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Evidence into Practice Lessons from Parenting Support. Julia Gault, Head of Family Engagement, DCSF Presentation at DCSF Conference: The Use of Evidence in Policy Development and Delivery, 9 February 2010. Investment to Improve Parenting. Significant growth since 2006 including:
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Evidence into Practice Lessons from Parenting Support Julia Gault, Head of Family Engagement, DCSF Presentation at DCSF Conference: The Use of Evidence in Policy Development and Delivery, 9 February 2010
Investment to Improve Parenting • Significant growth since 2006 including: • Parenting and Family Support part of the core offer for the over 3,000 Sure Start Children’s Centres and over 20,000 schools providing extended services; • over 3,500 Parent Support Advisors linked to schools • Family Intervention Projects will be operating in every LA by March 2010 – with a target to reach 10,000 parents a year by 2012-13 • Each LA has two parenting experts able to provide one to one support to improve parenting skills • Each LA has funding for a Parenting Early Intervention project (parents of at risk children aged 8-13) • Progress on parental confidence and empowerment now tracked at national level through Annual Parent Opinion Survey
Workforce Skills Critical • Evidence is overwhelming of the power of parenting interventions to change behaviour • Skill of the practitioner in delivering the intervention demonstrated to be critical to its effectiveness • A small number of strongly evidenced manualised programmes dominated and polarised the national debate
Improve Practice Mechanisms required to: • Improve intervention choice • Improve fidelity to proven practice • Continue to develop understanding of effective practice where there are gaps in current knowledge Work of the National Academy of Parenting Practitioners addresses all of these
Response from the Sector • Commissioning Toolkit has been well received – looking at next phase of development and application of model to other sectors • Effective dissemination of learning from current trials • Evaluation of practice post-training innovative for a “skill area” rather than a “profession”.
Discussion Point Are there lessons that could be drawn from this into your own policy/delivery situation?
Contact details Contact: Julia Gault, Family Engagement Division, DCSF Tel: 020 7783 8099 Email: julia.gault@dcsf.gov.uk 28