Parents of children under the age of five

Parents and their information needs. A case study: Parents of children under the age of five DAVID NICHOLAS and MARY MARDEN David Nicholas is Senior Tutor for Research in the Department of Information Science, City University. His main research interests are information needs and the impact of technology on information seeking behaviour. In this connection he is author of Assessing information needs: tools and techniques, an Aslib ‘Know How Guide’ and he is currently conducting a British Library funded investigation into the impact of the Internet on the media.

Reports results of a British Library, Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC) supported project, conducted by City University, Department of Information Science, to study the information needs of parents, with children under the age of five, residing in the London Borough of Haringey, UK. The parents’ needs were studied using group and individual interviews, involving 53 parents and five representatives of parents’ organizations. Most parents needed information about child development, school, children’s behaviour and careers, training and education. The commonest need was for information on health and child care. Significant differences were found between the needs of single mothers, older women, fathers and ethnic minority parents. Information currency and authority was found to matter, parents turned to a wide variety of sources but oral information sources (professionals, friends and family) were the most important. Despite the fact that a large proportion of the parents used public libraries for other reasons, they were not looked upon as a key, or even a minor, source of parental information. Concludes that parents’ needs for information on schools, finance and child behaviour are largely unmet. (These results were also reported in British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC) report No. 56, 1996 with an introduction to the study in Aslib Proceedings, 49 (1) Jan 1997, 5-7).

INTRODUCTION

Mary Marden has a BSc in Life Sciences and an MA in Information Studies. Mary has extensive experience teaching biology and health education in London comprehensive schools and colleges. Recently, she has worked at Guy’s Hospital on a research project evaluating a parenting programme. For her MA thesis she was able to use the records of the helpline Exploring Parenthood to discover the information needs of the parents who called for information, advice and counselling.

The information needs of the general public or the consumer have generally been neglected. This neglect is largely a result of the methodological problems that arise from researching this group. Thus, compared to students, the general public are not to be found in convenient places (in libraries or, even more conveniently, searching information systems), are not as compliant and are far more heterogeneous in character. In terms of sheer size, their crucial importance to the beleaguered public library system and the fact that they appear to be fueling the huge growth in the use of the Internet (Knight, 1997; Rackiewicz, 1996) they deserve far more attention from information science researchers. In recognition of this the British Library Research and Innovation Centre provided City University with funding to conduct a pilot study into the information needs of a large and important subset of the general public - parents. Within the broad objective of shedding light on the information needs of parents there were some specific aims: -

Address: Department of Information Science, City University, London EC1V OHB, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

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to focus on the parents’ own perceptions of their needs, rather than viewing needs from the point of view of the services which meet these needs; to determine the subjects about which parents need information; to establish the relative importance of these subjects for parents; to discover which sources of information (libraries included) parents turn to for help in obtaining information on these subjects; recommend ways that parents could be better supported in terms of information provision; to establish a methodology for researching parents (and, by extension, the general public).

JOURNAL OF LIBRARIANSHIP AND INFORMATION SCIENCE, 30 (1) MARCH 1998 Downloaded from lis.sagepub.com at Univ of Northumbria on January 4, 2015

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Parents and their information needs

