Early childhood is a critical period for development and life chances. Yet access to support services such as antenatal care, parenting help, and quality early education is often limited. Over 80% of parents report difficulty accessing these essential services, and the families who would most benefit from evidence-based parenting programmes are often missing out.

Nesta’s previous work has helped local areas in selecting evidence-based parenting programmes that are suited to their local needs. The parent engagement playbook focuses on the next step: increasing the number of parents who find, start, and complete these programmes. The playbook provides local authorities with practical, tested approaches to engage parents more effectively. 

We have designed a playbook that brings together evidenced-informed tactics to help practitioners strengthen parent engagement. The playbook draws on behavioural science, research evidence and insights from local authorities to strengthen local engagement, and focuses on the key stages of the parent journey - from first hearing about a programme, to signing up and continuing to attend.

It is designed for people working in local authorities who are responsible for delivery: those making decisions about how programmes are offered, promoted and supported.

We have now launched the playbook.

This is an alpha version, so we welcome any feedback. If you are a local area or programme developer and have case studies to contribute, please do contact us on [email protected].

The playbook brings together insights from a deep dive of the evidence alongside learning gathered from engagement with local authorities, practitioners, and programme developers. The playbook shows how much evidence is available for each recommended tactic.

Within the playbook, users can explore common barriers that prevent parents from engaging at each stage and identify practical, evidence-informed tactics that may help address them. These include approaches to improving awareness of programmes, reducing friction in sign-up processes, and supporting parents to continue attending sessions once they begin. 

Because the playbook is designed as a living resource, we will continue to refine and expand it over time. Future iterations will incorporate additional evidence, examples from local areas testing new approaches, and further case studies of what works to improve engagement in parenting programmes.

Through this project we set out to better understand why engagement with evidence-based parenting programmes is often low, and how local authorities can address these barriers in practice.

Our work confirmed that engagement challenges occur at multiple stages of the parent journey. Many parents are simply unaware that programmes exist, while others may feel that services are not designed for them, encounter barriers during referral or sign up, or struggle to continue attending sessions due to competing pressures. These barriers often accumulate, particularly for families who are already facing disadvantage.

The playbook provides a practical route to impact by helping local authorities apply evidence-informed tactics to increase the number of parents who find, start and complete parenting programmes. Increasing engagement with these programmes has the potential to strengthen parenting confidence, improve the home learning environment and support children’s social, emotional and cognitive development.

This work contributes directly to Nesta’s fairer start mission to break the link between family background and life chances. By supporting more families to access effective parenting support during the early years, the project aims to help more children develop the foundational skills they need to thrive when they start school.