£1.5 million grant awarded to improve access to parent programmes in deprived areas

Fears about being judged can often put parents off seeking advice, but now a project aiming to help more parents to access parenting programmes which improve outcomes for children has launched with a £1.5 million grant in collaboration with more than 40 local authorities.

Maddy Arden, Professor of Health Psychology and Behavioural Science at Manchester Met, won a NIHR Public Health Research grant worth £1.5 million through her collaboration with Professor Abi Millings at Sheffield Hallam University to promote parenting programmes to socially deprived families. 

Parenting programmes are a way for parents to promote their child’s development, build a support network and gain valuable skills in parenting and self-care. Despite evidence demonstrating the positive impact these programmes can have, many parents do not access them.

Professor Arden said: “There’s a lot of focus on setting up support programmes, but not nearly as much on getting people to actually use them. That’s half the battle because you can have the best intervention in the world but if people don’t actually turn up to use it, then it won’t work. “

The grant will be used for a controlled trial of a Behavioural Science Toolkit (the BeST Engage toolkit) in order to support local authorities to promote the parenting programmes to disadvantaged families. 

It has been developed based on a range of projects that were commissioned by the Department for Education to promote the uptake of family hub services by socially disadvantaged families.

Over 33 months, the project, which includes collaborators Queen Mary University London and University of Sheffield, will allow local authorities to develop resources for the programmes and for parents, as well as to ask for feedback from parents to further enhance the toolkit. The research team will then assess the extent to which engagement increases as a result of the use of the toolkit.

The project will also explore practical issues with the use of the toolkit, so that it can be rolled out for all local authorities to access and use at the end of the programme.

Professor Arden said: “Parenting support programmes are designed to support all parents, not just those who are struggling and it can be invaluable to meet other parents too. All parents should know that what these programmes are about and how they could be helpful for them. 

“Local authorities need to get these messages out to local families and our toolkit will guide them to do this in ways that are accessible .”