Baby Matterz

Work is being carried out with Liverpool City Council, The Learning Partnership, parents, health workers, the primary care trust and school pupils from 9 schools in a deprived area of Liverpool and 3 schools in Dorset on the development of a programme to support young teenage and vulnerable mothers in the community.

The project has involved parents bringing their babies (all aged under one year) into classrooms to talk to pupils about aspects of babies and their care. The aims are cross-curricular and are intended to promote pupil's social and emotional development.

Participating schools have invited a mother and their baby to become ‘attached' to a class of primary pupils, paying monthly visits to enable primary school children to learn about the physical and emotional needs of their babies, developing a deeper understanding of the process of nurturing and caring for siblings and the development of younger children. Teachers are supported by monthly content maps co-authored a wide range of internationally recognised experts in the field. Each map provides a wealth of background information on all aspects of babies' development month by month, as well as suggestions for lesson plans and pre and post-session activities.

Baby Matterz is an affordable, scaleable, local, community solution, which brings together all elements of early year's development into a community learning program centred on the primary school. This work is inspired by a Canadian project which has shown evidence of increased self-esteem in parents who are part of the scheme.

Key Benefits:

• Engaging children at an early age with a range of issues e.g. healthy eating, hygiene, safety around the home and perhaps most importantly, in the emotional and developmental needs of all young people. Why shouldn't we shout at babies? What do babies need most?

• The programme is also reaching a range of parents: early signs show success in reaching parents at different stages of development - i.e. new first time parents, experienced parents and future parents, engaging them with the school long before their babies will attend.

• Integration of services: The programme relies on pupils, members of the community, health agencies, children's centres, Local Authorities and schools all working together to one common goal, and breaks down barriers between different agencies.

• Materials to aid transference: This project is easily transferable and materials are being produced to support the implementation of the Baby Matterz programme in other schools.

Research / Evaluation:

Mark O'Brien, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Liverpool, was commissioned by The Innovation Unit to undertake some research on the Baby Matterz programme.

The core of the research programme consists of dialogues with parents to ascertain what the experience of being involved in Baby Matterz is for them.

Research Digest 1 was produced in April 2008 and can be downloaded here

Research Digest 2 was produced in May 2008 and can be downloaded here

Research Digest 3 was produced in June 2008 and can be downloaded here

Mark O'Brien has also written a paper which considers the extent to which the Millennium Cohort Study might be applicable to the Baby Matterz initiative either in its current form, or in some other remodelled form that might be implemented in future years. The paper can be downloaded here

Cost Benefit Analysis

The University of Liverpool has published a cost benefit analysis on Baby Matterz which can be downloaded here

Parents, babies and cross-agency working within schools

In an era of increasing collaboration between services, it is of particualr interest what we can learn about the inter-agency dynamics between education and health professionals. This research report, published in September 2008, draws on interviews conducted with professionals from both of these agencies.

The research report can be downloaded here.

Summary report

You can also download a summary report of the key themes that have emerged as a result of the Baby Matterz initiative. This report can be downloaded here.