Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Incredible Years programme pilot in improving disruptive behaviour; and what plans she has to extend that programme.

An assessment of the effectiveness of the Incredible Years programme has been made in The Parenting Early Intervention Programme (PEIP, 2008-11). The Incredible Years was one of five parenting interventions that formed part of this programme. PEIP found that these programmes had positive effects, including on children’s behaviour; a full evaluation report can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/parenting-early-intervention-programme

The benefits of the Incredible Years programme have been extended to more parents and children in a number of ways: the CANParent trial, commissioned by the Department for Education in 2012, draws on the principles of the Incredible Years programme amongst others; Coram are running the Incredible Years programme for adoptive parents under funding from a 2013-15 grant from the Department; and the Evaluation of Children’s Centres in England (ECCE) found Incredible Years to be one of the most commonly offered evidence-based services in the most disadvantaged centres.