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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Introduction
1.1 This report, which draws on data from the first sweep of the Growing Up in Scotland study, starts from the position that in order to understand the types of formal support services that parents of young children require, the extent to which parents have access to, and draw upon, informal sources of support must also be understood. That is, support, information and advice which is sought from and provided by family members - including spouses, partners, parents' siblings and the child's grandparents - friends, and other parents. In recognising that family and friends are normatively seen, and practically drawn upon, as sources of support by parents, despite policy and practice perceptions of a breakdown in such networks (Edwards and Gillies, 2005), it follows that parenting should be understood as being embedded in a network of supporting relationships. The report explores attitudes towards seeking help and/or advice, and examines in detail the extent and use of informal networks by parents of young children and how these vary according to key socio-demographic characteristics of the families involved. The main finding is that generally all parents have access to and make considerable use of informal support and only small differences exist across parents and families of varying characteristics.
Background
1.2 Families have been a policy focus for many successive government administrations, however, in recent years, parenting has become an increasingly central focus of much family policy (Wassoff and Hill, 2002). Within this, the provision of adequate and appropriate support for parents to allow them to succeed in their child-rearing responsibilities has been a particular focus. Parental and family 'support', in policy terms, has often been understood as taking the form of material benefits such as child support or income support for example. This definition has since expanded and formal support for parents now incorporates education and advice from experts, particularly in statutory/voluntary sector partnerships, with the purpose of firmly establishing an understanding of good parenting skills against a rising threat that such knowledge is disappearing in modern society (Edwards and Gillies, 2005). Notwithstanding this expansion of the forms, methods and scope of formal parental support, research has demonstrated that parents continue to rely on informal sources such as family or friends for help and advice and often turn to these sources in the first instance (Edwards and Gillies, 2004). In research with older people, access to and use of informal support has been related to individual well-being. This research indicates that network size, number of face-to-face contacts and the number of local ties are connected with greater availability of active and emotional support and further, that older people who have strong social networks are happier and more likely to perceive themselves as healthy (Wenger and Tucker, 2002). There is an argument therefore, that informal networks are not only an important source of informal support for parents but that access to and use of those networks may be connected to parental and, consequently, child well-being.
1.3 A key objective of the Growing Up in Scotland study ( GUS) was to provide the Scottish Government with a resource for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of early years/children's services policies across a range of policy sectors and including services designed to provide help, advice and support to parents. As well as collecting data on their use of formal support services such as ante-natal classes, health visitors and childcare, the first sweep of GUS also collected a range of information which allows analysis of informal support networks and the extent to which different parents have different types of networks and use them in different ways. Initially, and as demonstrated in this report, data from GUS can be used to explore the informal support networks of parents with very young children. Over time however, the collection of longitudinal data will allow detailed analysis of the impact of the structure and use of informal support networks on child outcomes across a range of domains.
About the study
1.4 The Growing Up in Scotland study is an important longitudinal research project aimed at tracking the lives of a cohort of Scottish children from the early years, through childhood and beyond. Its principal aim is to provide information to support policy-making, but it is also intended to be a broader resource that can be drawn on by academics, voluntary sector organisations and other interested parties. Focusing initially on a cohort of 5,217 children aged 0-1 years old and a cohort of 2,859 children aged 2-3 years old, the first sweep of fieldwork began in April 2005. This report is one of a series that provide key findings from the first sweep of the survey.
1.5 GUS is based on a cohort or longitudinal design involving the recruitment of a 'panel' of children (and their families) who will be revisited on a number of occasions over an extended period of time. Members of the panel were identified in the first instance from Child Benefit records. For the first year of the study, interviewers sought to contact the 'main carer' of the child named in the Child Benefit records. In virtually all cases (99%), this proved to be the child's natural mother. As well as information on informal support, the first interview also collected data on pregnancy, birth and early parenting, childcare, child health and development, and parental health.
Format of the report
1.6 This report begins by examining respondents' attitudes towards seeking help and/or advice, from both formal and informal sources of support, and how these attitudes vary by individual and household characteristics. It then moves on to explore differences in the availability of informal support resources for different sets of parents. Although the data is limited for this exploration, this section provides some insight into the extent to which parents appear to have an informal support network at their disposal and the complexity and composition of that network. The next section looks at the extent to which parents are actually using sources of informal support, in what context and for what purpose and how patterns of use, and the sources used, differ across the sample. The final section considers separately the support received exclusively from the child's grandparents.
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