• New Parenting Support Commissioning Assistant for Local Areas (PASCAL) designed to give local authorities a comprehensive look at which parenting and home learning environment programmes are suitable for their areas
• Launch of new assistant coincides with Nesta announcing project supporting local areas to engage parents, tackling the challenge of getting more parents to find, start and complete parenting programmes

London, UK - The innovation foundation Nesta is launching a new decision-making online assistant for local authorities in England, to help early years commissioners identify parenting programmes which are most likely to meet local needs.

As part of the government’s Best Start in Life Strategy, local authorities are being given funding to commission evidence-based programmes that support parenting and the home learning environment.

New research from Nesta has identified over 135 different early years parenting programmes. These programmes vary a lot in the outcomes they are seeking to achieve, how widely they are implemented and their evidence of impact on child development, making it difficult for local authorities to determine which programmes are evidence-based and best suited to their local needs.

To address this, Nesta’s has designed its new Parenting Support Commissioning Assistant for Local Areas (PASCAL) to provide data-driven insights tailored to the demographics of each local authority's area, as well as their specific needs, budget and preferences. It uses local authority data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) to choose from over 20 different programmes and allocate the most suitable programmes, which offer the best value-for-money to different segments of a given population.

The online assistant is aimed at predicting which programmes are likely to deliver maximum value for money and achieve the greatest potential impact on the number of children reaching a ‘Good Level of Development’ (GLD). This is intended to support the UK government's commitment to increase the proportion of children reaching GLD from 67.7% to 75% by 2028.

Alongside the launch of PASCAL, Nesta is initiating a new project to provide local authorities with practical, tested approaches to increase parent engagement in parenting programmes. Nesta is looking to collaborate with local authorities to produce an online 'playbook' of strategies, grounded in evidence and real-world experience. The playbook will share insights on improving parental awareness, consideration, sign-up and continued engagement with parenting support.

Louise Bazalgette, deputy director of fairer start at Nesta, said: “The evidence is clear that parenting programmes can make a world of difference to helping children get the right start. But the complexity of the market means it’s a real challenge for local authorities to identify which programmes are the best fit for families in their area.

“We’ve developed a decision-making assistant to simplify this by offering data-driven insights, helping commissioners identify programmes that are likely to deliver the maximum impact on the number of children reaching a Good Level of Development. We are also looking to boost uptake of parenting programmes by giving local authorities a playbook of tested tactics to best engage families, so more children get effective support for their development before they start school.”

Notes to editors

1. For more information on the analysis or to speak to one of the experts involved, please contact Kieran Lowe, Media Manager, on 020 7438 2576 or [email protected]. Spokespeople are available for broadcast interviews.

About Nesta

Nesta is a research and innovation foundation that designs, tests and scales solutions for the biggest challenges of our time.

Driven by a vision to improve the lives of millions of people, our focus up to 2030 is on three missions: breaking the link between family background and life chances, halving obesity and cutting household carbon emissions.

We work with partners to develop high-potential solutions and test them as they evolve, drawing on expertise in qualitative and quantitative research, data science, behavioural science and design.

Once confident in the effectiveness of a solution, we take it to scale. We create national policy proposals, develop consumer-facing products and services, build and spin out commercial ventures and harness the power of the arts.

We work with two specialised units: BIT applies a deep understanding of human behaviour to help clients achieve their goals. Challenge Works designs and runs challenge prizes to spark innovation in science, technology and society. Find out more at nesta.org.uk