Integrated parenting and financial wellbeing support

<ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Background </ns3:bold> </ns3:p> <ns3:p>Almost one in three children in the UK lives in poverty, which is harmful in lots of ways and damages children’s health. Family Hubs and charities support families that face money difficulties. This is called financial support. Other organisations teach people about parenting through parenting programmes. Financial support and parenting support are usually provided separately to parents. We know that some families could benefit from both things, so we wanted to find out whether combining financial support and parenting support could help children and families. </ns3:p> <ns3:p/> <ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Methods </ns3:bold> </ns3:p> <ns3:p> To find this out we: <ns3:list list-type="bullet"> <ns3:list-item> <ns3:p>Interviewed designers of parenting programmes, staff in Family Hubs and people who offer financial advice about our idea of combining financial and parenting support. </ns3:p> </ns3:list-item> <ns3:list-item> <ns3:p>Looked for published research to see if financial and parenting support had been combined before. </ns3:p> </ns3:list-item> <ns3:list-item> <ns3:p>Worked with a local Council to find out whether they collected information that would be useful if we wanted to test a new programme that combined financial and parenting support. </ns3:p> </ns3:list-item> </ns3:list> </ns3:p> <ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Key findings </ns3:bold> </ns3:p> <ns3:p>Staff in Family Hubs thought providing financial and parenting support together was a good idea but were concerned about knowing enough about each topic and about whether families would feel they were being judged. Designers of parenting programmes were concerned about how easy it would be to add financial support to existing programmes and what it would mean for staff training.</ns3:p> <ns3:p/> <ns3:p>We found 11 programmes combining financial and parenting support, but none were tested in the UK. </ns3:p> <ns3:p/> <ns3:p>We learned the information that Councils collect is very complicated and we couldn’t use it to test a new programme. </ns3:p> <ns3:p/> <ns3:p> <ns3:bold>Conclusions </ns3:bold> </ns3:p> <ns3:p>A parenting programme that includes financial support would be useful. It is important that we work with people who support families and with parents to create a new combined programme so that it works well and is relevant to the parents that use it.</ns3:p>