Leaders from the Royal Foundation’s Centre for Early Childhood and Homewards visited Meadows Nursery, a community nursery which aims to improve outcomes for children in the local area through both research and working with parents to co-design the service.
The Meadows is a unique partnership involving Sheffield Hallam University, Save the Children UK, Watercliffe Meadow Primary School, Sheffield City Council.
Meeting with students at Sheffield Hallam, they learnt about the importance of trauma informed practice, which is implemented at Meadows Nursery and is embedded into all initial teacher training courses at Hallam.
Dr Fufy Demissie presented her work on the TWiTCH (Talk with tales for children) project, a book-sharing programme for early years practitioners underpinned by research. The programme encourages the use of interactive story time to help children's language, social and emotional development.
Guests also heard from Hallam’s Centre for Loneliness Studies and their research which has looked at how early childhood experiences of developing friendships can be linked to loneliness in young people.
Professor Sally Pearse, Director of the Early Years Community Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, said: “We were delighted to welcome the Royal Foundation to the centre and to be given the opportunity to share our mission of ‘Changing Lives through Relationships’ using Trauma Informed practice. Our visitors saw this in action with children in the nursery and at our parent run Breakfast Club where families were working with Save the Children UK and artists and musicians to co-design our community bus.”
The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales mobilises leaders, businesses and people so that together they can address society’s greatest challenges. Led by The Prince and Princess of Wales, the Royal Foundation’s work is built on world-class research, long-term partnerships, and measurable, scalable impact. The focus of work is based around five key themes: Early childhood, homelessness, conservation, first responders and mental health.
The Princess of Wales established The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in 2021. The Centre’s vision is of a healthier, happier, more nurturing world, transformed by our collective approach to early childhood. It works to achieve this by increasing awareness of, and action on, the extraordinary impact of early childhood – translating compelling scientific advances to change what we all think and do between pregnancy and five.
Sally Hogg, Associate Director at the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, said: “We hugely enjoyed seeing the wonderful work happening in Sheffield, meeting the children, families and staff at the Meadows Nursery, and talking to the academics at Sheffield Hallam University. The visit was part of the Centre for Early Childhood’s ongoing commitment to learn from families, from expert practitioners and from research. The work in Sheffield is a great example of these different voices coming together to shape services which will give more children a strong start in life.”
In 2023 Prince William and The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales launched Homewards: a transformative five-year, locally led programme aims to demonstrate that together it’s possible to end homelessness – making it rare, brief and unrepeated. Homewards works in six locations in the UK, including in Sheffield.
