Dedicated SEND Support for Families and Children

Published: 7 December 2025

Come April, children in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) will benefit from more accessible support in the Labour introduced Best Start Family Hubs. 

The government announced the Best Start in Life strategy in July of last year, with the intent of ensuring that record proportions of children will be school-ready by 2028. 

More than 4 million children are growing up in relative poverty. 1 in 4 families with babies and children under 5 struggle to get trusted advice and guidance to support their parenting. 

It is both a moral imperative and our responsibility that those children are given the best start to life that we can offer. 

Best Start Family Hubs will offer coordinated early years services for families that need their support.

That includes speech and language support, specialist groups for families, and links between childcare, health visiting and now, SEND teams.

All local authorities, must publish their plan for Best Start by 31 March, 2026, laying out their strategy to implement government funding for better family support and early years education. 

By being there for parents and children at an earlier stage, the need for higher-level interventions later in life is reduced. 

Investment in our children is an investment in our future.

The £500 million set aside for SEND programme will be accessible to the councils that prioritise the areas most obstructed from support.

In every Best Start Family Hub around the country, dedicated SEND practitioners will work to help local families, with 70% of hubs being established in the most disadvantaged communities.  

This Government’s conception of education begins long before a child’s first day in primary school.

It begins at the very start, by providing the opportunities to learn, grow and thrive that we want for every one of our children.