We know that the early years are crucial for a child's development, yet not all children are reading a good level of development (GLD) in their Early Years Foundation Stage assessment. The government has committed to raising the number of children reaching a GLD at age five from 67.7% to 75% by 2028. Using evidence-based parenting programmes (EBPPs) is a key way that local authorities can help to strengthen family systems and improve outcomes for children. Nesta has recently designed a decision-making assistant to help simplify the complex process local authorities face when trying to identify the best programmes for their area.

However, there is a critical gap between the potential of these programmes and their real-world impact. Despite proven results in research settings, mainstream services often face chronic low awareness, low take-up, and high drop-out rates. This effectively means that the families who might benefit the most from these programmes are often missing out.

Our project, supporting local areas to engage parents, aims to help local authorities and family hubs in bridging this gap. We have conducted a comprehensive evidence review and are working with local authorities to understand their needs. We are now consolidating these insights into a practical, open ’tactics library’to help local areas diagnose present barriers to families’ engagement, and provide tailored evidence-informed tactics to address them.

We have completed a deep-dive review of the evidence to understand exactly why engagement fails. Our analysis moves away from viewing ’engagement’ as a single event. Instead, by capturing parents’ journeys with programmes, we have adopted a lifecycle model called the awareness, consideration, conversion and engagement (ACCE) parent pathway.

This pathway breaks the parent journey down into four distinct stages, allowing us to pinpoint exactly where families are dropping off:

• Awareness: Does the parent know the programme exists? We found that a primary barrier here is simply a lack of knowledge.
• Consideration: Is the parent thinking about joining? Barriers here are often around motivation, such as fear of judgement, stigma, or a belief that the programme "isn't for people like me".
• Conversion: Does the parent actually sign up? Parents may be lost at this part of the journey by obstacles such as complex referral forms, inconvenient timing, or lack of transport to where the programme is held.
• Engagement: Does the parent keep coming? Long-term attendance is often affected by a combination of parental stress, competing responsibilities, practical constraints and challenges in sustaining supportive relationships over time.

By applying a behavioural science lens through the COM-B (capability, opportunity, motivation - behaviour) model, we identified specific barriers that prevent parents from progressing to the next stage of engagement. By using tailored solutions to address these specific barriers, we can effectively engage parents throughout all stages of the pathway. 

We found that while some barriers are common, they may differ for specific communities. For example, fathers often perceive services as 'mother-centric' or lacking relevance to their specific role, while families from minoritised ethnic backgrounds may experience a cultural mismatch in group settings. The most significant challenges often arise from the cumulative effect of multiple, compounding barriers. It is often families who are facing the greatest pressures and may benefit most from the programmes that are available, that face multiple barriers in engagement.

We are currently using these findings to build a comprehensive library of evidence-informed tactics to increase parents’ engagement in parenting programmes. Some of the library’s key features will be: 

• An assessment of barriers along the ACCE parent pathway, unique to each local area, to support them in identifying why parents may not be engaging in the services that are on offer.
• Evidence-based tactics matched to specific barriers (such as using ’taster sessions’ to demystify programmes, or simplifying sign-up processes to reduce friction).
• Real-world case studies from local authorities who have successfully improved engagement.

Ultimately, the library will help local areas utilise the full potential of providing services. We will share the full library of tactics in February 2026. If you are interested in finding out more about the library in the meantime, please contact [email protected].