Summary report on the evaluation of Prompts topic briefings
Three Prompts have been published on the website:
- Improving educational outcomes for looked after children (January 2007). This pilot topic was chosen internally
- The second topic - Family intervention projects (June 2007) was chosen by our Partnership board
- The third topic - Managing distinct professional identities in multi-agency teams (January 2008)- was chosen after consultation with the newly nominated ‘2nd tier champions for evidence-informed practice’ in our Partner agencies
The role of the 2nd Tier champion is to provide strategic level support for our Link Officer and to develop and embed evidence-informed practice across Children’s Services within their agency. In order to get some feedback on the use value of Prompts to this target audience I conducted a telephone consultation between 25 March and 25 April 2008.
- I completed the consultation with 26 of the champions (37% of this group)
- Of these, 13 had already looked at Prompts, and 13 were sent the link and gave me their feedback in a subsequent phone call or email
- 100% of those who looked at the Prompts found them ‘very useful’ or ‘useful’ (85% ‘very useful’, and 15% useful)
The respondents’ answers to open-ended questions provide useful insight into how these resources are being used:
What was the Prompt useful for?
- 'Clear, accessible, readable documents which I had no hesitation in passing on'
David Hogg, Head of Children's Commissioning & Quality, West Berkshire - ‘They really have the summary you need... they integrate policy and the latest research findings' when often you need to look in a number of places for this data
Flo Watson, Research Consultant, CAFCASS - ‘A conscious attempt to draw out lessons for service development...It's encouraging that they didn't stop short at key messages but went in a bit deeper'
John Welsby, Chief Officer Children & Families, Wolverhampton - ‘I'm thankful you took the time to point them out to me'
Richard Lohan, Assistant Executive Director, Children and Family Wellbeing, Barnsley
Who did you disseminate the Prompt materials to?
Many respondents disseminate Prompts to their management teams. Their comments also included some useful ideas for more targeted dissemination:
- A good many have used Prompt 1 to inform Corporate Parenting strategies and advisory panels, and in liaising with schools on this issue. It was also forwarded to commissioning leads to inform an audit of Care Matters implementation
- Prompt 2 is being used by service managers developing LAC options
- Prompt 3 is being used in induction days for locality well-being team champions; elsewhere it was circulated to social work, medical and nursing staff and to seconded health and education staff; another authority are using it to inform the work of their children’s workforce development sub-group
Susannah Bowyer, research officer This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
