The Future of Family Services - report

The Family and Childcare Trust wants government to commit to an early years strategy and for parents to be involved in this..

Recruited and trained by the Family and Childcare Trust, four groups of parent researchers from across the country spoke to nearly 500 parents to understand what families need and want from early years services.

 Parents said they most value services where they could take part in activities with their child, such as stay and play groups. These were seen as opportunities for children to development and for parents to learn new skills and strengthen their sense of community.

They talked about:

• finding it difficult to access good quality services
• online information was not always up to date
• parents often reported that they had not used a service locally because they did not know it was available.