Early Years

The early years (ages 0-5) of a child’s life have a lifelong impact on their physical, social, and emotional development and children who are behind in meeting their developmental milestones at this young age are more likely to experience poorer health, education and employment outcomes when they are older.

Research shows that more than half the gaps in achievement at age 11 are due to inequality that existed at five years old (Bradbury et al. 2015).

We are particularly interested in targeted interventions that support children in this early years age group who are living in the most disadvantaged circumstances due to poverty and who may be at risk of or are experiencing neglect.  The MCF is interested in funding interventions with children such as those that:

• increase the likelihood of children achieving developmental milestones;
• support children to make successful transitions to primary school;
• improve children’s physical health through access to healthcare, nutrition, check-ups, immunisations etc.;
• give families a better understanding of their child’s needs and improves confidence in parenting / caring so they are better able to meet the child’s needs;
• increase families’ positive engagement in services enabling targeted support to address specific issues e.g. domestic violence, mental health, substance abuse, neglect.
• help to meet a child’s basic needs as part of a wider programme of intervention or support.

Services will be assessed on the level to which they are meeting the needs of children in the most disadvantaged circumstances.

As part of our commitment to being an evidence-led funder we will consider funding the evaluation costs of projects, particularly when it is a new project and the charity will then be able to use the evaluation to support its future funding proposition.

Grant Programmes