Ensuring no child or parent misses out on help and support
Surestart's aims are extremely clear. "Your Sure Start Children’s Centre should aim to become the first local port of call for all families with young children under five in your local area". The Communications Toolkit contains many different ways in which you can promote your centre including:
- Posters in the community
- Sending information out with health professionals
- Leaflets and flyers
- Adverts
All are great ideas that will undoubtedly reach your audience, but most take a lot of time to implement, and are relatively expensive.
Hidden away on page 19
Is the suggestion that you text message and email parents. Remarkably it's the very last Tip in the guide. Why "remarkably"?
Because
- Text messages are extremely effective at driving attendance at sessions.
- Text messages are incredibly cost effective
- It takes less than 5 minutes to reach 50 or more parents
Using texting to drive session attendance
98% of people aged 20 to 40 own a mobile phone, so you have reach right across the community, including ethnic and lower social groupings. In major studies in 2008 there was little difference found in mobile phone ownership amongst different income groups or ethnic minorities compared to other groups.
For many, texting is the preferred form of communication. It is the way they communicate with friends and a part of everyday life.
Texting session reminders has proven to be extremely effective.
"Parents respond to texting - we have found that events run recently, where parents have been reminded via text, have had a higher attendance rate." - Acting Centre Manager, Birmingham
"We get a better response because families lead such hectic lfestyles it's easy for them to forget things, so a little helpful reminder from us by text helps them remember us!" - Centre receptionist, Dymchurch, Kent
The budget case for text messaging
Each text sent costs 5.5pence, so you can reach 20 parents for £1.10
Compare that to the cost of:
- Phone calls - at least £1.80
- Postage - at least £5.20