Best Start Grant - visual summary of research findings

About the research

This report summarises the results of research with Experience Panel members and other user groups for the initial design of the new Best Start Grant.

We invited all Experience Panel members to take part in an interview about Best Start Grant if they:

• Have experience of receiving Sure Start Maternity Grant or Healthy Start vouchers

• Have young children (under 5) in their household

• Are expecting a baby

We also spoke to other users who we invited through:

• Parenting and community groups

• Scottish Government partner organisations

• Recruitment organisations

We have spoken to:

• 58 parents and expecting parents who might use the system
  
• 10 of these people were Experience panel members
• 21 staff who might work with the new system

The information we got from these meetings was looked at by Scottish Government researchers. This helped us to understand what different people need to be able to apply for a Best Start Grant. The information is being used to help design the new system.

Overall, we spoke to:

21 single parents

9 kinship carers who were looking after their grandchildren, nephews or nieces

5 people who need help using technology

3 people who use screen readers and similar technology to access the internet

6 people who are disabled or have a long term health condition

This research aimed to find out:

About who you are

About your experiences

What you need

In this report we talk about the key themes that came out across these topics. This includes some of the areas that people told us are important to get right and what we are going to do.

Across these areas the most important things were to make it simple for people to apply and to give people choices.