family support services is particularly needed by children.

Our last visit took us into the centre of Dublin, where we had a tremendously animated conversation with Beth Fagan who runs the Parent Child Home Programme  at the National College of Ireland.  She was passionate about helping parents apply learning in their homes, so we know it changes their beliefs, behaviour and attitude, and pointed us in the direction of much new reading.  It also led to a proposal for her colleague Aoife, who heads up the CPD programme, that we try and apply the same thinking when it comes to making sure we better embed and measure action learning in childcare settings – so we know the training and support we offer practitioners is actually embedded and applied consistently to ultimately change behaviour (a philosophy already very much embedded in the LEYF approach to learning and development).

Dara rounded off the long and fascinating visit with a dinner prepared by his good wife Mary.  It made me realise why hospitality needs to be a core value of any organisation looking to reach out and make a difference to those who feel alienated and isolated.

Our second day was spent at An Cosán, the umbrella charity which incubated the Fledglings idea.  Its main service is to provide training at all levels for local people, with a real emphasis on opportunities and learning for local women – so they were very hot on community leadership and ways of empowering women to develop their confidence and abilities.  Once again, the day was punctuated by hospitality and kindness – and more scones!  We learned a lot more about the importance of talking and extending ideas, as I had some passionate exchanges with their lively CEO Liz Waters.  It was a another great lesson in the importance of taking time out of the ordinary day to engage with other people; to stretch your thinking and learn something new.

For those wonderfully supportive people who follow this blog, you may have noticed a gap in production; this is because I have been staying in the Shropshire Hills for a week.  It’s a place where I have no phone or internet network and, like many young people, I have a real sense of disconnect as I come to terms with being unable to commune with anyone except my husband and the Shropshire Hills.

The challenge of any blogger is choosing what to blog about; there is just so much irritating rubbish and nonsense that it’s hard to know what to opt for. And those who know me well will soon enough attest as to how I can rant about almost anything – lousy childcare, poor use of tax payers’ money, overblown tributes to poor services, Children’s Centres with nothing except some anecdotal stories as evidence, litter and the sense that no one cares if we ruin our own environment, apprentices and the failure to give them an education of real value, organisations that think they can be a social enterprise just by saying they offer a social value… But enough already, before this list itself turns into a rant!

The trouble with being away with only your thoughts and a mountain of books to read is that you have time to think – and in my case the woes of the world soon begin to weave a misty dissatisfaction into the crevices of my mind.  However, on a more positive note, as I am so often starved of quality thinking time in my daily job as Chief Exec of LEYF, being able to wallow in ideas and thinking like this is a great opportunity.

So, with all this glorious time on my hands, what are the questions I ponder most?  First of all, it’s if we at LEYF can really build a better future for London’s children: to what extent and how exactly does what we do everyday in our soon-to-be 22 community, workplace and Children’s Centre nurseries truly make a difference?  Can we then bottle this into a social franchise model that will genuinely work for others, offering a real alternative that is not just the ‘next big thing’ for social enterprise to do – and can we avoid the cynicism that followed the previous trend that saw so many organisations convert to CICs as a good way to brand as a social enterprise, a pattern now being pursued by some public sector organisations?

Having spent over a year examining social franchising as a means of growing our organization – with the simple aim of giving as many children as possible the ‘LEYF experience’ – we realised that replication through franchising is a very challenging and demanding strategy for growth. This is confirmed in the books about commercial franchises, such as McDonalds and Starbucks (two quite different approaches, each equally successful); such is the varied nature of my reading list!

However, LEYF has never been an organisation to let a bit of doom and gloom stand in the way  of progress, let alone social good; and personally I have always been a glass half full girl, taking an optimistic and positive attitude to most things.

So, rather than give up at the first or second hurdle, we started to look into new ways of understanding the full range of options in front of us.  Surprisingly, a bank then came to the rescue, in the form of six staff from RBS who are now helping us draft a robust business plan.  This has also strengthened our relationship with the bank; a position which may prove beneficial later on as we unpack the much-loved government ideas of payments by results, along with social impact bonds. At the same time, our relationship with our prime supporter, Middlesex University, remains strong and interest from policy makers heartening.

