Sure Start Mellow Valley Baseline User Satisfaction Survey Report
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Sure Start Mellow Valley Baseline User Satisfaction Survey Report compiled by Caroline Newell Jane South Jackie Green Centre for Health Promotion Research Leeds Metropolitan University November 2004 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Leeds Beckett Repository Acknowledgements The evaluation team at the Centre for Health Promotion Research would like to say a big thank you to the Sure Start Mellow Valley community researchers who gave advice on the research and worked so hard to collect questionnaires: Wendy Duckworth Lisa Hopkinson Meanwood Vickie Kelly Vanessa Barker Teresa Bull Little London & Woodhouse Christie Womersley We would also like to thank all the parents and carers who participated in the survey and gave their views and the Sure Start team who provided advice and support. Sure Start Mellow Valley – Baseline User Satisfaction Survey Contents Page Introduction About the Mellow Valley area 1 Sure Start Mellow Valley 2 Methodology Developing the questionnaire 3 Carrying out the survey 3 Survey Findings Section 1: Characteristics of respondents 5 Section 2: Places for children to play 10 Section 3: Childcare 16 Section 4: Health Services 19 Section 5: Support for parents 27 Section 6: Living in Meanwood/Little London/Woodhouse 33 Section 7: Work and educational opportunities 37 Section 8: Parents’ awareness and experience of Sure Start Mellow Valley 43 Section 9: Special needs/disabilities 48 Summary and Conclusion 49 Appendix A – Sure Start Mellow Valley Staff September 2004 Appendix B Baseline User Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire Appendix C Full list of parent responses to the open questions Sure Start Mellow Valley – Baseline Satisfaction Survey Introduction About the Mellow Valley area Sure Start Mellow Valley comprises two nonadjacent areas: Little London and Woodhouse (an inner city area) and Meanwood, an inner area made up of a number of small council housing estates just to the north of the city centre. Each area is characterised by smaller communities, many of whose members are transient or new to Leeds. The Little London and Woodhouse area is located in the heart of the city of Leeds. The area has a broad ethnic mix with many overseas students and others who are new to living in the Leeds area. Many families do not have extended family members close by. Meanwood is situated in the generally more prosperous Chapel Allerton and Weetwood wards which tends to mask the levels of deprivation within Meanwood itself. The Meanwood area has suffered from a chronic lack of services over a number of years and recent years have seen some services being withdrawn. The Sure Start Mellow Valley catchment area incorporates parents from a range of ethnic backgrounds. Table 1 below shows a summarised breakdown of ethnic groups from the Census 2001 1. Table 1 Census 2001 Ethnic groups in Sure Start Mellow Valley Ethnic group Little London/Woodhouse Meanwood Sure Start area Sure Start area White British 70 % 84% White Irish/Other White 7 % 4 % Mixed 4 % 4 % Asian or Asian British 6 % 3 % Black or Black British 7% 4 % Chinese or other ethnic 6 % 1 % group According to recent figures provided by Leeds Health Informatics (based on postcodes) there were 637 children aged under 4 years living in the Sure Start Mellow Valley area as at January 2004. 1 Census 2001 data refers to Little London and Woodhouse Sure Start area and Meanwood Sure Start area. Sure Start Mellow Valley Sure Start Mellow Valley is a 6 th wave Sure Start programme, currently in its second year. The Children’s Society is the lead partner and accountable body. The programme was approved in April 2003. Since then the team has grown – for a full list of current Sure Start staff, please Appendix A. Sure Start Mellow Valley has established links with many other local initiatives that aim to improve the lives of families and children aged 04 years and promotes an inclusive approach to the development of working with local agencies, organisations and funders. Sure Start Mellow Valley is characterised by high levels of parental involvement. Indeed, parents in Little London & Woodhouse and in Meanwood were closely involved in forums/groups lobbying for a Sure Start programme. The Parents Forum groups are always well attended and parents are also represented on the management board. It is a requirement for all local Sure Start programmes to undergo a process of evaluation to determine whether the programme is meeting the needs and expressed wishes of the population it serves. The Centre for Health Promotion Research at Leeds Metropolitan University has been commissioned to evaluate Sure Start Mellow Valley. An initial Baseline User Satisfaction Survey formed the first stage of the evaluation. It was conducted in Summer 2004. This report details the methods used and findings from the survey. 