Helping children make the best start in life with family support
UK
Family Lives worked directly with parents of very young children in their own homes, in a project that led to clear improvements in early years development.
Support workers modelled simple play-based behaviours to support language and development, embedding these into their daily routines and lives.
All parents interviewed were able to identify at least three changes in their child, with their final evaluation showing a significant increase in independence, social cooperation, task orientation, cognitive ability and emotional health of the children who participated in the project.
Direct impacts:
- Increase in parenting consistency, affection and responsiveness to the child
- Ability to cope with frustration
- Ability to try again without getting upset
- Increased time that parents spent interacting with their child
- Ability to sit and engage in activities
- Using more words to communicate
- Increased parental knowledge of how to encourage positive behaviour in child
- Increased ability to interact positively with a new adult
- Showing interest and enjoyment of books
“These are children that are just saying a very few, simple words. A volunteer last week had just had a session with a boy and he said his first sentence. The volunteer and the mum just looked at each other in excitement and then started clapping, and then the child started clapping because the parent and the volunteer were clapping, and they were both really excited.” Coordinator, Family Lives