Evaluation of Children's Centres in England
An evaluation of the largest early years programme in England
About this study
We've been commissioned to evaluate the children's centres
programme in collaboration with the University of Oxford and
Frontier Economics.
The main aim is to provide an in-depth understanding of the
effectiveness of different approaches taken in the management and
delivery of children's centre services.
Children's centres explained
Children's centres are one of the main vehicles for ensuring that
integrated and good quality family services are located in
accessible places and are welcoming to all. The aim is to improve
developmental outcomes for all children and the programme is
expected to play an important role in reducing inequalities in
outcomes between the most disadvantaged children and the rest.
Potential policy impact
The evaluation will inform Government decision making about how best to support children and their families.
Methods
The evaluation has a number of elements and will run until
2017.
The first element will be conducted with a representative sample
of 475 children's centres which will be picked to represent the
different family services on offer.
Next, Oxford University will visit 120 of these children's centres
to find out more about the services on offer at these
centres.
Then we will talk to over 6,000 families who use these 120
children's centres and we will hope to speak to them once a year
for three years to see which services they use and how their
children develop.
Lastly, Frontier Economics will visit 12 Centres to ask about the
costs of delivering different services.
Taking part in the study
If you are a parent who has been asked to take part in a survey you can find:
answers to some frequently asked questions here
information about how your data will be used here
If you are a children's centre manager who has been asked to take part in a survey you can find:
answers to some frequently asked questions here
information about how your data will be used here
a help sheet on staff qualification levels here
You can:
Of interest:
Popular studies
- ScotCen Social Research
- 73 Lothian Road, Edinburgh, EH3 9AW
- Charity no. SC038454
- info@scotcen.org.uk
