Evidence-based parenting support is one of the most effective ways to improve outcomes for children and families. Foundations’ Deputy Chief Executive Donna Molloy OBE shares how we’ll be spotlighting evidence-based support for parents at the National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) ahead of the publication of a new Practice Guide, to support parents facing adversity, with children and teenagers aged between 11–18 years old.
This week Foundations is at the National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC), spotlighting our new Evidence into Practice offer, which aims to support local leaders to drive a key shift to evidence-based practice in line with current national reforms to Children’s Services.
As part of this work, we’ll be putting a spotlight on the importance of evidence-based parenting support – a key area of focus for us as the national What Works Centre for Children & Families. Parenting support is one of the most effective ways to improve outcomes for vulnerable children. Effective parenting programmes can help strengthen a family’s resilience when experiencing adversities and improve a range of both parent and child outcomes. These interventions can help parents build positive relationships with their children, as well as manage stresses and challenges, whilst improving parenting confidence. Investment in evidence-based parenting support should be a core priority to drive improvements across a range of social care, educational and health outcomes.
At Foundations, we’re committed to supporting local authorities to access and deliver effective parenting support for children and families across England. The Practice Guides – commissioned by the Department for Education and produced by Foundations – have already summarised the evidence on the impact of support for parents facing adversities with children aged 0–10, as well as for parents of disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs. Next week we will publish a new Practice Guide on parenting with a focus on support for parents facing adversities with children and young people aged 11 to 18 years old. This new Guide will fill a critical evidence gap for this cohort. This age brings unique challenges and ensuring parents have the right tools and support during these years is essential for improving outcomes such as challenging behaviour and to prevent risks from escalating.
Our next Practice Guide shows that parenting support and family therapies reduce behaviours that challenge and support emotional wellbeing among young people at risk of being placed in care. They can also reduce parental stress and support parental mental health. Parenting support can therefore play a crucial role as part of an effective local family help offer. They can also reduce parental stress and support parental mental health. Parenting support can therefore play a crucial role as part of an effective local family help offer.
But scaling up evidence-based interventions can be challenging, especially in a local context facing rising demand, limited budgets, and significant reforms. Although those working locally use different types of evidence routinely, there remains a gap between what we know works to improve outcomes and what is often available locally. Recent work by Nesta found that some of the most popular parenting interventions available and delivered in the UK do not have reliable evidence of effectiveness.
Building capacity to implement evidence-based interventions locally is crucial. This is why we recently launched our Evidence into Practice offer, which builds on Foundations’ long-standing work supporting local authorities to drive evidence-based decision-making and the implementation of interventions and approaches that have been shown to work. Through our Evidence into Practice offer, the suite of Practice Guides and the Foundations’ Guidebook (which make up our Toolkit), Foundations will work alongside local areas across England, supporting them to provide evidence-based, life-changing support to children, young people and families.
The latest Practice Guide, Parenting Through Adversity for Parents of Children & Young People 11–18 will launch on Wednesday 3 December 2025. Follow Foundations on X, LinkedIn or Bluesky and sign up to our newsletter for updates.