Voluntary sector agencies promote parents’ role in early learning for children
7 July 2008
Parents of young children from disadvantaged families have been the focus of an 18-month government initiative aimed at helping them become effective supporters of their children as learners. A report on the Early Learning Partnership Programme (ELPP), by researchers from the University of Oxford’s Departments of Education and of Social Policy and Social Work, shows how the initiative was successful in making positive changes to parents’ behaviour. The researchers found that the programme improved the relationship between the child and parent; and encouraged parents to organise their children’s lives in more structured ways and improve safety in the home.
The programme, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), aimed to support parents in socially disadvantaged areas across England. It ran from October 2006 to March 2008, and brought together the main agencies in the voluntary sector working with the parents of children aged between one and three. The organisations used a variety of methods of encouraging early learning, with staff visiting families in their homes or meeting them at group sessions. The one-year Oxford University study looked at whether local service providers managed to bring about positive changes in parents’ relationships with their children and support for learning. The programme particularly focused on parents who might be unaware of how to support their children in their learning, including those with poor parenting skills, mental health problems, or those suffering from severe social isolation.
The Oxford study is based on observed interactions between parents with their children in the homes, and questionnaires and interviews with the parents. The Oxford study finds that ELPP was successful in reaching the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Another key finding is that the programme helped parents to broaden their children’s learning environment through taking the child out into the community.
Comments from parents included:
I will try and get him more of those toys’ (observed at an ELPP centre)
‘I know now that taking him out of the house is really important.’
‘He’s a lot more responsive to requests I make for him to behave himself.’
Professor Kathy Sylva, from the Department of Education at Oxford University, said: ‘At the start of the programme researchers observed that most ELPP parents had satisfactory or good parenting skills, showing emotional warmth and support for their child’s learning. However, more than a fifth did not engage with their children in activities that were intellectually stimulating. Later interviews showed that parents praised the help they were getting in trying to support their children’s language development, for example through shared reading and other literacy-related activities.’
Dr Maria Evangelou, from the Department of Education at Oxford University, said: ‘ELPP has emphasised the crucial role played by parents during early childhood and highlighted the important role that the voluntary sector can play in preventing the long-term social exclusion of vulnerable children. However, because the programme was funded for only 18 months, the study could not show if ELPP actually closed the learning gap nor could we see if such a programme could make a difference to children’s long-term learning.’
The short timescale of the programme limited the agencies’ progress with the most disadvantaged parents, but one key finding was the eagerness of practitioners to acquire new skills for working with parents. Professor Anne Edwards, from the Department of Education at Oxford University, showed positive outcomes with voluntary sector involvement providing better access to families. One practitioner said: ‘…it’s incredible this ELPP thing because they never let anyone come in before. They didn’t send their children to school, they hate the social worker…but they let me in because I’m doing ELPP.’
Professor Edwards said: ‘Many of the practitioners were seeing adults as parents rather than clients for the first time. They told us that this insight would influence their practice wherever they worked in the future. The study has provided a very clear agenda for our future. Now all the relevant bodies need to start working more with the voluntary agencies to take this forward.’
For more information or to arrange an interview, contact the University of Oxford Press Office on 01865 280534 or email press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk