EasyPeasy intervention shows promise in supporting aspects of children's early development

The EasyPeasy intervention is designed to improve the home learning environment, support parents’ wellbeing, and improve children’s early developmental outcomes.

EasyPeasy is parenting programme that shares tips and activity ideas to parents of children from 0 – 5 to support their early development.

During our trial of EasyPeasy, the programme was delivered over a period of 20 weeks with parents and carers of nursery-aged children (three- to four- year-olds). Families were sent weekly text messages that suggested activities they could play with their pre-school child. These activities aimed to encourage high quality interactions, and were based on the key areas of learning from the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

New longitudinal analysis – which explored the long-term impact of this version of the programme – suggests that children who participated in EasyPeasy were more likely to achieve a ​“good level of development” (GLD) in their EYFS Profile assessment, when measured a year after the intervention took place. 81% of children who took part in the programme achieved the GLD, compared to 77% who did not receive the programme.