Cardiff University

Academic Institute

UKRI

Yes

E102

Sure Start is a programme in Northern Ireland that has been supporting parents with young children in disadvantaged areas since 2001. Sure Start aims to improve educational and health outcomes for children and reduce inequality. However, measuring the impact of Sure Start has been challenging because it specifically targets the most deprived areas. This makes simple comparisons between Sure Start and non-Sure Start areas difficult. Our project uses a natural experiment that occurred when the Department of Education expanded Sure Start to new areas between 2006 - 2010, 2013 - 2017 and 2021 to measure the impact of Sure Start on: • Maternal and child health in the first 60 months of life • Use of services and identification of developmental delays in children • Early parenting behaviours Additionally, we will explore how the impact of Sure Start may change over time (such as during the COVID-19 pandemic) and between different family groups. Recent meta-reviews of early years and place-based interventions have concluded that there is a lack of robust evidence about the impact of these interventions. This study addresses an important policy and helps increase knowledge of ‘what works’ to improve early years outcomes. In the medium term, our findings will provide valuable insights for similar early years programs in other parts of the UK and around the world.

This project is funded as part of the Trial Accelerator Fund (managed by UKRI). The fund is part of a UKRI (and cabinet office) initiative to tackle place-based inequalities and increase the number of public policy evaluations. We aim to comply with evaluation standards outlined in the Magenta Book (i.e., the official Government guidelines for evaluations), which highlights that evaluations must maximise learning and accountability. We have consulted stakeholders about our study and its objective to ensure it is relevant, fair and achievable. In the short term, our study addresses a significant accountability gap (as identified by the Northern Ireland Audit Office). Sure Start has been a key flagship policy for over two decades, but a range of factors (data, poor design, lack of resources) there has not been a robust impact evaluation of the scheme during this time. Our findings will help the Department of Education learn about Sure Start's effects and potentially affect the scheme's delivery. In the medium term, learning about ‘what works’ with regards to early year policy is of great relevance to other UK nations and internationally. To this end, we have teamed up with the National Children’s Bureau who advise on the ‘Better Start’ programme in England for knowledge dissemination on this project. From meeting with Sure Start practitioners, we have identified a demand from practitioners who want to learn about the impact of their services. Long-term, we are confident that our design (birth cohorts affected by natural experiments) will be of continued relevance and interest to the wider research community for years after the project ends for studying other outcomes, longer-term impact and linkages to other administrative datasets. We have liaised with Administrative Data Research Northern Ireland to scope the potential for future work to look at long-term outcomes.

10/01/2025

TRE