Wales Welsh
The Flying Start programme aims to improve outcomes for children in some of the most
deprived areas across Wales. This is done through providing four key Flying Start
entitlements to children under four years old and their families: enhanced health visiting,
parenting support, support for early language development primarily in the form of
Language and Play programmes and free, high quality, part-time childcare for two to three
year olds.
This report is part of a series produced by Ipsos MORI and SQW for the national evaluation
of Flying Start. It focuses specifically on the experiences of high need parents1
. Qualitative
in-depth interviews with parents receiving Flying Start services were conducted between
January and April 2013 in five different local authorities across Wales where the Flying Start
programme is currently being delivered. 60 interviews were conducted in total, 30 with
‘heavy’ service users (defined as parents using the full entitlement, i.e. all four services), 15
with ‘medium’ service users (using enhanced health visiting support and two other service
entitlements), and 15 with ‘low’ service users (using enhanced health visiting support only)2
.