Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is working together with local authorities and wider stakeholders to ensure that early learning and childcare (ELC) is promoted in a range of ways. This includes:

• The development of an ELC hub on www.parentclub.scot/elc as a trusted place for information on ELC.
• The use of social media to reach parents and carers as well as those working with them.
• The development of leaflets and posters about the ELC expansion, being disseminated via ELC settings; libraries and stakeholders.
• The inclusion of an ELC leaflet in the Scottish Book Trusts toddler Bookbug bag, which is distributed to all 1 year olds in Scotland.

We also know that trusted professionals are key to reaching families who are less likely to take up their ELC place, so we are working with partners to ensure that professionals such as Health Visitors, Housing Officers and Family Nurses are aware of the ELC offer and the changes that are taking place with the expansion to 1140 hours. This includes the development of a ‘toolkit’ for partners to use to ensure consistent messaging.

Other planned work for 2019-20 includes:

• The distribution of a multi-language leaflet that will contain a high level outline of the ELC offer in 6 languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Urdu, Gaelic, Polish, and Arabic and signpost parents to where they can get further info on ELC.
• The development of a marketing campaign which is likely to include channels such as radio, outdoor advertising, digital and social media, along with targeted activity with a range of stakeholder and partners relevant to the target audience. The main focus of this campaign will be timed to coincide with the local authority application window.

We are also working internally across Government to make best use of new systems and capabilities, such as Best Start Grant, to identify opportunities for shared communications where we can deliver key messages about ELC and particularly the 2 year old entitlement.