Service Domains – The New Communities: A Case Study of Peterlee Sure Start,UK

In this paper, a Sure Start programme is used to explain an emergent ‘Service Domain’ model, built around innovative and creative service integration and complementary multi-professional partnerships for pre-school children and their families in disadvantaged communities. Sure Start, the cornerstone of the government's ambitious policy to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020, and a major departure from traditional single agency service delivery, emulates the Head Start initiative in the USA where funding came directly from federal government and by-passed state legislatures. The Sure Start funding mechanism had a pre-requisite to establish multi-agency partnerships with equal parent representation, as a result of central government's frustration with the failure of mainstream agencies to unite strategically and operationally to deliver integrated services. The Sure Start initiative represented a nationally coordinated attempt by central government to address previously disjointed approaches to children's services integration.