23rd April 2026
Today, Thursday 23 April, we are delighted to launch Little Sparks, Big Starts – Health Visiting: an exciting new programme to support health visiting teams share key messages about baby brain development during their routine contacts with families. It includes:
- A flexible, free to access e-learning package for all health visiting practitioners
- An accompanying web-based Parent App to support practitioners’ conversations with families
Little Sparks, Big Starts (LSBS) is a programme developed by Kindred Squared to raise awareness and understanding of early brain development, educating parents, health visiting teams, educators and children to improve outcomes for 0-5-year-olds.
The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) was commissioned to develop a programme, based on Kindred Squared’s original Secondary Education Early Neurodevelopment (SEEN) programme, with content and design refined to better suit the needs of the health visiting workforce. The iHV worked with families, frontline practitioners and experts to co-produce the content and ensure it was ‘fit for purpose’. The instructional design company, Eggu, developed the engaging e-learning package, and in partnership with the iHV project team, the Ready to Relate team and Working Academy in Bradford, the new app was developed.
Project lead, and Director of Innovation and Research at iHV, Vicky Gilroy, said:
“Health visitors and their teams generally have a good foundational understanding of baby brain development – but they wanted support in translating that knowledge so that it lands in a clear and meaningful way with families. The Little Sparks, Big Starts project has been an innovative piece of work to address that knowledge to practice gap. We hope that the new programme will support health visiting teams to positively promote the importance of early brain development in laying strong foundations for longer term outcomes – supporting families to make the everyday moments count!”
The programme was launched at an open iHV Insights event today, hosted by iHV, where representatives from Kindred Squared, iHV, and the professionals and parent groups involved in the project shared reflections on the scoping and development of the project.
Felicity Gillespie, Chief Executive, Kindred Squared, said of the suite of Little Sparks, Big Starts resources:
“Every cuddle, every chat, and every moment of play helps shape a child’s brain. Together, families and early years professionals build the strong foundation that children need to grow into happy, capable learners. We are deeply concerned by the latest school readiness survey, which found a rising number of children who haven’t reached key developmental milestones. Parents and early years staff are telling us they want more information and so Little Sparks, Big Starts is concise, well-researched and sourced advice which will hopefully help raise the vital importance of just how crucial pre-school development is.”
Access to the whole Little Sparks, Big Starts – Health Visiting programme is free, with instant access for all iHV members via iHV LEARN.
For non-iHV members – to register interest in the programme, see here https://ihv.org.uk/training-and-events/training-programme/little-sparks-big-starts/
For further details on all strands of the Little Sparks, Big Starts programme see https://littlesparks.org.uk/
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to Jane Dickens and Lisa Milne from Ready to Relate, Simon Couth and his team at Working Academy, Kat and Luci at Eggu, and the families, parents and practitioners involved in developing this programme.
