Among the facilitators recruited and trained in the three local authorities, we had capacity to work with 40 families in cycle one. This number of families was initially allocated to facilitators in their local area (20 in Derby, 15 in Shropshire and 5 in Cumberland), although not all of these parents went on to start the programme.

Of these 40 parents allocated:

• 21 (52.5%) met our target criteria of having a household income of below £25,000, receiving benefits or an educational attainment level of A-level or under. If this remains as a targeted intervention, we would like to work more with service providers in future cycles to identify referral routes to access target parents we think are most likely to benefit.
• For the 29 parents who provided demographic information relating to racial and ethnic backgrounds:
  • 23 parents identified as White British (79.3%)
  • 4 identified as Asian (13.7%)
  • 2 identified as being from another white racial or ethnic background (6.8%). 
• 39 of the parents were female and 1 was male.

Despite initial high interest, many parents dropped out before starting the programme. Once parents started programme content, engagement was higher.

Of the 40 families who were initially allocated to a facilitator:

• 29 (72.5%) completed the baseline assessment (15 in Derby, 10 in Shropshire, 4 in Cumberland)
• 24 went on to have a welcome call with their facilitator (60%)
• 19 completed at least one book-sharing skills session (47.5%). 

This shows that over half of the parents disengaged before starting the content of the programme (reasons shown in Figures 1 and 2).

Once parents had started the programme content (skills session one) engagement was higher, with 13 of the 19 (68.4%) completing at least one check-in call, and 11 (57.9%) ‘completing’ the programme (based on ‘completion’ criteria of three skills sessions and two check-in calls). It is interesting to note that once a parent completed their first check-in call with their facilitator, they were highly likely to continue to upload clips for all three calls (84.6%), (indicating their intention to have all the calls) and likely to go on to complete all three calls (69.2%).

Of the 11 who completed (2 in Derby, 6 in Shropshire and 3 in Cumberland), 3 (27.2%) parents met our target criteria.

Diagrams showing parent engagement throughout the programme for both the skills sessions and video calls will be included in the final report.

Parents disengaged at different times and for different reasons. Their engagement in the Playtime with Books programme may have been lower than we expected for a range of reasons: 

• Administrative burden on the parent: taking part in a research study meant parents had additional steps to complete (such as forms collecting demographic information, pre- and post-surveys, and language measurement), which may have caused some to disengage at the welcome section.
• Administrative burden on the parent: taking part in a research study meant parents had additional steps to complete (such as forms collecting demographic information, pre- and post- surveys, and language measurement), which may have caused some to disengage at the welcome section.
• Changes in parents’ circumstances: this meant they could not commit the required time to the programme.
• Initial interest: this may have been mismatched to the level of commitment required to complete the programme.
• Type of programme: an online version may have been less attractive (or accessible) to some parents compared with an in-person one - though for many parents we speculate that online may be more attractive.