2012, British Prime Minister David Cameron launched a pilot program offering parenting classes to low-income families. The government anticipated around 20,000 parents of children under five to show up. Fewer than 3,000 did.
Not easily deterred, Cameron recently announced that he’s going to try this again. As part of a £70 million anti-poverty plan centered around providing more emotional support to families, the government is planning to launch another parenting class program—this time inviting middle class families as well as underprivileged ones. Cameron’s goal appears to be helping more parents as well as shedding the stigma that only poor families need such help; he says he wants it to become “normal, even aspirational, to attend parenting classes.”