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Contact the study team using the details below to take part. If there are no contact details below please ask your doctor in the first instance.

Contact Information:

Dr Aideen Gildea
+44 (0) 28 9097 5193
a.gildea@qub.ac.uk


Dr Ben Styles


Ms Pippa Lord
+44 (0)1904 567633
p.lord@nfer.ac.uk


Dr Christine Bradley
+44 (0)20 7012 6400
C.Bradley@savethechildren.org.uk


More information about this study, what is involved and how to take part can be found on the study website.

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Be Part of Research - Trial Details - Can the Families Connect programme, which supports parents and children to learn together, improve children’s learning at school and in the home?
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Can the Families Connect programme, which supports parents and children to learn together, improve children’s learning at school and in the home?

Not Recruiting

Open to: All Genders

Age: Mixed

Slough London Belfast

Medical Conditions

This study is exploring the learning and social and emotional benefits of Families Connect on school children aged 4 to 6 years, and the capacity of parents' to engage with and support their child's learning.

This information is provided directly by researchers, and we recognise that it isn't always easy to understand. We are working with researchers to improve the accessibility of this information. In some summaries, you may come across links to external websites. These websites will have more information to help you better understand the study.


Families Connect is a parental engagement programme for families with children aged 4–6, delivered in schools across the UK. The programme involves parents and children, and uses play to encourage learning. It focuses on three key areas: social and emotional development, literacy and language development; and numeracy and mathematics. It aims to provide parents with confidence and skills to support their child’s learning, build relationships between parents and schools, and make a difference to children’s communication, literacy, numeracy and social and emotional outcomes.
This study aims to investigate how well Families Connect works in improving children's vocabulary, numeracy and social and emotional development, and parents' engagement in their children's learning. The study will also investigate children’s, parents’, teachers’ and school leaders’ views on the programme.

Start dates may differ between countries and research sites. The research team are responsible for keeping the information up-to-date.  

The recruitment start and end dates are as follows:

15 Sep 2018 10 Dec 2018

Publications

2021 Funder report results in https://www.nfer.ac.uk/randomised-controlled-trial-evaluation-of-families-connect/ (added 13/09/2021)

Families will be randomly allocated to one of two groups. One group will take part in Families Connect in the spring term 2019, and the other group will take part in Families Connect in the autumn term 2019.
Families Connect involves a set of 2-hour sessions in school over 8 weeks. There are eight sessions in total. The timings of the sessions are flexible to suit the families involved (for example, during school, after school or straddling the end of the school day). One hour of each session is for parents only; the other hour is for parents and children together. A snack and crèche facilities are usually provided.
Usually, two members of staff from the school will deliver the sessions. They will have been trained by Save the Children UK (SCUK) to do this. Staff from Save the Children UK (SCUK) will also visit the school to support some of the sessions.
Parents will complete a short questionnaire when they sign up to the trial, and again at the end of the term when they have participated in Families Connect. Each pupil will complete a short vocabulary assessment at the start of the trial – a test administrator will visit your child’s school to do this. Each pupil will then complete a short vocabulary assessment and a numeracy assessment at 8 weeks after the end of Families Connect, and again at 6 months after the end of the Families Connect programme– with a test administrator who will visit your child’s school to do this. Teachers will also complete a Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire for each pupil at the start, middle and end of the trial. This questionnaire collects special personal data, and will
only be used by researchers using IDs (no names will be attached to the file that researchers use). An attendance register will be completed for the 8-week programme. Parents and children may also be invited to take part in interviews about their experiences and views of the Families Connect programme. This will be with researchers from NFER or Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).


Families with a child or children in Reception or Year 1 in England and Wales, Y1/Y2 in Northern Ireland, and P1/P2 in Scotland, in the current school year (2018/19) can take part. Families must not have taken part in Families Connect before.

You can take part if:



You may not be able to take part if:


Families who have previously taken part in Families Connect with another child.


Below are the locations for where you can take part in the trial. Please note that not all sites may be open.

  • National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER)
    National Foundation for Educational Research The Mere, Upton Park Slough SL1 2DQ
    Slough
    SL1 2DQ
  • Save the Children UK (SCUK)
    1 St. John's Lane
    London
    EC1M 4AR
  • Queen's University Belfast (QUB)
    Queen’s University Belfast University Street Belfast BT7 1HL
    Belfast
    BT7 1HL

Families allocated to both groups will take part in Families Connect – just in different terms, so no one misses out. By taking part in the evaluation participants will be helping to find out if and how Families Connect helps children and parents, and how to develop the programme further for
other families in future. As a thank you for contributing to the study, families will receive from SCUK £20 for participating in the project (this is for families in both groups, and will be given out after the follow-up parent questionnaire at the end of the spring term 2019) and a book for each family.

Dr Christine Bradley
+44 (0)20 7012 6400
C.Bradley@savethechildren.org.uk


Dr Ben Styles


Ms Pippa Lord
+44 (0)1904 567633
p.lord@nfer.ac.uk


Dr Aideen Gildea
+44 (0) 28 9097 5193
a.gildea@qub.ac.uk



More information about this study, what is involved and how to take part can be found on the study website.


The study is sponsored by Nuffield Foundation and funded by Nuffield Foundation.



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Read full details for Trial ID: ISRCTN88158874
Last updated 13 September 2021

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