Does Sure Start harm poor families?

Sure Start "harms children who need it most"

says the Guardian website. But the words in the quotation appear nowhere in the report below. And if Sure Start does harm some children, then it is the last thing they need. So it was an odd headline to use.

My feeling has always been that playgroups, nurseries and the like are excellent institutions and should be encouraged by the state, though there is no reason why it should run them all. But I have been wary of the New Labour attempt to give them an explicit therapeutic purpose.

I have read too many social and healthcare papers in my time to give much credence to one study, but could it be I have been right all along? More research is needed, as people paid to do research always say.