The Early Years Parenting Fund is provided and administered by the Henry Smith Foundation as part of its Getting Started funding priority, which supports families to give young children a strong start in life. In this fund, 'parents' includes any caregiver.
This fund directly addresses Getting Started priorities by targeting:
- Children in communities most at risk of poorest outcomes
- Proven parenting support models with strong, culturally grounded engagement
- Organisations capable of both improving outcomes and contributing to sector-wide learning.
This year (2026) is the first year of a five year programme where the focus is on improving children's outcomes via parenting support.
It is expected that the fund will be adapted during the next five years, for example, the next round in 2027 will focus on organisations with the same strong community connections but with developing evidence bases. Future rounds might focus on different parent groups.
This Fund aims to improve the development of children most at risk of poor Early Childhood Development (ECD) outcomes, by investing in effective parenting support.
The first round is focused on communities where outcome gaps are largest.
Organisations should be working closely with and understand parents with children aged newborn to five years from:
- Black (Caribbean or African, Any Other Black), Pakistani, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and/or
- Growing up in the most deprived 20% areas nationally (using the official deprivation index for that nation, eg, IMD for England and Wales).
The funding aims to support organisations that are trusted by the communities they serve and that can evidence the difference their work makes.
Note "parents" for this fund refers to anyone with a primary caregiving role for a young child. This includes parents, carers, kinship carers, guardians, and other family members responsible for raising a child. The foundation recognise that families take many forms, and welcome applications from organisations supporting a wide range of caregivers of children aged newborn to five.
Organisations working with a wider age range than newborn to five years may apply but they must clearly demonstrate how the work they are planning to do benefits children aged newborn to five. If they are successful, the funding may be restricted to early years activity only.
A live launch webinar will be held on 2 June 2026 (11am to 12pm) with a recording and transcript available for those who are unable to attend the live event.
This new fund opens for applications on 3 June 2026 (9am).
There is a two-stage application process:
- The first stage is to submit an Expression of Interest by the deadline of 1 July 2026 (17:00).
- Around 35 organisations will be invited to submit a full application by 21 August 2026 (17:00).
Decisions are expected in October 2026, and successful applicants must start their grant within six months of the award date.
Contact the Henry Smith Foundation for further information.