Three tips to make sure you’re ready for your MP visit
As part of the Fair Future Funding Action Week, we've been asking early years providers to invite their MPs to visit their settings to dicuss the impact of underfunding in the early years. Here are our top tips to make the most of out of their visit.
As we approach the final day of Action Week we wanted to make sure you’re absolutely ready for your MP to visit your setting. We’ve put some tips together to make sure you – and your MP – get the most out of the visit.
You may have already seen the visit checklist we released a couple of weeks ago and, if you have any burning questions, you can always get in touch with us directly. You can email the team with your questions here.
Know what you want to say
This is the most important part of the visit. Your MP will want to know what underfunding means to you specifically – how it’s impacted your bottom line, what it means for the children and families you work with.
The doesn’t mean you should only talk about the negatives: this is also a chance to say what you could do with a funding level that matched the true cost of delivering quality childcare.
And don’t worry about the national picture. There are plenty of facts for you in our factsheet which you can share with them – but your priority should be to hammer home what’s going on locally.
Know what’s happening and when
You don’t have to run a slick event but it’s definitely worth knowing in advance what your MP will do during their visit.
Think about what activities will showcase your work best and where and when you’ll get a chance to talk one-to-one to your MP in a quieter space. Be mindful of the time each segment of the visit will take so you don’t have to rush through things
It’s also worth thinking about the photos you might want to take of the visit – and how the activities the MP observes or gets involved in will inform that.
Record the visit – share the story
This is really important.
We need to put public pressure on MPs to follow through on their promise to speak to the Treasury and their parliamentary colleagues about the childcare funding crisis. Your photos will help us do that.
That’s why it’s vital you share photos on social media and with us, either by tagging us (on Twitter: @FairFutureFund ()), using the hashtag (#FairFutureFunding), or via email.
These are the top three things to think about ahead of your MP visit but don’t forget there are plenty more resources on the main Action Week page.