Best Start Family Hub Information Management System

Best Start Family Hubs are a central element of national government policy to improve outcomes for babies, children and families through the Best Start in Life agenda. This agenda recognises that the period from conception to age two is a critical window for child development, shaping lifelong health, wellbeing, educational attainment and future opportunities.

Best Start Family Hubs are a central element of national government policy to transform services for families from pregnancy through early childhood. The programme requires local authorities to:

• deliver integrated, multi-agency services
• provide accessible, joined-up support for families
• demonstrate impact, outcomes, and value for money
• support a digital-first, user-focused service model

Family Hubs operate on a whole-family, longitudinal model, requiring local authorities to:

• register families and individuals
• record needs, assessments, and interventions
• track engagement over time (pregnancy → early childhood)
• coordinate support across multiple services

To support these ambitions, Suffolk requires a modern, scalable and future-proof digital solution that enables consistent recording, reporting and analysis of Best Start Family Hub activity across the county. The ability to understand who is accessing services, identify patterns of demand, measure outcomes and track engagement will be critical in informing service delivery, continuous improvement and statutory and programme reporting requirements, and ensure Suffolk is well positioned to deliver its transformation objectives both now and in the future.

Family Hub services are seeking a system covering registration, bookings, attendance, outcomes, and reporting.

At a very high level the business requirements for the solution can be broken down in the following categories:

• Records for parents/carers and children attending Family Hubs
• Create and setup group workshops for families.
• Families to be able to book into sessions via self-service or be booked by staff members with appropriate checks on appropriateness of the sessions.
• For families or staff members to register attendance at those sessions
• To be able to send follow-up information to families following the sessions.
• For staff members to be able to record observations on the sessions.
• For staff members to record loan equipment provided.
• To provide comprehensive and customisable reporting on activity.
• To utilise appropriate outcomes measures.
• To facilitate communication in appropriate, agreed ways between the services and families.
• Support extraction of appropriate data.
• Monitor utilisation of the Family hub space by third parties.