How do we improve parental access to, and engagement with, family services? How do we improve connections and relationships between parents and professionals (e.g. through parental networks)?

Background

Our goal is for the early years sector to provide the foundations for children to have happy, healthy and successful lives, and to enable parents to work. The sector has some challenges in common with our other sectors but it faces a different local and systemic context. We are interested in evidence that will help us enable a healthy and sustainable early years market which maximises the valuable outcomes of the sector.

Next steps

If you would like to discuss previous, ongoing or potential research into any of the areas in this document, please contact research.engagement@education.gov.uk.

Related UKRI funded projects


  • Changing Discourses of the Parent-Child Relationship

    In recent years, parents and parenting have featured prominently in policy discourse in the UK and elsewhere. The increasingly prevalent view that social and educational policy must pay specific attention to the role and...

    Funded by: AHRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

    Why might this be relevant?

    Partially relevant as it discusses changing discourses of the parent-child relationship but does not provide direct solutions to improve parental access and engagement with family services.

  • Partnership for Change: RCT of Infant Parent Support teams to address place-based inequalities for struggling families

    Through our parent-practitioner-community (PPC) partnership, consisting of parents with children involved with social work, infant mental health practitioners, researchers, and community stakeholders, we have coproduced ...

    Funded by: UKRI

    Lead research organisation: University of Glasgow

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on improving parental access to family services and engagement, as well as connections between parents and professionals through a partnership approach.

  • ADR England Community Catalyst: Children at risk of poor outcomes

    National and local organisations produce a wealth of valuable data, which can be used to understand how we can reduce the number of children at risk of poor social, health and educational outcomes. However, at present, t...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: Swansea University

    Why might this be relevant?

    Partially relevant as it focuses on establishing a community catalyst for child-focused researchers and analysts, which indirectly relates to improving parental access and engagement with family services.

  • Provision and use of preschool childcare in Britain

    Families benefit from childcare. The availability of affordable childcare is a major influence on women's ability to take up paid work. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 'Helping families to combine ...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

    Why might this be relevant?

    Fully relevant as it specifically addresses the provision and use of preschool childcare in Britain, which directly relates to improving parental access to family services.

  • Understanding Children's Lives and Outcomes

    Understanding Children's Lives and Outcomes, led by Morag Treanor and Fiona Mitchell, will provide new insights to help better understand and deliver the best possible outcomes for children, utilising existing datasets n...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Edinburgh

  • Family inclusive policy and practice after 'Think Family'

    Although there is a long history of social work and other practitioners involving wider family in trying to resolve difficulties faced by particular family members, the evidence base to support this activity has been rel...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Birmingham

  • Transformative children's social care

    Coronavirus has reduced access to already scarce resources in children's mental health and social care. The most vulnerable children in the UK are more isolated than ever, and foster/residential carers and adoptive paren...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: BERRI LIMITED

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on improving parental access and engagement with family services through psychological screening and support products.

  • Development of a research-ready dataset linking data on children and young people in London held by Local Authorities and healthcare providers

    Background There are serious challenges facing social care, education and health services for children and young people in England. Beyond high profile cases of avoidable child deaths, the social costs of poor outcomes ...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: Imperial College London

  • Enhancement of ECHILD with a mother-child and Unique Property Reference number link

    ECHILD is a research database that joins together existing health, education and social care information for all children in England. We are using this linked data to better understand how education affects children's he...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

  • Applying BERRI to support child mental health at the edge of care

    Children are ending up in public care due to unmet mental health needs (Children's Commissioner, January 2020). The numbers of children in care are increasing. Social care needs to work more effectively with families to ...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: BERRI LIMITED

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