Experiencing an Early Intervention Programme Targeting Communication and Literacy for Infants Living in a Socially Disadvantaged Community in Ireland

Background Let’s Grow Together! Infant & Childhood Partnerships (LGT) is a place-based prevention, promotion and intervention programme based in Cork city that supports early childhood development to mitigate the intergenerational impact of poverty. An innovative component of LGT is ‘Babbling Babies’ which offers parents an opportunity to meet a speech and language therapist (SLT) in coordination with their routine 9–11 month developmental check-up with a public health nurse (PHN). The programme explores how parents can support high-quality interaction opportunities to improve communication and early literacy in daily activities. Objective The aim of the study was to establish how feasible it is to measure the efficacy of the ‘ Babbling Babies’ . This paper focuses on parental and practitioner views and experiences with the programme. Method A research protocol was co-designed with the LGT team to evaluate the programme. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with families and practitioners to gather their experiences and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Results indicated that parents found the programme to be acceptable, felt reassured by the information provided and felt empowered to promote their own child’s communication development. The practitioners also valued the programme and the opportunities to collaborate with each other, but indicated a number of structural and systemic barriers that affected successful implementation. Conclusions The programme was acceptable and feasible for families and practitioners and the outcomes will contribute to future research on early interventions aimed to address the inequalities of growing up in socially disadvantaged communities in Ireland.