Helping parents to parent

The Social Mobility Commission (www.gov.uk/smcpc) is inviting proposals for research into what can be done in the earliest years of a child’s life, as well as the pre-natal period to prepare and help all parents to be the best parents that they can be. This includes both the specific behaviours and approaches that parents deploy, as well as the creation of an optimal home learning environment.

The Government and others have pointed out that what parents do matters more than who they are, but the evidence is clear that the two are strongly related. However, it is on the former point that the Commission wants to focus this piece of work, to consider the extent to which public policy levers can influence what parents do and what those policy levers might be. Under this category of what parents do, we consider first, their direct behaviours and approaches to parenthood, as well as, relatedly, the home learning environment that they develop for their child.

This piece of work should predominantly be formed of a literature review and will bring together the evidence on universal or large scale approaches which can address what parents do (including the home learning environment). While there is some good evidence on targeted programmes for parents or for children with specific or identified needs, we are less clear about the evidence on the extent to which and how public policy approaches could help a wider group of parents to parent, and to improve the home learning environment in the earliest years. We are interested in both parenting programmes and alternative means by which public policy might be able to influence parents.

We are particularly interested in evidence from the UK and abroad on three issues:

• The extent to which the parenting behaviours that matter to outcomes (those which drive social mobility) are amenable to public policy interventions? • What has been shown to work, is showing signs of success and/or has been implemented in countries in which family background has less of an effect on outcomes than in the UK? • The extent to which there is evidence on other ways that can mitigate the impact of poverty on parents, the home learning environment and on children’s outcomes? NB: While of interest, direct income transfers are not the focus of this piece of research.

Ideally, we will have an idea of approaches in and across different stages of childhood, including the antenatal and postnatal period to age one, toddlers, the primary school years and the secondary school years. However, the provider should be clear about what can be achieved within the given budget.