Supporting low-income families to give children a better start for Social Mobility Commission

Children’s most formative years come early, between birth and five. The Social Mobility Commission (SMC) aims to encourage parents from low-income backgrounds to adopt activities and approaches that prove most impactful for their
child’s development during this window.

The parents and families SMC support can be hard to reach, at risk of social immobility, deprivation and low literacy. With so much on their plate, how can we best help them support their child’s early development? SMC partnered with us to
devise a campaign to answer these challenges.

Desk research and expert interviews revealed existing campaigns striving to achieve the same aims. We cautioned that adding to this risked duplication, and then being lost in the noise.

Instead we recommend a targeted, community-led approach partnering with grassroots organisations, sharing the knowledge of ‘what works’ in child development, and co-designing solutions for local circumstances.

The idea is to work with parents to discover how to communicate the right messages in the right way so families are supported to chat, read and play with their babies and toddlers – putting them on a level playing field with their peers when they start
school.

Local pilots of the idea will help us find out what works and, from there, to replicate and upscale to reach across the country.