Supporting families and building relationships: Evaluation of a home and sleep safety equipment scheme for impoverished communities.

Objectives: Sleep safety and home safety resources allow families to care for babies and young children, preventing injuries and child death, adverse outcomes that are strongly linked to poverty and social deprivation. Parenthood involves unexpected costs and greater levels of unmet need for safety resources occur in low-income families. We evaluate a local authority scheme which enabled professionals in County Durham to apply for necessary safety equipment on behalf of eligible families. Study design: A holistic review of the first year of the operation of the Start For Life Fund (SFLF) scheme. Methods: A mixed method approach was used comprising: 1) a descriptive analysis of the application data submitted by professionals; 2) an online survey to capture the views and experiences of staff who had and had not used the scheme; 3) semi structured interviews with staff applicants and recipient families. Results: 679 families (988 children) were supported during the first operational year, average cost £407 per family (£280/child). Three-quarters of children (72.3 %) were under three; over a third (35.7 %) were pre-birth to 1-year. Staff from seven services and over 20 job roles made applications for families with financial, relationship, housing, domestic violence, and disability-related needs, most from areas with high deprivation scores. 256 staff across 8 service areas submitted survey responses, 39 % of whom had used the scheme which was viewed extremely positively. Interviews with 13 staff and 7 families evidenced how children, families and practitioners benefitted. Recipients reported reduced stress and anxiety about child safety and increased parental confidence. Conclusions: By providing families with the sleep and home safety equipment they can't afford the SFLF gives parents the opportunity to change behaviours and reduce the risk to babies and children from unintentional injury and death. It helps to improve working relationships between practitioners and families, reduces parental experiences of anxiety, and risk to staff of moral injury. Taking steps to reduce unexpected infant death and child unintentional injury is crucial for families in absolute and relative poverty. Other local authorities could emulate this scheme.