Welcome to Swindon Healthy Early Years Programme

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Research shows that the early years of life are critical to a child’s development and provide the foundations for their future. Therefore, quality of the home environment experienced by a child is paramount, as well as early year’s high quality care and education.

Inequality has significant implications on outcomes and performance of young children, especially those from vulnerable groups. Addressing inequality early is vital and this too can come from providing high quality child care and supporting parents in adopting the approaches.

With this in mind and following the success of the Swindon Healthy Schools Programme, which has supported schools in achieving positive health outcomes for young people, we have launched a Swindon Healthy Early Years Programme, (SHEYP).

The award is being funded by the Swindon Public Health Team. Free support and guidance will be provided by the Swindon Healthy Schools Team. Depending on the needs of each setting, we will provide training and development for staff too.

The SHEYP programme has been designed with support from London and Gloucester Healthy Early Years teams, where it has been now running for a number of years.

SHEYP is open to all early years’ settings, including children’s centres, nurseries, pre-schools and individual child minders. It focuses on the whole child and gives settings a framework for their activities with children, parents, carers, staff and the wider community. The programme is designed to recognise the achievements of the individual centres and how they support the health and wellbeing of the children and the families that are linked to their settings.

SHEYP has three levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold, keeping in line with the Swindon Healthy Schools programme.

The 3 levels will include:

• Bronze: settings will need to demonstrate they take a whole setting approach to health and wellbeing including physical activity, nutrition, oral health, emotional wellbeing, safety and immunisations
• Silver: settings will need to identify the main health priorities for the children and families they work with and devise new projects, practices and interventions to address these needs
• Gold: settings will need to implement their silver action plan and demonstrate the impact of the activities they have implemented.