Family Links dba
Family Nurturing Center of England
www.familylinks.org.uk

About Us
Family Links, an Oxford-based charity, has the franchise for the Nurturing Programme in the UK. The organization trains professionals to run the Nurturing Programme in various settings. This emotional health and wellbeing programme for adults and children is delivered in the following ways:

• 10-week parenting groups;
• one-to-one with parents and their children;
• whole school programme for staff and children.

A core part of the Nurturing Programme is an invitation to parents, carers and teachers to address their own needs. When adults are emotionally secure it is easier to get the best out of the children in their care. Family Links is a national UK charity established in 1997 with offices in Oxford and Hull.

Programme Impact
Parent Group Leaders around the country have been giving parents before and after questionnaires to gain empirical evidence on the Nurturing Programme’s efficacy. They include the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to measure child behaviour, and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) to measure parental emotional wellbeing. Over the summer Oxford University graduate student Sean Grant analysed the first set of WEMWBS data that was provided by 231 parents. Improvements were statistically significant. Using population scores from a Scottish national data set, in the period of time from starting to completing the parent group, these parents improved on average from scores better than 16% of the population to scores better than 43% of the population.

Depending on the statistics used, this equates to a "medium to large effect." We had usable SDQ data on 360 children. Improvements were again statistically significant. Using data from 5-10 year-old British children as a comparison, in the period of time from their parent/carer starting to completing the parent group, these children improved on average from scores better than 13% of the children to scores better than 19% of the children. Depending on the statistics used, this equates to a "small to medium effect" and represents an average improvement from borderline behaviour (moderate risk) to normal behaviour (no risk). As we get more completed questionnaires in, we are building up a more and more reliable data set, so we are grateful to all the parent group leaders who continue to send completed questionnaires to us. A full report of data analyzed till now will be published soon - see our website for more details.