A report on parental insights

• All Wales/National

This report brings together a summary of the key findings from activities designed to capture parental insights into the experiences and needs of families with young children in Wales.

It includes a review of existing grey literature alongside in-depth parental views, opinions and feedback gathered through an illustrative and informal consultation process.

The term ‘parents’ is used inclusively to refer to mothers, fathers, prospective parents (pregnant people), grandparents, foster and adoptive parents, or anyone with parental responsibility.

The insight gathered, as detailed in this report, has been used to inform the development of an Early Years Framework for Action, ensuring a more responsive and inclusive approach to framework development. We also hope however that these insights may also be used to help inform other or future programmes of work, helping to align early years policy and practice with the needs and preferences of families with young children in Wales.

Background

Wales has a strong and longstanding policy ambition to give every child the best start in life however inequalities arise early and persist throughout children’s lives. The Early Years Framework for Action project was established to help bridge the gap between this policy ambition and its practical implementation. The Framework has been developed to drive improvements across the Welsh early years system by identifying the key components of an effective system and defines what good looks like for babies, children and their families.

Aim

This work aims to bring together parental insights to inform our understanding of families’ experiences of the early years, including what the best start in life means for parents and what support they feel is needed. It also aims to test the key components of the framework with parents and seeks their feedback and suggestions on the proposed direction of framework development.

The findings from this work have been used to inform the planning, design and development of the Early Years Framework for Action.