SCOPE As this was to be a pilot study, and given the size and scatter of the user group being investigated, a small subgroup of parents were chosen: parents of children under five living in the inner London suburb of Haringey. Parents of children under five were chosen because at this age the quality of the parenting that children receive is so important to the development of the child. The research was located in Haringey because: - it was an urban area - most people in Britain live in urban areas; - the Borough had a high proportion of young children; - the Borough contains a wide range of social classes, including poorer families - parents in lower socio-economic groups might experience more difficulty in accessing information; - and, not least, the Borough was known to the researchers. Haringey is bounded by Enfield in the north, Barnet in the west, Waltham Forest in the east and Camden, Islington and Hackney in the south. It is by no means a homogeneous borough. There are sharp contrasts between the more affluent west and poorer east in the Borough. The population of Haringey has a diverse and changing pattern of ethnicity, with 34% of the population being classified as black or belonging to an ethnic minority group (Haringey, 1995). As the wards in the centre were more representative of the borough as a whole and urban areas in general, four adjacent central Haringey electoral wards were chosen for the study. These were Green Lanes, Harringay, Hornsey Vale and Hornsey Central. The largest minority group in these wards is black Caribbean. Harringay and Green Lanes have large minorities of people born in Cyprus, Turkey and the Indian sub-continent. In addition people born in Ireland form a minority group in all four wards. Unemployment in Haringey in 1995 was 18.9% and over recent years has been about twice the national average. The terraced houses in these central Haringey wards date from the end of the 19th century when the railway lines into the City were built. Many of these houses are owner occupied (as flats or houses) and there are local authority rented flats in Hornsey Central. Some of the older houses are now in a poor state of repair and overcrowding in households in Harringay ward is a problem. The four wards have a high percentage of people who had a different address a year prior to the last Census, suggesting that families may not have lived in the area for long. In these wards the number of households with dependent children aged under five was 1689 (Haringey Council, 1994). About a quarter of all children in Haringey live in lone parent households, which means that about 422 children under five were living with one parent. Therefore the total number of parents in these wards was around 2956. For the 36

purpose of this study however parents were defined as any adult in a parenting role. This included: birth mothers, birth fathers, step mothers, step fathers, adopted mothers, adopted fathers, grandparents who take a major part in the child’s care, child minders and nannies.

LITERATURE REVIEW Although it appears that no one in the information science field has undertaken research into the information needs of parents, there have been studies from researchers in other related disciplines. These studies provide some background understanding of the characteristics of parents and the pressures they face. A study of young parents living on a council estate investigated the pressures that they experienced (Gill, 1992). The parents found the flats they lived in unsuitable for children. Most of the parents were unemployed and many were also in debt. Their environment was perceived as hostile and sometimes dangerous. Many parents had experienced divorce or separation, and 19 out of the 40 families were lone parent households. A health and life style survey of lone mothers found that they suffered more socioeconomic disadvantage, were younger and had a higher prevalence of smoking than mothers living with partners (Reeves et al, 1994).They felt less happy, and were more likely to be put under stress by relationships, housing, money problems and sexual harassment. They lacked practical and emotional support and thought that their health would be improved by employment, more money and a less stressful life. The National Child Development Study (NCDS) is a longitudinal study of all the children born in one specific week in 1958. These people were 33 at the time of the latest survey and 77% of the women and 66% of the men were parents. A study of married parents in the cohort describes their economic situation and their lives at home (Ferri and Smith, 1996). In most of these families both parents were working. Couples who were both in full-time employment tended to be better qualified and to have higher status occupations. In contrast couples who were out of the labour force were more likely to have no educational qualifications and to have previously held low status jobs. Fathers in employment tended to work long hours. Working mothers used informal child care (fathers and the family) when they were at work. Women bore the brunt of housework, even when their husbands were unemployed. Ninety per cent of the parents saw relatives or friends at least once a month. The families with both parents unemployed were less likely to go out as a family (i.e. to the cinema, for a meal or on holiday). Fathers who worked long hours were less likely to take part in joint family activities. For the mothers, the most important factor relating to their happiness, was the extent to which their husbands were involved with the children. Mothers and fathers who were not earning were more likely to suffer anxiety or depression. A study of the information needs of battered women


