Early Years Integration Pathfinder – Evaluation

Description

1.1 Background The Early Years Integration Pathfinder is a Welsh Government pilot programme aiming to ‘build on our current early years programmes and create a more joined-up, responsive system that puts the unique needs of each child at its heart.’ Prosperity for All – the National Strategy (Welsh Government). The programme looks at the co-ordination of services for children in their early years (from conception to age 7). Neath Port Talbot and Swansea Public Service Boards (PSBs) have agreed to become early years integration pathfinders working across the Swansea Bay Health Board area to take the programme forward. Programme objectives: - Children from all backgrounds have the best start in life - Parents will have access to a joined up and seamless EY service - Fully professionalised EY workforce – who feel part of a single EY system - More confident parents of happy, confident, thriving, resilient children - Reduced educational inequalities , reduction in ACEs The two PSBs are working in partnership with Swansea Bay Health Board and Public Health Wales to take forward the programme and to pilot new ways of working to improve the early years system. Section 2 – Core Service 2.1 Description of Service Being Commissioned (the “Specification”) To develop an evaluation framework to evaluate the impact of the improved coordination and integration of services delivered as part of the Early Years Integration pilot models, as outlined in the NPT & Swansea Business Plan (overleaf). To apply the framework to the projects and to report findings to the regional steering group. The evaluation product will inform the future planning and arrangement of service delivery at local and regional level. Public Engagement Element: To ensure that we continue to work with the Future Generations Act at the heart of our guiding principles, and that any future proposals to support transformation are completed in a comprehensive and well planned out way it is essential that we engage with families, and service users who are either using, or have recently used services within Health, Education, Family support, Childcare and Play and this work will form part of the evaluation process. We are keen to ensure that all elements of population are considered, including, but not exclusively: - Hard to reach populations - New parents - Pregnant Mums - All ethnic populations - Families living in low income areas, and areas of high deprivation. Design brief: We wished to engage an organisation to undertake the following work: - Identification and collation of baseline data for each project outlined in the NPT & Swansea Business Plan and subsequent addendum for Early Years Integration Pathfinder funding - Identification of appropriate measures and/or tools to demonstrate project outcomes - Evaluating the benefits of improved co-ordination in providing support for children and families (possibly through control groups in non-pilot areas) - Understanding user experience of each of the projects (families and partner agencies) - Collating lessons learned in order to demonstrate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of each project A clear timeline indicating the anticipated start and end dates of all elements of the project should be provided with the quotation.