As we start to now roll out the franchise plan itself, we remain pragmatic (this has not become one of my rants quite yet); there is history in the sector which suggests franchising has a habit of collapse, whilst sustainability and quality issues naturally abound.  As with all new ideas (or new configurations on existing ideas), there are resistors, antagonists and a level of contention and competition; and where would we be without the harbingers of doom?

In fact, aside from confronting all the gloomy predictions, ensuring we cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ will be the only way forward if we are to have a strictly controlled franchise, both in line with our own industry legislation and covering every possible issue surrounding intellectual property.  On an even more practical level, and so perhaps most critically, we have to make sure the manual is absolutely perfect and the fee correct: we have noticed many failed franchises never set a correct fee and so have quickly become a drain rather than an asset.

So, we are interested in your thoughts about social franchising as a means of social replication.  Is it of interest to you?  Does it hit your rant list?  Would you do it?  Would you recommend it?  Would you want to be a LEYF franchisee? Would you come to a franchise tea party – does it have a Mad Hatter appeal?

As always, I love to hear your thoughts… so feel free to rant, blog, comment or simply share.

There is much talk at the moment about the importance of measurement, including a reference to it in many of the speeches I listened to during the TUC march through London against public spending cuts on Saturday (itself a very uplifting and peaceful process which took me back to the marches of the 80s).  The fact is there has always been talk of how we measure the difference we can make, only over the years it was sunk in a pond full of targets.

So, I am pleased to now hear ‘why we need to know if we make a difference’; the only trouble this time around is that much of what is being said is poppycock, and expressed by people who have been on a course – or worse still, now think they are the experts!  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially since in the wrong hands measurement will be misused and become either a financial measurement of success or a target in a commission. In fact measurement used wisely is neither of those things.

We have already seen how confusion over the concept of measuring impact has led many children centres to collect data that has often been neither appropriate, relevant nor actually helped tell the story of the real difference their centre was genuinely making.  In such cases, those concerned simply failed to understand the distinction between input, outputs, outcomes and impact.

Nowadays, we also hear a lot about payment by results which essentially means that a proportion of the payment, from central or local government to providers, is dependent on achieving specified results – for example, a reduction in reconvictions among young offenders.  Elsewhere, Graham Allen and his team have introduced us to the concept of creating funds to develop services using Social Impact Bonds (SIB).  SIBs are designed to secure upfront investment from non-government sources, such as charitable foundations and private individuals, and could offer a real chance to invest in early intervention services.  Investors will then receive their returns from the government once the specified, measured outcomes have been achieved; what’s more, such defined improvements to the service ultimately lead to savings from the public purse.

At LEYF we have spent the last year finding a way of measuring our social return on investment. Social return on investment (SROI) is an approach that aims to capture the social and environmental benefits of a service. The process involves talking with stakeholders to identify what social value means to them; finding appropriate indicators of change taking place and comparing the financial value of the social change created to the financial cost of producing these changes. An SROI ratio is a comparison between the value being generated by the impact of an intervention, and the investment required to achieve that impact.

In our case, we essentially wanted to know what everyone was getting from choosing to use, work or train in a LEYF nursery; it was a laborious but interesting process. The data gathered was used to track the progress of the children, staff members and our apprentices, measuring the outcomes, whether we made a difference and by what amount, before finally benchmarking this against meaningful proxies such as a national average for similar services.  It has involved talking to many, many people – including seeking their opinion on the very measures to adopt.  What we learned from this was that achieving meaningful measurement is far from simple if you want to produce helpful and relevant results.

Over the past few months, I have been talking with and presenting to local authority commissioners about how they might most effectively invest their limited funds in supporting childcare. They struck me as people who genuinely want to get a good service for their clients but are stymied by lack of funds, European rules, lack of direction from their ‘betters’ and uncertainties as to which service will provide the best option. Measurement seems to be the final straw for them, as they try and find solutions to many of the most intractable social ills.

