Edinburgh's Maximise! Early Years project is part of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Intensive Family Support Service.
Maximise! Early Years is delivered in partnership by Children 1st and CHAI. The service takes a targeted approach, focusing on families with children aged between 0 and 5 that are known to have a recurring need for support and face multiple barriers to moving out of poverty.
The service works in partnership with five Early Years Centres in North West and North East Edinburgh; Moffat, Greendykes, Craigmillar, Fort and Granton, embedding the service in the centres and working closely with the early years team to build trusting and supportive relationships with families.
Maximise! Early Years takes a child-centred, family minded approach to tackling child poverty in Edinburgh. Holistic, community-based advice and support is provided to parents, children and young people who are, or are at risk of, experiencing poverty to overcome the barriers that families experiencing poverty face in achieving at school, work, home and in the community.
Maximise! Early Years aims to improve families’ financial resilience and health and wellbeing, as well as increasing children’s positive participation in early years, taking a preventative approach to reducing the attainment gap that exists between higher and lower income families.
The service is now operating in an additional five Early Years Centres in the South of the city, under Maximise! South