Edinburgh Napier University

  Practitioners who participated in the SCCPN/MARS
research study reported on in What Can Research Do
For You?1 identified the role of schools in supporting
vulnerable children and families as a priority for a
research briefing.
A subsequent review of the existing literature
focused on theoretical models, frameworks and
evidence-based school programmes and policies
which support vulnerable children and families. Such
programmes include those which:
• entail families and children participating together
• include wider family support (although primarily
for children)
• have taken into account the parental views
on their child’s development as a result of
participating in the programme.
Schools often support vulnerable children and families
in ways which do not appear in the literature; it is
recognised that these supports are part of very
effective practice with children and families, even if
they are not part of ‘official’ evidence.