Literacy news
Children’s centres urged to put greater focus on parents to reduce inequalities
12 Jul 2012
The Institute of Health Inequalities has unveiled guidance to help children's centres and local authorities support children's development by focusing more on parenting and improving parent's lives.
In the beginning of this year, the Institute's annual indicators for health inequalities showed large disparities in children's development across England, with an average of just 59 per cent of children reaching a good level of development by five.
Kamini Gadhok, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and a member of the Institute’s advisory board for the guidance, said that the impact of parents’ relationships with their child and parental circumstances were crucial to child development. She said:
There are frameworks that support the child’s individual development, such as the Early Years Foundation Stage, but less has been done on the parents' contribution. A child is very much affected by the parenting skills of their primary carers. This framework gives an opportunity to children’s centres to focus their efforts on engaging parents and to develop those parents’ skills.
The Institute’s guidance underlines three main areas: health and development; interaction between parent and child; and the influence of parents’ life circumstances.
