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Areas chosen to pilot parenting projects for the most socially excluded families will be announced shortly, social exclusion minister Hilary Armstrong told parliament yesterday.

As part of the government’s social exclusion action plan, ten parenting support projects led by health services will target families of children from pre-birth until age two.

Armstrong told the debate on social exclusion that 63 local authority and primary care trust partnerships had applied to pilot the scheme, which is based on the Nurse Family Partnership in the USA.

She said she had recently been the USA to see how the project worked and said the evaluation was “highly favourable”.
Social care leaders have warned that the government’s plans for more early identification of children from “dysfunctional” families would lead to an increase in the care population.