My First 1000 Days Leeds - Nurture and Grow

The first one thousand days of a child’s life, from the moment of their conception to their second birthday, are the keystone to their development and critical to their future. The My First 1000 Days project will focus on giving children in the Leeds area the best possible start in life. This ambition aligns with both national guidance and the local priorities of the Leeds Best Start Plan, the Leeds Health and Wellbeing Strategy, and the Leeds Children and Young People's Plan. The University of Leeds has a cluster of experts across several disciplines and research groups, who are working to understand children’s early development and to develop practical measures to overcome inequalities. These strands of expertise will be brought together to form a dedicated project team who will work in collaboration with a range of local partners, including Leeds City Council, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and representatives from the VCS sector, to co-produce an intervention aimed at improving a range of health and social outcomes in children in the first 2 years of life. My First 1000 Days will develop, implement, and evaluate a novel intervention based on a centering group care model, aimed at improving the physical, psychological, and social outcomes for children aged 0 to 2 and their families in Leeds. The intervention will focus on four key areas: Physical Activity in the Early Years, Early Language and Cognitive Development, Food and Nutrition, and New Futures for Disabled Children, and will be underpinned by the centering-based group care approach. This approach was developed by TNO (project partner) and has been successfully implemented in healthcare systems in the Netherlands; it is innovative in that it seeks to integrate medical and social care systems by centering care within a group.