STRategies for the Identification, enrolment, attendance and retention of families into parenting interVentions in Early life (STRIVE)

Background

Socially disadvantaged children living in England experience poorer health, wellbeing, and developmental delays, leading to worse educational attainment and fewer life opportunities. There are high costs to the public purse upstream if poor outcomes are not prevented or treated during childhood.

Early intervention can improve children’s health and development and reduce inequalities. ‘Parenting’ is a strong causal influence and is amenable to intervention. Parenting interventions have an extensive evidence base with positive impacts on parenting skills and knowledge in addition to child outcomes. Yet, disadvantaged families are less likely to access, or complete, parent interventions, with retention rates as low as 40%. Parenting interventions could be unintentionally increasing inequalities.

The Better Start Bradford initiative commissioned >20 early years interventions to enhance health outcomes for disadvantaged and ethnic minority children in inner-city areas of Bradford. Various Identification, Engagement,Access, and Retention (I-EAR) strategies were used across interventions and time. STRIVE will identify the most promising, or effective, strategies for disadvantaged families in Bradford and then work with 4-5 LAs to explore whether they can be implemented, and are useful, in other areas across England.

Our Project

STRIVE aims to improve access to parenting interventions for disadvantaged and ethnically diverse parents by sharing and testing our learning from over 10 years (2014-2024) working with Better Start Bradford in other areas across England.

Our main objectives:

Aim: To build and mobilise an evidence base for strategies that effectively improve engagement (identification and referral, enrolment, attendance, retention) of disadvantaged families in parenting interventions, in order to reduce child health inequalities. The project will be delivered across two and half years, with three phases and seven work packages (WP). The objectives are:

Phase one
1. Develop a framework of engagement strategies used in Better Start Bradford and explore perspectives on impact and acceptability (WP1)
2. Evaluate the impact of strategies on engagement outcomes (WP2)
3. Evaluate tools to identify parents (WP3)
4. Analyse costs and consequences of all strategies (WP4).

Phase two
5. Translate WP1-4 findings into co-produced recommendations and prioritise engagement strategies for further evaluation (WP5).

Phase three
6. Explore effectiveness, implementation and cost consequences of up to 3 strategies in sites across England (WP6).

All phases
7. Maximise the impact of STRIVE via ongoing, systematic process of dissemination and active knowledge mobilisation (WP7).

The research is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and led by Dr Sarah Blower, in collaboration with researchers at the Bradford Institute for Health Research.

To contact us about the project, please email strive-project@york.ac.uk

The research is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) (NIHR169769). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

Funding
Members

Funding

Funder(s):	National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) (NIHR169769)
Start Date:	March 2026
Expiry Date:	August 2030

Members

Internal Staff

External partners

Sara Ahern (Bradford Institute for Health Research)
Josie Dickerson (Bradford Institute for Health Research)
Sahid Islam (Bradford Institute for Health Research)
Adal Qureshi (Public co-applicant)