Supporting local government to develop evidence-based strategies for improving children’s outcomes.
Job title: Louise Morpeth
Email: lmorpeth@dartington.org.uk
Evidence2Success is a place-based strategy development and implementation process that supports the leaders of public services and community leaders to work together to improve children’s outcomes by commissioning, designing and implementing evidence-based children’s services. The Social Research Unit is working with the City of Providence in Rhode Island in the United States, and the local authority in Perth and Kinross in the UK to implement it in these areas.
Evidence2Success involves bringing together leaders of local public services (for example, from the local authority and health commissioning bodies) with leaders from the voluntary and community sector to develop and implement evidence-based strategies to improve children’s outcomes. Three types of evidence and data are crucial to the process:
- Robust data on children’s needs, to inform evidence-based commissioning strategies.
- Information about what’s proven to work in improving children’s outcomes, and cost-benefit analysis of what’s proven to work to inform commissioning strategies.
- A map of how existing funds are spent on children at the local level, to inform shifts in spending towards evidence-based prevention and early intervention.
Evidence2Success combines these three key types of input with:
- A tried-and-tested governance framework that produces collective accountability for the strategy, how funds are spent, and its impact on local outcomes. This brings together local statutory agencies, including health, local authorities and youth justice; the local voluntary and community sector; and members of the local community (for example, parents, GPs, headteachers and Children’s Centres). The governance framework supports partnerships to plan for making long-term, joint shifts in funding towards evidence-based prevention and early intervention.
- Facilitation of the strategy development process involving all these stakeholders, helping to secure a joint vision and strategy that is collectively owned at the local level.
Evidence2Success produces a systematic shift in local investments towards evidence-based prevention and early intervention at scale. These shifts produce immediate change in the pattern of local services, followed by reduced risks and enhanced protection of child well-being within two years, and better developmental outcomes within five years.
Evidence2Success is the product of a three-year collaboration between the Social Research Unit at Dartington, the Social Development Research Group (SDRG) at the University of Washington, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore. The model combines the Social Research Unit at Dartington’s skills in bringing evidence-based approaches to bear on public systems, SDRG’s expertise via in engaging local neighbourhoods in improving the lives of children via its Communities that Care model, and the Casey Foundation’s track record in system reform and finance management.
Evidence2Success is currently being implemented in two sites:
- Providence, Rhode Island, United States. The US delivery is led by Annie E. Casey Foundation, with support from the Social Research Unit and other partners.
- Perth and Kinross, Scotland. The UK delivery is led by the Social Research Unit, working with the local authority in Perth and Kinross, with an independent evaluation funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and undertaken by David Utting.
Evidence2Success: A summary
This summary overview of Evidence2Success sets out the idea, the tools and governance arrangements that support the approach, and the key milestones and benchmarks that mark each phase of the work.