2 Methodology The primary purpose of the Baseline User Satisfaction Survey was to obtain parents’ views on local services and support available to families with children under 4 years. The findings would then provide a baseline for assessing the progress made by the Sure Start programme. Following consultation with Sure Start Mellow Valley, it was decided to involve parents, where possible, in the design and implementation of the survey. Parents would be more familiar with their areas and potentially more able to gain access and the trust of parents to give their views. Developing the questionnaire National guidance indicated that a questionnaire was the preferred method as it would allow the views of a large number of parents to be obtained in a short time scale. The national guidance stated that five key areas of Sure Start activity should be included and these were: • outreach and home visiting • support for families and parents • primary care and health • access to good quality play, learning and childcare • support for families with special needs. In designing the questionnaire, the evaluation team ensured that it related to these broad areas, which will be relevant throughout the whole duration of Sure Start, rather than exploring satisfaction across the numerous individual services and activities within the Mellow Valley area. Asking about satisfaction alone would be of little use without finding out first if parents knew about and were using different local services and facilities. Therefore the questionnaire covered awareness of services/facilities, service utilisation and satisfaction in each of the five areas. Satisfaction was rated on a fourpoint scale as indicated in national guidance. The evaluation team produced an initial draft questionnaire which was brought to a workshop attended by parents and Sure Start staff. Parents and staff were asked to comment on the suitability, length, content and style of the questionnaire. Some time was spent checking each question and then amendments and additional questions were suggested. All suggestions were incorporated in the final questionnaire. The workshops participants felt that it was very important that other parents should answer the questions in relation to their own area (rather than the whole of Mellow Valley). This led to three separate questionnaires being administered for each of the areas (Meanwood, Little London and Woodhouse) although the core questions were the same. A copy of the questionnaire is included in Appendix B. Carrying out the survey Given the lack of a suitable sample frame, the approach adopted was to try and reach as many parents as possible in the Mellow Valley area through group activities and through snowball sampling. A small group of parents who were willing to become community researchers attended an evaluation training workshop in June 2004. The training covered: • How to ask questions • Asking sensitive/difficult questions • Criteria for selecting parents 3 • Confidentiality • Personal safety • Child protection The parents drew up a code of practice at the workshop which took account of ethical issues and risks. It was agreed that parents taking part in the survey would receive vouchers in recognition of their efforts. A target of 50 questions for each of the three areas was set. Between July and September 2004, six community researchers working in pairs collected questionnaires from parents in their area. This was done through both ‘doortodoor’ research and through attending activities and groups in their area. Only parents or carers living in the Mellow Valley Sure Start area who had one or more children under five years were asked to complete a questionnaire. Sure Start and university staff also assisted in the data collection. Meanwood, Little London and Woodhouse are comprised of a diverse ethnic mix and it was recognised that some potential respondents may have only a restricted use of English. It was felt that due to the variety of languages and varying levels of literacy, translating the questionnaire into minority languages was not necessarily the best way of ensuring access across all groups. For parents whose first language was not English, there was an option of using an interpreter. While one Chinese interpreter was used, because of the small numbers of people requiring an interpreter and the impossibility of predicting when an interpreter would be needed, other interpreters were not actually used. Once the data collection was completed, the questionnaires were coded and analysed using the statistical computer package SPSS. The results are presented below. Percentage figures have been rounded up or down to the nearest whole number. 4 Survey Findings Section 1: Characteristics of respondents A total of 120 questionnaires were returned. This section looks at the characteristics of the respondents, including where they lived, age, ethnicity and how many children they had. Area of residence The questionnaires were completed by parents living in all three areas covered by Sure Start Mellow Valley. 51 questionnaires (43%) were completed by parents from Meanwood, 29 (24%) from Little London and 40 (33%) from Woodhouse, as shown in Figure 1.