Programme evaluation

The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk) in partnership with the University of Central Lancashire (formerly the University of Salford) has now completed an independent evaluation of phase three of the Early Support Programme. The full report and a summary of the findings were published by the former Department for Education and Skills in October 2006. You can read the reports on the DfES website:
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR798.pdf  (459 pages, 2.66MB)
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RB798.pdf  (5-page summary)

The authors' presentation to our November 2006 conference also gives a summary of the main conclusions.

The evaluation report concludes that Early Support is a very successful programme. Click here to read our news item about the findings of the study.

About the research team

The research team was multi-disciplinary encompassing social scientists, statisticians, psychologists, educational researchers and economists. Team members had extensive experience in research within health, education and social care with some members having dual practitioner and academic backgrounds. There was also personal experience of disability within the team.

The lead researchers were:

• Professor Alys Young (School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester)
• Professor Bogusia Temple (Housing and Urban Studies Unit, University of Salford)
• Dr Gill Parkinson (Educational Support and Inclusion, School of Education, University of Manchester)
• Linda Davies (Health Economics Group, University of Manchester)
• Dr Graeme Hutcheson (School of Education, University of Manchester)
• Professor Adrian Davis (MRC Hearing and Communication Group, University of Manchester)
• Joanna Bolton (School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester)

Joanna Bolton was full-time Research Assistant (Joanna.Bolton@manchester.ac.uk) and the team administrator was Angela Webster (angela.webster@manchester.ac.uk)

The evaluation team, left to right: back row - Linda Davies, Graeme Hutcheson, Joanna Bolton, Angela Webster; front row Bogusia Temple, Gill Parkinson and Alys Young

Overview

The research was designed to evaluate the impact, effectiveness and outcomes of the Early Support Programme from the perspectives of both families and service providers. As such the essential challenge was to understand how Early Support was realised within the diversity of the 45 Pathfinder sites. Although some elements are constant, such as the use of the Early Support materials, there are significant variations in the characteristics of local contexts, the extent of development of multi-agency partnerships, the degree of family participation and allocated resource. In essence, therefore, the evaluation was seeking to understand which aspects of Early Support had which effects in which circumstances. This information was essential not only for providing evidence of the impact and effects of the current government investment but also in terms of the future development of Early Support.

The evaluation method

There were five interdependent studies within the evaluation using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Some of these required participation from all Pathfinder sites, others involved ten chosen sites. The studies were:

• Baseline study to establish the taxonomy of phase three sites and provide the sampling framework.
• The impact on services study with data taken at two points of Early Support implementation.
• The cost effectiveness study, looking not only at the use of resource but the prioritisation of resource and economic decision making.
• The families study, involving 30 parents/carers and paying particular attention to the experiences of families who may be labelled 'hard to reach'.
• The child outcomes study (which only used secondary data derived from the other studies).

The evaluation team would like to thank all the participants for their time and insights which contributed to an important piece of research.

Contacting us

Professor Alys Young - alys.young@manchester.ac.uk
Telephone: 0161 275 8230

Professor Bogusia Temple - BTemple1@uclan.ac.uk
Telephone:01772 895461

Click here to read more about the five studies.