Barnsley’s Integrated Family Hub Parenting Offer

Barnsley’s Family Hub network works across the borough to ensure families receive the right support in the right place at the right time. A central part of the Family Hubs offer is support for parents. The approach is rooted in the belief that stronger parent–child relationships lead to better outcomes for children, and that early support should be available in familiar, local settings, without judgement.

This vision is delivered through an integrated parenting offer, combining Family Hubs with school-based delivery and evidence-based programmes from The Centre for Emotional Health. These programmes focus on skills like empathy, appropriate expectations, and positive discipline, helping parents build secure relationships in everyday family life.

Since January 2024, there have been 2,160 attendances at these programmes, with 21 programmes delivered through Family Hubs from December 2024 – April 2025. Nearly a quarter of attendees are male parents/carers, and the largest proportion of parents are aged 30-39.

Barnsley includes areas of high deprivation: around 22% of local neighbourhoods fall within the most deprived 10% nationally. Child poverty also remains a central challenge, with around 31% of children living below the poverty line, among the higher rates in Yorkshire and the Humber. Poverty, in turn, increases pressures on family relationships and children’s health and development.

Barnsley’s Public Health Report 2024 emphasised tackling these inequalities early, with Family Hubs highlighted as a crucial way to join up early help from pregnancy onwards.

Against this backdrop, Barnsley has set out to make an accessible, relational parenting offer that can create a universal pathway for families at every stage of their child’s life.

Barnsley’s Family Hubs deliver a universal parenting offer with core programmes from The Centre for Emotional Health embedded in the approach:

• Welcome to the World (from 24 weeks of pregnancy to newborn)
• Parenting Puzzle Workshop (0-4 years)
• The Nurturing Programme (3-10 years)
• Talking Teens (11-18 years)

To extend parenting support beyond Family Hubs, Barnsley has launched a borough-wide school project aimed at training at least one practitioner in every school or early years setting to deliver a core programme by The Centre for Emotional Health.

So far, 35 schools have been trained, enabling delivery in both primary and secondary settings, and improving transition links between secondary schools and their feeder primaries. This approach reflects research by the Education Endowment Foundation (2021) showing that parental engagement in schools can lead to, on average, four months’ additional progress for children.

Barnsley also made The Nurturing Programme content more accessible by offering it through the shorter Parenting Puzzle Workshop delivery in schools, recognising that some parents may not feel comfortable in a Family Hub. Engagement was supported by clear processes: register-of-interest forms, information sessions, 1-to-1 meetings with senior leadership teams, pre-training catchups, school-based meetings, and termly network events. School-based programme delivery was supported by additional support meetings, ready-to-go promotional and communication materials, delivery resources, and co-delivery arrangements between school staff and Family Hub practitioners.

Across programme delivery, processes needed clarity, which were supported by updated guidance documents and quality-assurance checks. In a saturated market, Welcome to the World benefited from clearer communication to parents (including how it differs from standard antenatal classes) alongside additional staff awareness training. The Parenting Puzzle Workshop saw better attendance when a crèche was provided and when it was promoted to parents of individual early years settings.

Barnsley’s new school project brought practical hurdles too: varying school capacities, last-minute changes to training schedules, different uptake across services, and the coordination time required. Despite these challenges, there were visible gains when the model was bedded in; a whole multi-academy trust approach, stronger school-to-school links, and integration with Barnsley’s Early Help Assessment framework.

Barnsley’s Family Hub programmes have had a measurable effect on both bonding and parenting confidence.

For parents taking part in Welcome to the World, MAAS (Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale) evaluation results show significant improvements in connection with their unborn baby:

•Parents reporting very/mainly positive feelings about the baby: 92% → 100%
•Parents who can picture the developing baby in their mind: 35% → 67%
•Parents saying their thoughts are always loving and tender: 80% → 100%
•Parents feeling very happy when thinking about the baby: 60% → 80%
•Parents feeling very emotionally close to the baby: 88% → 100%

Meanwhile, for those attending The Nurturing Programme, TOPSE (Tool to measure Parenting Self-Efficacy) results show score gains in confidence and emotional understanding:

Understanding why a child is sad: 7.0 → 8.2
•Planning enjoyable activities for their child: 7.5 → 8.75
•Getting their child to listen: 7.2 → 8.7
•Putting themselves in their child’s shoes: 7.7 → 9.0
•Reasoning with their child: 6.5 → 8.6

Together, these shifts point to stronger antenatal bonding and day-to-day parenting skills that support calmer, more nurturing family life.

Barnsley’s parenting offer now pairs the reach of Family Hubs and schools with evidence-based programmes from The Centre for Emotional Health. Training embedded in trusted local settings means parents can access support in familiar places, and evaluation shows meaningful shifts in skills, confidence, and familial relationships.

A priority for the future is to expand the offer to reach younger parents, including those in the teenage age group, who can be harder to engage in face-to-face support due to concerns about stigma. This will build on Barnsley’s strong base of school and community delivery, ensuring that even those least likely to attend traditional group sessions have a route into early support.

Barnsley also takes part in The Centre for Emotional Health’s Learning Partnerships collaboration, meeting with other local authorities to share best practice and to compare impact data within a peer-support network—strengthening quality and consistency over time.

Barnsley’s model continues to grow, with seven school-based programmes scheduled in the term following this evaluation.

Aimee Glarvey - Parent Education Manager, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
Email: [email protected]