DAVID NICHOLAS and MARY MARDEN

sheds some light on the information needs of parents (Harris, 1988). Parents may share the experience of assault by a partner, and the urgent need for private information. Forty women (39 of whom were parents) were interviewed for this study. They had all lived in a shelter which provided counseling, referrals and advocacy. Time-line interviews were used, which involved asking the women to think of a significant event (usually leaving the partner who battered them) and describing their questions (their needs) and the help they sought (sources of information). The sources of help the women most frequently turned to were friends, family, police and social workers. The study showed that the women found information about shelters, counseling and legal rights most difficult to find, often because of lack of knowledge (on the part of the women and the service providers) about where to locate needed information. Most of all, the women wanted information delivered with sensitivity in a warm non-judgmental way. A study somewhat closer to home - of parents’ calls to a telephone helpline, showed that the main concern of parents was about their children’s behaviour (Marden, 1995). The sample in this study included a high percentage of divorced and separated parents: not surprisingly family problems were the subject of many of their calls. A recent study (Roberts, 1996) describes the problems that parents experienced. The problems mentioned in this study pointed to the information needs parents were likely to experience and were used to draw up a list of topics about which parents were questioned in this research study. The major problems were: health (illness, disability, sleeping problems and bedwetting); infants under one year (colic); dyslexia/learning difficulties (speech problems); and behaviour (temper tantrums, hyperactivity, running away).

METHODS The methods most commonly use for surveying information needs are interviews (telephone, face-to-face or group). Postal questionnaires were rejected because they might be misunderstood or ignored, as parenting is a sensitive and personal issue. Also, response rates are notoriously low in the case of consumer groups. Similarly, telephone interviews could be perceived as intrusive, and inconvenient for parents with young children. Face-to-face interviews were thus considered to be the only suitable method for researching parents’ information needs. They have the great advantage of allowing explanation and wide ranging discussion. Group interviews were thought to be especially suitable for this particular user group: parents would have shared experiences, might stimulate each other to contribute ideas, and they would also be less intimidated by an academic researcher. It was therefore decided to use group interviews as a means of establishing what questions should be asked of parented in one-to-one interviews. These group interviews resembled focus groups, in that the interviewer presented the parent panel with a list of topics for discus-

sion which had been reported in the published literature as being of concern to parents. These topics were connected with: parenting skills, parental support and the child’s future.

The sample and sampling frame The Health Visitors’ list of parents and children in their locality would have provided the most up to date and complete sampling frame for the interviews. It would have more been accurate for the younger children, as parents maintain stronger contact when their children are babies. However, this list is confidential NHS data and was not available to the researcher. Instead the sample was derived from the local services which the parents used. Four localities were identified: Burgoyne Road Clinic (Harringay ward), Woodlands Nursery Centre (Green Lanes ward), Stroud Green Library (Hornsey Vale) and Campsbourne Baptist Church (Hornsey Central ward). Burgoyne Road Clinic is staffed by Health Visitors and a visiting Doctor. Clinics are held twice a week for children under five and Health Visitors also visit parents at home, making great efforts to contact every new mother. Woodlands Nursery Centre has a informal drop-in group for toddlers and their carers. Stroud Green library provides a friendly environment for children and useful local information for parents. Over the country, many voluntary and church groups provide child care, so it was important to have a parent and toddler group amongst the sample. Campsbourne Baptist Church runs a welcoming and well-equipped mother and toddler group. All services sampled were child-centred and the researchers worked with this approach. When interviewing a parent with their child, the child’s needs were put first, and if the child needed something the interviewer waited to continue questioning until after the child was satisfied. The group (and individual) interviews were publicised by posters and leaflets in the respective local services. In addition, parents were recruited personally by service staff and the researcher when she visited the services. Two samples were drawn: 1. 18 parents were recruited for group interviews 6 from the Library, 9 from the Nursery and 3 from the Clinic. 2. 35 parents were selected for individual interview - 10 parents from each of Library, Nursery and Clinic and five from Church Mother and Toddler Group. The only selection criteria used were that the parents (or someone else in a parenting role e.g. child minder, relative or nanny) were caring for a child under five and understood English.


