A Review of My Baby and Me Pilot Project 2013-2015

Clare Family Learning Project is involved and provides resources around family learning approaches. ‘A Review of My Baby and Me Pilot Project 2013-2015’ is a result of the organisation responded to a request by a funder to develop and evaluate a course targeting priority mothers and their babies. On gathering information from various stakeholders a My Baby and Me course was developed. Parents attended with their young baby avoiding the need for childcare. The course stressed the importance of the parent’s role in helping very young children’s oral language, storytelling and future reading skills. It was felt that waiting until children reached pre-school may be too late. A free high quality book was provided to each family at each class. Ten courses were delivered between autumn 2013 and July 2015 reaching 54 parents in three locations. Evaluations show parents did not realise they played such an important educational role in their children’s lives and many changed their behaviour as a result: visiting the library, spending more time reading together and being more conscious of talking together. The pilot project showed that mothers wanted to learn more and were eager to help their children