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Background: The benefits of the arts have been highlighted for all ages and could address developmental gaps, particularly for disadvantaged children’s social and emotional development. Strong social and emotional skills in preschoolers pave the way for early school success and a brighter future. There is a call for more joined up creative approaches to target the needs of children and families.
Methods and participants: Paper one is a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of arts interventions in the early years. Paper two documents a multi-professional action research project with an arts organisation to support the needs of local parents and infants using a creative, arts-integrated approach. Evaluative data were collected through action research stakeholder meetings and parental semi-structured interviews.
Analysis and findings: Paper one highlighted the positive effect of arts-based activities on the social and emotional development of typically developing preschool-aged children, with a moderate overall effect size (d = .4113).
Paper two identified the following five categories from the stakeholder evaluative data: learning and future thinking, ways parental buy-in was achieved, facilitators and barriers to multi-agency working and innovative and creative collaboration. Five categories identified from the parental interview data were community, accessible family experiences, platform to practise, improvements, and building confidence and knowledge through quality information.
Conclusion and implications: Findings highlight the potential of arts activities and parental groups to address developmental gaps, suggesting that creative and multi-agency approaches can be valuable tools for policymakers. Parental commitment and sense of community are essential for continued parent group engagement. The unique experience the arts created as well as access to professionals contributed to the parental buy-in of the families involved. The UK Government should invest in the early years’ population and support parents as a proactive approach.