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Group interviews Group interviews were held at Stroud Green Library, Woodlands Nursery Centre and Burgoyne Road Clinic. All the parents in the group interviews were women and most (61%) were in their 30s; 33% of the mothers came from minority ethnic groups (white born in Cyprus, African, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, and Caribbean and Indian); 16 parents (89%) cared for their children with a partner and two or 11% were parenting alone; 12 (67%) were economically dependent on a partner, four worked part-time (22%), one (6%) was in part-time work, one (6%) was registered unemployed. All the parents in the discussion groups had at least one child under five, and 11 (61%) had more than one child. Parents took part in the research for a number of reasons: an interest in the subject, enjoyment in meeting other parents, and an appreciation of the payment (parents were paid £5 per interview). The group interviews were held in a small room in the Clinic and Nursery and at the children’s end of the library. The groups sat in circles with the children playing nearby. With permission of the parents, group interviews were recorded. The interviews began with introductions, with researcher and parents giving their first names and names and ages of their children. The research was described, and topics suggested for discussion. The interviews were guided and developed by the researcher, but topics which produced little response (e.g. air pollution) were dropped. The final question concerned topics which the interview should have included (parents suggested benefit advice, and places where you can socialise with children). After 45 minutes parents were thanked and asked to complete a form with details of their address, age, sex, ethnic group, whether they parented alone or with a partner and their employment status. They were told they need not answer all questions, but in fact they did answer all the questions. Parents signed the form as consent to research and a receipt for the payment. The discussion in the library was lively and articulate. All the mothers had made a special journey to come, and probably used the library regularly, for they must have spotted the posters and leaflets advertising the project. Mothers contributed to develop each other’s ideas and empathized with each other’s problems. In the nursery the mothers did not seem to know each other so well and some were rather quiet at the beginning. The small group in a quiet room in the clinic discussed more intimate and personal information needs, particularly the need for information on breast feeding when taking prescribed drugs, post-natal depression and trying to understand crying babies.

and at the parents’ homes. Of the 59 parents who were personally invited to take part by the researcher, 35 agreed to give an interview, 20 parents took the researcher’s telephone number but did not ring back and four declined. Reasons given for declining to take part were: not being child’s main carer (the carer was the grandmother), moving house, going on holiday and a previous unpleasant experience of research. Reasons for taking part appeared to be: interest and understanding of the research, a general helpful attitude, support for the service the parents were using, need for personal advice or information (the researcher helped fill up benefit forms and found housing addresses), encouragement from a friend, and appreciation of the payment. The sample had a bias towards those who used services, and the impression was that the better educated parents were the most enthusiastic participants. Everyone interviewed spoke English. The sample excluded eight parents from Turkey and the Indian SubContinent at the Clinic who did not feel they spoke English well enough to take part in a discussion or interview. There were 32 females and three males in the sample. These fathers were contacted through the Library and the Church Mothers (Parents) and Toddlers Group. Most parents were in their 30s, but a quarter were in their 40s. Clearly most parents in this sample have had life and work experiences before having children. Forty per cent of parents came from ethnic minorities, and eight ethnic groups were represented in the sample. Four parents elected to put themselves in ethnic groups that were not categorized. The largest ethnic group was white people born in Ireland. In fact ethnic groups were more highly represented in this study than in the population as a whole. Most parents shared the care of their children with a partner; 29% were parenting alone (in the 1991 census the average percentage of lone parents in these wards was 23%). Two nannies and three child minders were included as those parenting as a paid job. Just under half (49%) of the interviewees were not working or registered unemployed. Parents in this group could be dependent on a partner, on income support or students. Around a quarter (nine) of the parents were working full-time. These parents were contacted at the Library on Saturday morning, at the Clinic or through a parents’ organization. The two samples (one-to-one and group) differed in the following ways: -

Individual interviews One-to-one interviews were conducted in the following locations: Stroud Green Library, Woodlands Nursery Centre, Burgoyne Road Clinic, Campsbourne Church,

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three men were interviewed individually but the groups only contained women; slightly more people from ethnic minorities gave individual interviews; there were more single parents and more partners working full-time amongst people who gave individual interviews; the nannies and child minders were part of the sample who gave individual interviews.



