Pen Green Centre for Under Fives and Families

Barriers at the service / practitioner level

• Poor communication and relationship skills on the part of practitioners, such as using jargon, 'talking down' to parents and behaving like the expert.
• Lack of practitioner knowledge about the importance of parental involvement.
• Lack of practitioner confidence and skills to work with parents.
• Services not tailored to parents' needs, level of knowledge or circumstances.
• Practitioner resistance to parental involvement and negative attitudes towards parents.
• Location of settings, unwelcoming venues and inadequate transport.
• Staff unrepresentative of the parents they are trying to reach e.g. low numbers of male role models in the workforce is a barrier to engaging fathers.
• Lack of funding and capacity.

Barriers at the parent level

Experiences and beliefs

• Poor experiences of education or services, leading to negative attitudes and lack of trust on the part of parents.
• Fear of being judged as a failing parent.
• Past or ongoing experience of discrimination.
• Low value placed on education.
• Beliefs about keeping children at home until they are old enough to start school.

Life factors

• Work pressures and working long hours or unpredictable work patterns.
• Inflexible timing of services.
• Lack of childcare.
• Stressful lives and circumstances e.g. poverty, mental health, single parenthood, disability, illness, family transience.

Knowledge

• Lack of knowledge about brain development in the first three years
• Not understanding the difference they can make to their child's development.
• Lack of confidence and knowledge about how to be involved.
• Inappropriate expectations of children's development.
• Lack of knowledge about local services or opportunities.
• Own literacy and numeracy levels poor.
• Lack of confidence in English if it is not their first language.