Nesta has recently identified that there is a need for more up-to-date information about impactful programmes that support parenting and the home learning environment (HLE), to help inform local commissioners’ decisions when identifying suitable programmes for their family hubs that will meet the government target of 75% of children having a good level of development by 2028. 

To help with this, we are conducting a rapid critical assessment of evaluations of parenting and HLE programmes, with a view to identifying all programmes available in the UK that have robust evidence of impact, particularly those suitable for targeting families with children aged three to four years.

The review will support the Department for Education’s (DfE) development of two menus of interventions for use by local authorities: one for parenting programmes and one for HLE programmes. This will help ensure that funding is directed towards evidence-based, effective programmes most likely to support progress towards achieving the good level of development target. 

Nesta and the DfE family hubs team have a shared interest in making sure that commissioners of programmes to support parenting and the HLE have access to the most up-to-date information about effective programmes available in the UK.

To support this goal, Nesta is planning to conduct a rapid critical appraisal of evidence about programmes that support parenting and the home learning environment. This rapid exercise will aim to supplement and update information about these programmes, which is currently found in the Foundations Guidebook. The findings from the critical appraisal will inform the DfE’s future planning and delivery of the family hubs programme as it continues to evolve, including anticipated developments beyond 2025. 

Evaluations in scope to be included in the rapid critical appraisal include those that meet all of the following criteria: 

• Not already included in the Foundations Guidebook; or previously rated as Level 2 in the Guidebook with new or additional evidence available.
• Studies of programmes that support parenting and the home learning environment, which are suitable for three and four year olds.
• Programmes that support socioemotional, behavioural or cognitive outcomes for children (including language and communication, parent-child interactions and play).
• Randomised controlled trials (or a sufficiently rigorous quasi-experimental design, such as regression discontinuity or difference-in-differences)

Nesta will use the same programme assessment check-list developed by Foundations to structure our review, to enable as much alignment as possible with assessments of programmes already included in the Foundations Guidebook. Through this process we will aim to identify additional parenting and HLE programmes that meet Foundations’ definition of having evidence of efficacy: “interventions with evidence of a short-term positive impact from at least one rigorous evaluation study – that is, where a judgement about causality can be made. The evaluation should demonstrate a statistically significant positive impact on at least one child outcome” (see the Foundations Technical Guide).

If you have evaluation evidence about a parenting or HLE programme that you would like Nesta to consider as part of this rapid critical appraisal exercise, please forward it to [email protected] by midnight on Wednesday 27 August 2025.

Everyone who submits evidence to the call for evidence will receive a written response confirming whether the programme evaluation meets the criteria for demonstrating evidence of efficacy (as defined above). If the evidence submitted does not meet the criteria, applicants will be given feedback about which criteria were not met.

If additional information is then provided by an applicant within one week, Nesta will evaluate this additional information and notify the applicant of their decision.

Nesta will lead this review and decision-making process independently. The DfE will use the findings from Nesta’s review to inform the development of menus of parenting and HLE interventions. Inclusion on these menus will be DfE’s decision, based on a range of factors including, but not limited to, Nesta’s assessment of evidence. The menu is intended to support local authorities in identifying suitable programmes for their best start family hubs; local authorities will remain responsible for procuring programmes and making commissioning decisions. This work is being carried out independently of the work to update the Foundations Guidebook; programmes assessed as part of this exercise may be added to the Foundations Guidebook in future.

While this call for evidence is currently planned as a time-limited exercise, the DfE is exploring options for how the menu will be maintained and updated over time. Further details about this process will be shared in due course.