One parent described trying to get advice about her children’s health as ‘an eternal frustration’. Parents wanted information on everyday problems that were hard to resolve: sleeping (seemingly a universal problem), and eating difficulties and vague and ill defined symptoms arising from teething or colic (Table 2). Scepticism was voiced about medical practice: ‘they just give you pain killers and antibiotics’. As a result parents wanted alternative viewpoints (‘they give you sweet talk at the Clinic, they’ve got you cornered. I want help from the other side’) or the latest research findings (immunisation was mentioned in this connection) After the childrens’ health, their care figured most prominently: 86% of parents said they required information on this topic. Indeed, these figures probably underplay the importance of child care information because the majority of ‘parents’ who said they did not need this information or did not know whether they did - were child minders. For one working mother child care was a ‘juggling act’ which involved grandmother, child minder and full time nursery. The information the parents said they typically needed was about care organizations, the quality of child care, availability of places and comparative care costs. Child care information would be poured over and discussed with friends. Information on child development was also in demand, 80% of parents said that they needed information about child development. Speech and language were of most interest, perhaps showing an early concern about special educational needs. There was also an interest in obtaining advice about bringing up children to be bilingual. A family speaking both Polish and English wanted their daughter to grow up speaking both languages. The Turkish Women’s Project reported that families speaking Turkish at home wanted their children to learn English before they went to school.

The topics discussed at the individual interviews differed from the group interviews in the following ways: -

a question on the environment which had not attracted any interest amongst the groups was dropped for the individual interviews; the individual interviews allowed for deeper and longer questioning and thus also included questions on the parent’s use of services; staff in two of the services in which the interviews took place asked to have a question added on the merits of their own service.

Additional data collection Representatives of Parent Groups and associations were also questioned as to their observations regarding the information needs and information seeking behaviour of parents. This took the form of interviews covering the same ground as those for parents. The following organizations were represented: Mind, which runs groups for single mothers; Campsbourne Baptist Church, which runs a Mums and Toddler Group; Haringey Mothers, an organization which has about 800 members and runs meetings, events and a newsletter for local mothers; Child Care Unit, Haringey Council; Haringey Turkish Women’s Project, which runs a crèche for and provides advice and support for Turkish women.

RESULTS Subjects on which parents needed information Children under the age of five are not only very susceptible to illness but they also have difficulty in communicating their health problems. Not surprisingly then health information was a priority for nearly all parents. Over 90% of them said they needed this type of information (Table 1).

Table 1. Broad topic on which parents needed information Subject

Number of parents

% of parents

Health for the child

32

91

Child care

30

86

Child development

28

80

Schools

24

69

Child behaviour

18

51

Careers, education and training

18

51

Finance

15

43

Source: 35 face-to-face interviews


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Table 2. Specific topics on which parents needed information Subject

Group Interviews

Individual Interviews

Representatives

Child’s health

Sleeping, sudden illness, eyes, immunization

Sleeping, feeding, colic, teething, rashes, immunization convulsions, ear infection, eczema

Sleep problems, asthma

Child care

Local provision, cost, quality

Nurseries, child minders, mothers and toddlers, play groups, nannies, Chinese speaking child minder, respite care (social services), how provision differs from that in Ireland

Different services available, for places in Nurseries comparison without bias, criteria

Child development

Speech, walking

Speech, concentration, helping child to grow up bilingual

Helping child to grow up bilingual

School

Catchment areas

Local schools, catchment areas, Montessori education, education at home, how English school system differs from that in Ireland

Explanation of English school system, how to help children achieve well at school


New ideas, working with children, finding something more challenging

Complete change from banking, working part-time, creative work from home, updating computer skills, teaching

Gaining the confidence to find work e.g. voluntary work and college courses

Behaviour

Crying, tantrums, smacking

Crying, aggression, sibling rivalry, anti-social behaviour, potty training, head banging, settling-in at Nursery, competing with father for attention of mother

Discipline

Health for parent

Post-natal depression, breast feeding, lack of concentration, effects of taking prescribed drugs while breast feeding

