Playgroup Participation and Social Support Outcomes for Mothers of Young Children: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

Hancock, Kirsten; Cunningham, Nadia K.; Lawrence, David; Zarb, David; Zubrick, Stephen R.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0133007

Cited by 41 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…4 Results of quantitative studies of playgroup participation have shown associations with positive social and emotional development for children 5 and social support for parents. 6 This is relevant to health promotion, given the groundswell of evidence for the importance of social support for both physical and mental well being. 7 Playgroups can also be good settings for the successful health promotion of maternal physical activity interventions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local community playgroup participation and associations with social capital

Strange

Bremner

Fisher

et al. 2016

Health Prom J of Aust

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Issue addressed The study aim was to investigate the relationships between social capital measures and playgroup participation in a local residential area for parents with children of playgroup age (1-4 years) compared with non-participation and participation in a playgroup outside the local residential area. Research indicates playgroup participation has benefits for families, however, less is known about the potential local community social capital for parents who participate in playgroups. Methods Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey from March 2013 to January 2014 in Perth, Western Australia. The data from a group of parents (n=405) who had at least one child aged between 1 and 4 years were analysed using multivariable regression. Reported playgroup participation (local, outside the area or non-participation) in the previous 12 months was investigated for associations with three measures (Neighbourhood Cohesion Index, Social Capital and Citizenship Survey and local reciprocity) that capture attributes of social capital. Results Participation in playgroup locally was generally associated with higher levels of social capital than both participation in playgroup outside the local area and non-participation. Mothers with two or more children fared better for social capital measures than mothers with one child. Conclusions Participation in a locally placed playgroup may provide an important opportunity for families with children of playgroup age (1-4 years) to build social capital in their local community. So what? Playgroups in a family's local area have the potential to foster locally placed social capital through community interaction, social networks and cohesion, which are important for mental health promotion in communities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local community playgroup participation and associations with social capital

Strange

Bremner

Fisher

et al. 2016

Health Prom J of Aust

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“…Families experiencing disadvantage have been overrepresented in reports of low fruit and vegetable consumption, reliance on sweet drinks and snacks, concerns about risks of active play and confusion about the role of electronic screen use for language development and education . Key messages promoting child health may be new to parents not attending the scheduled MCH visits, ‘new parent’ groups or other health services …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Confident and Understanding Parents (CUPs) – a child nutrition and active play pilot intervention for disadvantaged families attending Supported Playgroups in Victoria, Australia

Myers

Riggs

Lee

et al. 2019

Health Prom J of Aust

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Issue addressed Health and nutrition inequalities are prevalent among families from socio‐economically disadvantaged backgrounds. However, there is limited evidence of targeted early childhood nutrition and active play approaches due to the methodological challenges in engaging vulnerable families in research. Methods The aim of this paper was to report findings from a pilot intervention called Confident and Understanding Parents (CUPs). CUPs aims to improve child nutrition and active play‐related outcomes for children in vulnerable families. The intervention was delivered in six Supported Playgroups (SPs) in two disadvantaged locations in Victoria. Surveys incorporated knowledge and confidence measures and were administered pre‐ and post‐training of SP facilitators along with pre‐, immediately post and and 3 months postintervention to SP facilitators and parents. Qualitative data were collected via debriefing discussions with SP facilitators and ethnographic observations during SP sessions. Thematic analyses of qualitative data and statistical quantitative analyses were conducted. Results Nine SP facilitators completed training, of whom six delivered CUPs in SPs with 64 parents of children aged 0 to 4 years from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Forty‐three parents (66%) attended a minimum of 50% of SP sessions with CUPs delivery. SP facilitators and parents demonstrated improved knowledge and confidence following the pilot. Learnings for implementation were identified. Conclusion Overall, the CUPs intervention reached and engaged vulnerable families. A strength of the intervention is the flexibility offered to SP facilitators in selecting key messages and the strong focus on “local” translation of key child nutrition and active play messages within existing early childhood settings. A further strength was the adaptation of evaluation methodology to optimise the engagement of vulnerable families. So what? This pilot study provides insights about engaging vulnerable families in a nutrition and active play intervention to promote child health. These promising findings warrant further implementation and rigorous evaluation of CUPs.

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“…Non-randomized evaluations of playgroups in Australia have also found positive effects on measures of school readiness (Gregory et al 2016, Hancock et al 2015. To our knowledge, our evaluation is the first randomized evaluation of play-based activities that are "community-led" in the sense that the activities are supported by community leaders and all participants including facilitators are community volunteers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Intervening at Home and Then at School: A Randomized Evaluation of Two Approaches to Improve Early Educational Outcomes in Tonga

Macdonald

Brinkman²,

Jarvie

et al. 2018

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This paper evaluates and compares two randomized interventions in Tonga, one targeting the home environment of children up to age 5 and one targeting the school environment for first and second grade students. The first intervention supports communities to set up and run playgroups that aim to improve caregiver-child interaction at home and ultimately improve children's readiness for school. Among children of mothers without high school education, being in a treatment community positively affects the school readiness literacy domains and overall score by 0.19 and 0.2 standard deviation, respectively, for girls and the literacy domains for boys by 0.17 standard deviation. The second intervention provides teachers with training, materials, and coaching to improve reading instruction practices and students' reading ability. It increased average early grade reading scores by approximately 0.18 standard deviation per year of exposure. Two cohorts of children were potentially exposed to both interventions, providing an opportunity to compare, for the same population of children, the effects of an early childhood intervention with a school-based intervention using a common measure of learning achievement. The school readiness intervention is found to have positive effects on early grade reading scores only among children in the reading intervention's control group; effect sizes of approximately 0.29 standard deviation were found at the end of second grade for children exposed to one year of the school readiness intervention and at the end of first grade for girls exposed to two years of the intervention. This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/research. The authors may be contacted at tvu@worldbank.org.

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Playgroup Participation and Social Support Outcomes for Mothers of Young Children: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

Cited by 41 publications

References 30 publications

Local community playgroup participation and associations with social capital

Local community playgroup participation and associations with social capital

Confident and Understanding Parents (CUPs) – a child nutrition and active play pilot intervention for disadvantaged families attending Supported Playgroups in Victoria, Australia

Intervening at Home and Then at School: A Randomized Evaluation of Two Approaches to Improve Early Educational Outcomes in Tonga

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