The Families Connect Programme Has Moved!
Since August 2026 the Families Connect Programme has moved to another organisation - Peeple. This means that all information, guidance and training for Families Connect need to be sourced through Peeple using their website, or via their Training & Support Team:
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
Tel: 01865 397970
After developing the Programme in 2014 and an amazing 10 years of delivering the Programme in schools and communities across the UK, Save the Children decided that the time was right to hand it over to another organisation who can take it forward, build on the work we have done and ensure it has a long-term home
Peeple shares our values and principles, and has a strong track record of supporting children and families through training professionals to deliver a range of innovative and evidence-based programmes helping to best support children. We are pleased to have partnered with Peeple in this transition and we're excited to see Families Connect continue to flourish and grow into the future.
Whilst the programme has now moved to Peeple, we remain very proud the work and journey of Families Connect and the impact it has made for children across the UK. Below are some resources, papers and information on the development of the programme and its impact.
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPACT OF FAMILIES CONNECT
After initial development of the programme in 2014 various internal and external evaluations were conducted to examine the design and impact of the programme, each of which informed the overall evidence-based approach. Detail of the various evaluations and reports can be found below.
RANDOMISED CONTROL TRIAL
To build on the emerging evidence base from our internal evaluations, Save the Children sought funding from the Nuffield Foundation to partner with NFER and Queens University Belfast to undertake an independent randomised controlled trial and implementation evaluation of Families Connect. This was designed to build on previous promising findings, to strengthen our understanding of the programme’s impact on parent and child outcomes and identify where the programme could be strengthened and improved, along with continual delivery feedback and review. Our aim was to advance our collective understanding, as a sector, of how best to support parental engagement and children’s early learning.
Thirty-one schools from disadvantaged areas across the UK (England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland) delivered Families Connect as part of the independent evaluation. A total of 499 children aged four to six from 483 families took part. The evaluation found that Families Connect increases parental engagement in children’s learning, improves parental skills, and improves aspects of children's social and emotional development.
We produced a briefing document to accompany the full report, which provides an overview of the evaluation findings and sets out our approach for developing Families Connect and priorities for future research, policy and practice.
You can view the full report and the executive summary.
Lord, P., Rennie, C., Smith, R., Gildea, A., Tang, S., Miani, G., Styles, B. and Bradley, C. (2020). Randomised Controlled Trial Evaluation of Families Connect. NFER, Slough.
Save the Children would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation and all those who conducted the evaluation and compiled the report at NFER and Queen’s University Belfast.
The project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation. Visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org.
Impact for Families Living with Disadvantage
We were interested in exploring in more depth the relationship between social disadvantage and the parent and child outcomes of the programme. We expanded on the previous study by including a broader definition of social disadvantage and a wider range of outcomes to explore how the programme might be experienced differently by those living in social disadvantage.
This learning paper builds on our findings from the original evaluation, providing us with a more detailed understanding of the relationship between families living in social disadvantage and key outcomes of the Families Connect programme.
Some of our key findings include:
- Parent self-efficacy, their confidence and skills in supporting their children’s learning, are critical to supporting a positive home learning environment.
- Social disadvantage was found to negatively impact on children’s numeracy skills and families’ home learning environments.
- Families Connect was more impactful on the home learning environment (measured immediately after the programme) for families on lower incomes and those eligible for free school meals.
Sharing Learning
In 2021, we shared evidence and practice from the independent evaluation of Save the Children’s Families Connect programme: Read a summary of the independent evaluation of Families Connect.