Post-natal depression, breast feeding, coping with tiredness and stress, relaxation, health insurance, diabetes

Post-natal depression and the effects on child development , understanding post-natal depression, incontinence, selfexamination for breast cancer

Money

Benefit advice, comparative costs of housing

Benefits, making a will, supermarket -value, cheap EC food, renovating and selling cheap furniture, redundancy

Not mentioned

Environment

Council housing list, learning to drive

Applying for housing via council and housing association lists, buying a house, private renting, moving house

Safe and secure environments for parents and children, air pollution, Toxocara, parasitic infection in dog faeces

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Sixty nine per cent of parents needed information about schools. They wanted qualitative assessments of schools and information about catchment areas. The parents who did not need this information either had older children or had grown up in the area. Parents new to this country (from Ireland, Turkey and Cyprus) needed to obtain an understanding of the English educational system. Just over half (51%) of the parents needed information about behaviour to help them understand their children. Two of the organizations that represent parents said that parents needed to understand how to discipline consistently, but no parents raised this as an issue. The same proportion of parents (51%) needed information on careers, training and education for themselves. Their interests included fitting a career around caring for children or working with children, working from home and updating skills. For the Turkish women: ‘Language is the main problem. They really want to learn English’. Parents who did not need this information included those working full time who were all continuing with their chosen careers and two students who had only just started courses. Parents accorded their own health less priority than their children’s, with only 51% of them expressing a need for information concerning their own health. ‘It’s the last thing you consider’, one mother said. Amongst mothers there was considerable interest in obtaining a better understanding of post-natal depression, and some mothers mentioned worrying symptoms that could be depression (tiredness, lack of ability to concentrate). One mother thought her depression had caused her marriage to break down. Financial information was required by 43% of parents. Comparative and critical information on housing (costs, quality and availability) was especially valued. Other financial information that parents found very useful included: local supermarket best buys, cheap sources of children’s toys and equipment (e.g. factory rejects, local car boot and jumble sales) and free local events for children. Various environmental subjects (e.g. housing, transport, air pollution, water quality and play provision) were raised in the group interviews as possible areas of concern. Housing was certainly a problem to some parents, but they thought this was due to lack of suitable council housing rather than lack of information. Transport was discussed by the mothers in terms of poor public services and an unhelpful attitude from the public at large. The following comments were typical: ‘The buggy doesn’t fit in’ ‘The step’s so huge’ ‘I was pregnant and holding a baby and this chap gave me so much abuse’ ‘I avoid buses like the plague with the two of them I walk everywhere’.

Air pollution was not taken up for discussion at all. Water quality was only discussed as a consumer problem: ‘I buy bottled water for them’. The mothers who knew what play provision was available in local parks and a shopping centre, said there was not enough, but did not need any further information in this respect. Environmental topics produced a generally depressed and defeated atmosphere amongst parents: plainly they felt powerless. A case of better not to know for if they knew about the amount of local air pollution they would not be able to do anything about it anyway. Changing things through community action was not really considered as an option by parents although Haringey Mother have campaigned for cleaner parks and open spaces. On the whole parent organizations seemed to be aware of the information needs priorities of parents (e.g. post-natal depression and helping children to grow up bilingual), however, they also saw needs where parents did not, suggesting that they were not entirely in tune with the needs of parents. Indeed, it would be wrong to suggest that even parents agreed over their information needs. There was, for instance, marked differences between male and female parents. There were three men in the sample and all of them wanted information about child care and health for their child, but none wanted information about their own health (Table 3). Age also appeared to be significant. Thus more of the mothers aged 40-49 wanted information about their own health, than the younger mothers, which is not surprising, of course. Single parents and people working as carers were also more likely to need information about health for themselves than the parents with partners. Finally, parents from ethnic minorities had different needs. More of them were interested in information about careers, education and training for themselves than white European parents (Table 4), but, surprisingly perhaps, this was the only significant difference between parents from ethnic minorities and white European parents.

