Charity seeks new parents for major study

Original Source

By Staff reporter

The Lifestart Foundation – the umbrella group for Lifestart projects throughout the North West and Ireland – is looking to recruit local families onto a major new study which will help improve the support offered by the organisation to new parents.

Lifestart – which currently operates projects locally in Ballymagroarty/ Hazelbank, Limavady, Strabane, Lifford and Newtowncunningham – provides an educational programme on child development to parents of children aged from birth to five.

Once a month trained family visitors visit parents and children in their homes with age appropriate development fact sheets as well as an array of learning materials – such as age appropriate toys and arts and crafts materials – to guide new parents through those often trying early years.

The new study, funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies and facilitated by the Institute of Child Care Research and the School of Education at Queen’s University, Belfast – is aiming to assess the effectiveness of the programme as well as helping to develop the project further for future generations.

Unlike the traditional programme the study will be delivered in two groups – one will receive the Lifestart programme and a control group will not. However all participants will receive some support and advice on their child’s development and will be visited by researchers three times during a five year period – once when they join the programme, once when their child is two years old and once when they are five.

The only pre-requisite to taking part in the study is that you have a child under one years old, or if you are expecting a baby before the end of March.

To take part in the study or to find out more about Lifestart, you can call (from the North) 0800 0855 031, (From the Republic of Ireland) 1800 818 688 or text ‘Lifestart Study’ to 07870509677.