Call for Evidence with the Department of Education

Summary

Nesta has recently identified that there is a need for more up-to-date information about impactful programmes that support parenting and the home learning environment (HLE), to help inform local commissioners’ decisions when identifying suitable programmes for their family hubs that will meet the government target of 75% of children having a good level of development by 2028.

To help with this, we are conducting a rapid critical assessment of evaluations of parenting and HLE programmes, with a view to identifying all programmes available in the UK that have robust evidence of impact, particularly those suitable for targeting families with children aged three to four years.

The review will support the Department for Education’s (DfE) development of two menus of interventions for use by local authorities: one for parenting programmes and one for HLE programmes. This will help ensure that funding is directed towards evidence-based, effective programmes most likely to support progress towards achieving the good level of development target.

Nesta and the DfE family hubs team have a shared interest in making sure that commissioners of programmes to support parenting and the HLE have access to the most up-to-date information about effective programmes available in the UK.