However, there is a wealth of information available and lots of ideas of different ways to commission for better outcomes. We know about the best length of a contract (minimum 5 years), the importance of forming relationships with commissioners, keeping monitoring sharp, focused and helpful, sorting TUPE, dealing with the legal team and the many other issues commissioners and providers have to iron out.  Surely then, this must be the perfect time to pull all these ideas into a coherent whole and move forward?

What’s needed now is a consortia or network based on the principle of Early Intervention; it would bring together providers, commissioners and investors to explore how we might firstly devise a financial vehicle to invest and fund new initiatives and secondly develop a set of plans, ideas and tools to help us measure the results.  Without such a three-way conversation, such a co-ordinated and collaborative approach, we will continue to talk about this complicated, abstract concept in our own little silos with little progress, much confusion and some awful policy decisions the only outcomes.  In the meantime, we will be inundated with toolkits, which will be neatly placed on a shelf and forgotten about.

Right now, what we really need is to be as connected to others as possible.  If nothing else, for starters this would bring the conversation about measurement, outcomes, social investment, payment by results and social return out of the darkness and into the light. Perhaps it is something our new strategic partners at the DfE can develop?

As always, please send me your comments below and continue this conversation with friends and colleagues via email and your favourite social networks.  Where the future of this debate is concerned, I look forward to your personal inputs..!

Related articles

• “Success Bonds” touted as Obama bright idea (nowpublic.com)
• Making the case for early intervention (guardian.co.uk)

I have learned that if I am to truly avoid all contact with the world of work, then I need to go abroad without a phone or internet access.  To this end, I recently spent a lovely few days immersed in the renaissance art of Florence.

On my return came the announcement that the Department of Education had allocated £60m of hard earned tax payers’ money to over 100 so-called voluntary and community organisations. The serenity of the Botticellis soon evaporated into a sort of Sir Henry Taylor level of gall and indignation – as his saying ‘where there are large powers with little ambition, nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes’ came rapidly to mind.

Why was I feeling so cross? Principally because the purpose of the grants was to enable organisations to play a more significant role in reforming and delivering services for children, young people, parents and families – and with a particular emphasis on early intervention and tackling the needs of the most disadvantaged groups. What weasel words.  Is this not another way of wasting our time and effort, whilst looking at ways of cutting funds for children services.  Funding the usual suspects is hardly an innovative way forward.

Maybe I am being unfair, but in these difficult times – where organisations like mine are losing significant contracts to provide for children in need and run children centre services – it’s hard to stomach sums of over £100k plus being allocated to endless support organisations, many of which should be partnered up and formed into single entities.  According to the department, the aim of these grants is to free organisations up from dependency on grants… well there is little need to become sustainable if all the central costs are funded by tax payers.  What is the point of the Transition Funds? Was this not designed to support such organisations become sustainable? In my book, that’s £160m of money that could be better spent providing real services to children and their families.

I was also baffled and bemused by the other big decision (worth £1m over two years), which saw the strategic lead partnership for the early years and childcare sector allocated to a group of organisations, none of which are either specifically early years or childcare. I suppose what galled me more was how this would pay for at least 65 full daycare places with family support in my organisation for vulnerable children in high need. Instead, this is something we currently have to raise our own funds for, since such children not yet on the Child Protection list no longer constitute high priority. So much for applying the principles of early intervention…

The allocation of all this money is supposed to develop a vigorous and responsive sector, freed up from the dependency on grants and better equipped to operate within a payment by results environment; it is meant to make such organisations commissioning ready and look at innovative approaches to lever private investment. What strikes me is there is quite a tension and I will be intrigued to understand how organisations funded by the department can offer independence, challenge and innovation. Let’s only hope Jonathan Swift’s comment that ‘power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent’ remains high in all our minds.