Why It’s Time for a National Focus on Early Years Mental Health

The Government’s Best Start in Life strategy signals a long-awaited investment in babies, young children and their families. From expanded childcare entitlements to new Best Start Family Hubs, this is a bold and necessary re-commitment to early childhood.

At Minds Ahead, we welcome the ambition.

But if this strategy is truly to succeed in giving every child the best start, it must go further. It must put early years mental health at its heart.

👶 What Is Early Years Mental Health?

Early years mental health is not about turning nursery staff into clinicians, any more than school mental health is about making teachers into therapists.

It’s about recognising that:

Young children’s emotional wellbeing is shaped by the relationships, routines and environments around them.
Parents’ mental health, and their everyday interactions, have a profound impact on children’s development.
Early years professionals are already doing the work of supporting mental health — every time they comfort, connect, co-regulate or help a child feel safe.

But too often, they do this without the training, confidence or system-level support they deserve.

✅ What the Best Start Strategy Gets Right

There’s a lot to applaud in the strategy:

A bold target for 75% of children to be school-ready by 2028.
Investment in Best Start Family Hubs to provide wraparound support for families.
Expansion of funded childcare hours for working parents.
Focus on inclusion and additional needs.
Plans to boost the professionalism and status of the early years workforce.

It’s a powerful statement that early childhood matters — not just for learning, but for long-term life chances.

🧠 What’s Missing? Mental Health as a Core Thread

Yet mental health — particularly in the early years — is largely absent. That’s a critical gap.

Just as we’ve seen a transformation in school mental health in recent years with named leads, better working with mental health services, improved governance and stronger staff development, it’s now time to begin the same journey for early years.

Without this, we risk leaving behind the very children and families this strategy seeks to support.

🔧 What Early Years Mental Health Should Look Like

We’re not calling for more pressure or unrealistic expectations. We’re calling for clear, practical, supported steps that recognise early years settings as vital to children’s emotional development.

This includes:

1. Training and qualifications in early years mental health

Give staff the tools to notice early signs, respond with confidence, and embed emotionally informed practice.

2. Access to mental health leadership

Every early years setting should have access to a named person — either in-house or shared across settings — who takes responsibility for a whole-setting approach to mental health.

3. Support for parental mental health

Recognise and respond to the link between parents’ wellbeing and children’s development. Make perinatal and parental mental health support part of parenting programmes and family hub offers.

4. Better connections with local health and early help services

Strengthen pathways between early years providers and CAMHS, health visitors, community mental health teams and social care.

5. A focus on staff wellbeing and supervision

This is a sector under pressure. Caring for young children’s emotions is emotionally demanding. Staff need reflective spaces, not just task lists.

💡 Minds Ahead: Supporting the Next Phase of Reform

At Minds Ahead, we’ve built a model for this transformation:

Level 2, 5 and 7 qualifications in school and early years mental health.
Peer mentoring programmes that develop pupil wellbeing, belonging and leadership.
Strategic consultancy to help schools, trusts and local authorities embed mentally healthy practice across settings.

We’ve seen firsthand the impact when early years and school staff feel empowered and supported to lead on mental health. Children thrive. Families feel held. Staff stay.

📣 Our Call to Government

The Best Start in Life strategy is a strong beginning. But it’s not yet a whole-system response.

We call on the government to:

Embed early years mental health into its workforce strategy,
Fund access to mental health training and leadership in early years settings,
Support parental mental health through integrated local plans,
And create a national framework for early years mental health, just as we now have in schools.

Because the best start in life must also be the safest, most connected, and most mentally healthy.

Are you an innovative early years provider looking to improve mental health for your staff, children and families?

Minds Ahead offers training, qualifications and strategic support to help you embed mentally healthy practice across your setting or group of settings.