A Milestone Moment: £1 Million in Grants to Support Babies and Families
17 September 2025
We’re so proud to share a huge milestone for the 1001 Critical Days Foundation: our first ever round of grants has been awarded – totalling £1 million – to six incredible charities across the UK.
These grants mark the start of our mission to help ensure every baby experiences the best start in life. Following a rigorous application process, the successful charities were chosen for their outstanding work supporting babies and families in family hubs and ither similar settings. Together, their projects are expected to reach around 1,800 babies and families.
Why this matters
Our Founder and Executive Chair, Dame Andrea Leadsom, summed up the moment perfectly:
“This is an incredibly proud moment for the 1001 Critical Days Foundation. These are our very first grant awards, and each of the six charities chosen has shown outstanding commitment to supporting babies and their families. Their applications were impressive, their impact is tangible, and I cannot wait to see the difference they will make in communities across the country. Together, we are determined that every baby should experience the best start in life.”
Our Patron, Lord David Blunkett, who, alongside the late Dame Tessa Jowell, was the architect behind Sure Start in the 1990s, reminded us of the power of communities in creating change:
“We’re not talking about professionals coming in and offering support – important as this is. But rather, mobilising the talent and strength of the community, no matter how deprived, to become part of the solution, not the problem.”
Meet the six charities
Here’s how the funding will be put to work:
Literacy Volunteers (Nottinghamshire) – Expanding their Learning to Love Books programme, helping children in deprived communities (many with English as an additional language) build early literacy skills and a love of reading.
Home-Start Edinburgh & Stepping Stones North Edinburgh – Delivering Bump Start, a programme offering holistic, relationship-based support from pregnancy onwards to reduce isolation and improve parental confidence.
The For Baby’s Sake Trust (London) – Providing trauma-informed therapeutic support to families to break the cycle of domestic abuse, ensuring babies grow up in safe and nurturing homes.
OXPIP (Oxfordshire) – Offering specialist parent-infant psychotherapy to strengthen the bond between parents and babies, particularly for families facing trauma, postnatal depression or disrupted attachment.
Thrive at Five (Stoke-on-Trent) – Piloting Video Interaction Guidance at a universal level to improve early parent-child interaction and school readiness in communities facing hardship.
What’s next?
This first grants round launched in June 2025 and received an incredible 114 applications. A second round will open in Autumn 2025. But this is just the beginning. With your support, we’ll keep working to make sure every baby experiences the best start in life, in the UK and beyond.