The High-Level Policy Statement on Supporting Parents and Families aims to drive greater connectivity, effectiveness and efficiency between services to children and their families that are provided directly by the State or with its support. The Department has been assisted in developing the Policy Statement by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre of NUI Galway.

Publication of the Statement was among the commitments contained in Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures: the National Policy Framework for Children & Young People 2014-2020.

The Statement draws on available research evidence and sets out high-level policy messages concerning the following:
• the crucial importance of parental and family relationships to child development outcomes;
• the adoption of a strengths-based approach to supporting the coping capacity of parents and families;
• the importance of informal support networks (e.g. extended family, community);
• the multiplicity of challenges that some children, their parents and families may face;
• the need to re-orient service planning and delivery from a mainly crisis or late intervention approach to one more focused on prevention or early intervention;
• the need to have available a continuum of supports that include universal and targeted supports;
• the necessity for adopting a strengthened ‘whole-of-government’ responsibility and response in this area;
• the maintenance and development of strong partnerships between State agencies and non-governmental organisations;
• the requirement to systematically build on the existing evidence base relating to what works best in parenting and family support, to inform further service development.
• the central involvement of children and parents in the design, delivery and evaluation of family support services.