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION NEED Authority In the important area of children’s health, it is the trusted expert who is turned to by parents. For advice on breast feeding, mothers prefer to go to advisors who have actually managed to breast feed their own babies. They did not want advice from people who did not know the difficulties involved. On child care parents valued comparative qualitative information from a well-informed source ‘someone in the know’, as one respondent said.

Currency Parents appreciated the Council’s free booklet Under eight’s in Haringey but had found it was out-of-date. When looking for a child minder they needed to know


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Table 3. The parents’ need for information on their own health: by gender, age group and carer

Characteristic

yes

no

total

Female

18

14

32

Male

0

3

3

under 20

0

1

1

20-29

2

7

9

30-39

9

7

16

40-49

7

2

9

partners

7

13

20

single parent

8

2

10

child minder

3

2

5

18

17

Gender

Age

Carer

Total

35

Table 4. Parents who needed information on careers, training and education: by their ethnic group

Ethnic group

Yes

No

Don’t know

White European

9

11

1

21

Ethnic minorities

9

5

0

14

18

16

1

35

Total

42


Total


which child minders in their area had vacancies at any particular time. This information soon goes out of date. One parent mentioned magazines as being a prized source of current information. The need for very latest information was highlighted by recent media health scares, when parents needed to know about the safety of baby milk. Parents in both the group and individual interviews wanted current research findings on immunisation and one mother in a group interview wanted information on the long term effects of taking prescribed drugs while breast feeding.

Geographic As big users of local services, parents need local information on child care, schools and education and training for adults. For many parents the distance they can push the buggy limits the journeys they can make for information. National information e.g. government hygiene or food warnings appeared to be of much less interest.

Viewpoint An alternative viewpoint is of great interest to parents on health, child care and education; for example the nutritional and practical implications of bringing up children to be vegetarians was mentioned by one respondent.

MEETING PARENTS’ INFORMATION NEEDS Parents who expressed a need for information on a topic were asked whether they found what they were looking

for. Most parents said they obtained only some of the information they needed, although some needs were more easily met than others. Parents found meeting their main information need (that concerning their children’s health) the easiest: 60% said that meeting this need presented them with few problems (Table 5). For most of the other topics on which they required information the situation was much less satisfactory. Information on child care and development was rather more difficult to obtain, and in the case of all the other topics, much more difficult to obtain, with failure rates being especially high in the case of finance and behaviour - in these two cases only 11% of parents said their needs were met.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION USED A wide range of information sources are used by parents to find the information they need. In fact ten different types of information source were mentioned (Table 6). On average parents used four sources, although one parent used nine sources and two parents used only one source. The number of information sources used by white Europeans and ethnic minorities were roughly the same. Organizations were the most popular source of information. They accounted for over a quarter of the sources cited by parents. A large number of organizations service the field with 16 different organizations being mentioned by parents. They were: local council services (colleges, schools, adult education and child care, Irish centre, libraries); health services (ante-natal classes, clinic, hospitals);

Table 5. Success in meeting information needs Subjects

% of parents with needs met

Health for children

60

Child care

45

Child development

43

Health for parents

14


14

School

14

Finance

11

Behaviour

11


43


-

-

local voluntary organizations (National Childbirth Trust, Haringey Mothers, flats committee, Citizen’s Advice Bureau); local shops - Post Office, Budgens, newsagents. (Table 7)

The information from these organizations was obtained in different ways, from: an administrator by phone; a leaflet about services; a training or educational course; or a notice board. Ante-natal classes were the ‘organization’ mentioned most frequently. Organizations were especially used as a way of making friends and to find specialist information about child care. Table 6. Sources of information: general categories Sources of information

Number of times mentioned

% of all mentions

Organizations

77

27

Professionals

57

20

Friends

44

15

Books

43

15

Free booklets

36

12

Family

19

7

Television

9

3

Helplines

3

1

Radio

1