Table 3 Participant quotes for Theme 2 "Setting strengths and challenges"

Playgroups are a suitable setting

Mia: So the kids were able to be there and around us, which was really good, because often we can’t attend a lot of things because our children aren’t welcome or it’s not easy for our children to be in that space. (Parent, focus group 3)

Heather: I think with the playgroup setting, I think it's a really good idea. The reason is it's part of our routine already. We're not having to make special time (Parent, focus group 1)

Kathryn: I think it certainly is a good thing that you can meet people where they're at. You're not asking them to go to a different venue to show up at a different time, in a different setting, where they're not familiar because that's hard. As a parent with young children, that's a hard thing to commit to. (Peer facilitator)

Playgroup environments can be distracting

Tahlia: Playgroup was really hard to do because it’s not in an enclosed environment. So, the parents always have to have an eye on it and so when the facilitators came to give the information and talk, we really could only give 50% of our buy-in because the other 50% is trying to track which child is doing what at the time. (Parent, focus group 5)

Maria: I guess the hardest part was just because of the nature of playgroups and kids go wandering off and things, with [Peer facilitator name] trying to be able to actually get a chance to talk to everyone. (Playgroup coordinator, focus group 1)

Felicity: The delivery can sometimes be difficult because of different playgroups are set up differently. (Peer facilitator)

Playgroups have varied attendance

Andrea:... every other conversation, there would be a new set of parents for me, so like my playgroup is vast, so sometimes it happens that the people who were there last week, wouldn't have been in this week... But whoever attended took it really nicely. Yeah, they were cooperative in certain ways (Playgroup coordinator, focus group 2)

Deanna: And then also it was every week there were different people, so it wasn’t the same group of people which I think was hard. (Peer facilitator)

Christine: because of COVID, because people were having to isolate or if they had any cold or flu symptoms, we would generally stay at home, that really prevented numbers at playgroup. A lot of participants weren't making it... and that limited the conversations we could have when there were only two or three of us there. (Parent, focus group 1)