The Government is providing HUF 183 million for Sure Start children’s centres, which for the first time will be funded from the central budget. These institutions are of key importance to the creation of opportunity among young children. As a result of the funding, around 600 children and their parents can continue to use the services of Sure Start children’s centres in their settlements, and the centres are guaranteed to continue in operation until 31 December 2012.
For the forty-one applications received, forty children’s centres will receive funding. Civil society and church-maintained institutions were among those applying, and twelve of these are receiving support. The new funding opportunity was open to local councils which had already operated such institutions, for which EU financing had expired.
The aim for next year is to increase the number of institutions receiving funding, but in the 2013 call for applications the State Secretariat for Social Inclusion within the Ministry of Human Resources will seek to ensure that this year’s high professional standards and uniform conditions are maintained as selection criteria.
The Sure Start children’s centres network has become a model programme after professional restructuring and development following the change of government in 2010. Calls for applications with EU partner financing have also been planned, with the benefit of experience gained from the experimental programmes financed from domestic resources since 2003. The specialist mission of Sure Start children’s centres is to provide assistance in developing the skills and capacities of young children living in extreme poverty and often unacceptable social and housing conditions; they are most often of Roma ancestry and with serious obstacles to socialization. Such assistance to children at an age crucial to their later development is essential for their future success in school, and also of enormous benefit to their families. At present, there are forty-eight Sure Start children’s centres in Hungary, and in the near future another fifty-six will open with EU funding. Taking earlier years into account also, the number of children catered for in the centres is more than 4000.
(Ministry of Human Resources)