Agenda item

To present the Bookstart Partnerhip Agreement 2019-22 and the delivery of the programme in North Tyneside.

A report was which introduced the Bookstart Partnership Agreement 2019-22 and the delivery of the programme in North Tyneside which was presented by officers from Cultural services.

Members were presented with an overview of the programme and an assessment of the likely impact upon and benefits for North Tyneside.  

Bookstart was the world’s first national book gifting programme, established in 1992.  It was run by BookTrust, the largest reading charity in the UK. Bookstart gifts free books to every child at two key stages; 0-12 months and 3-4 years of age. It also gave additional support to targeted families, multilingual children and those with additional needs. Every year over 2.2 million books were gifted nationally. 

Bookstart aimed to promote and encourage families to share books, stories and rhymes at the earliest possible age.  It was based on the premise that children who had an early introduction to books, and were read to every day, benefit educationally, culturally, socially and emotionally.

As a partnership between libraries, health and early year’s practitioners Bookstart would:

•           Ensure that every eligible child receives a Bookstart Baby pack by the age of 12 months and a Treasure gift by the time they are 4 years old;

•           Ensure that parents/carers receive a friendly and effective message which conveys the benefits and joys of sharing books, stories and rhymes daily;

•           Encourage families to join the library;

•           Encourage families to access and engage with local services;

•           Signpost and support parents and carers around their own

literacy/numeracy and IT needs.

In 2019, BookTrust introduced a three-year Partnership Agreement to give more security for the programme and support long term planning.  The Head of Environment, Housing and Leisure had signed off this agreement.   Bookstart Quality Standards, a framework that offered a benchmark for best practice, defined the objectives of the programme and how the measures of success would be met.

In North Tyneside the baby packs were ‘gifted’ by health visitors at the 6-8 week contact. The pack included two board books, a rhyme sheet and a booklet of tips and ideas for sharing books with children from a very young age. North Tyneside Libraries organise the delivery of the packs to the four health visitor bases and promote an awareness of the packs at the weekly Bookstart Rhymetime sessions held in libraries.

The Treasure envelope was gifted from Early Years or Childminder settings when a child was 3–4 years old.  The packs were delivered in November each year, over a three week period.  An additional resource was the newborn envelope, this was given out by health visitors and by staff registering births. It contained a booklet of black and white shapes to share with a new born baby and a congratulations card, giving information about the Bookstart packs.

Bookstart Corner was a targeted programme to support families that were either entitled to the free 2-year-old early education grant (around 670 in North Tyneside) or needed additional help to develop a love of stories, books and rhymes.  Aimed at families with children aged 12-30 months, it allowed settings to offer intensive support for parents and carers so that they could share stories with their children with confidence.  North Tyneside would now receive an annual allocation of 250 packs.  Corner resources had been utilised by Riverside Ready for School Centre and the Health Visitor Service to use with targeted families. 

The reach of the Baby Pack was currently at 66%.  This figure was a result of rebalancing the number of packs which had remained ungifted as well as changes to the age at which the health visitors gift the pack. This situation was reflected nationally. This had been addressed with new mechanisms in place and the reach was climbing steadily, with an aim to reach the Quality Standard requirement of 95% by 2020. The Treasure pack continued to perform well, with the maximum reach for 2018/19.

The value of the total resource allocation of resources to North Tyneside was £94,392 annually (£283,176 over the 3 year plan).

The three-year partnership agreement required the establishment of a North Tyneside Bookstart Steering Group.  The first meeting was held in May 2019 with partners from the Health Visitor Team, Early Help & Prevention, Early Years Education and the Portage Team. This group would meet six-monthly to share information, developments and review practice around Bookstart.

The North Tyneside Libraries Bookstart Coordinator would continue to ensure the delivery of packs, collation of figures, and monitoring against the Quality Standards. 

Members of the sub-committee sought clarification on mobile outreach with cohorts and how gaps could be reduced by encouraging library visits; and details of statistics for measuring the delivery of Treasure packs and Early Years packs that were gifted.

The Chair thanked officers for their presentation. 

It was agreed that the presentation be noted.