Archive of 2019

Cordis Pulse: December 2019

December 2019

In November, we were interested to read the LGA and SCIE publication on Achieving Integrated Care: 15 best practice actions. We have a track-record of, and are currently, working in and conducting evaluations of a range of integrated health and social care programmes and initiatives across England and Wales. These actions identified by SCIE and the LGA grouped under the headings of: realising person-centred coordinated care, building place-based care and support systems, and leading for integration chimed with many of our experiences of conducting nationally important, high profile evaluation work in this area.

Download the Pulse in full below. 

Cordis Pulse: November 2019

November 2019

Welcome to November’s edition of the CordisPulse - a monthly digest of key research and policy developments across the sectors in which Cordis Bright provides research and consultancy services, i.e. children and young people's services, criminal justice, and adult social care and health.

SEN stress-test 2019

October 2019

This document presents an analysis of SEN trends nationally and how these trends vary between local areas.

It has a particular focus on:

• Numbers and rates of children with SEN
• Types of need
• Profile of provision used to respond to these needs
• Spending on Independent and Non-Maintained Special Schools (i.e. specialist provision that is used when children’s needs cannot be met locally)

The latter half of the our analysis – the SEN stress-test – recognises that local authorities are experiencing different pressures. We use 7 indicators to identify those who we think are experiencing the most pressures and stresses in relation to SEN provision.

Cordis Pulse: October 2019

October 2019

Rough sleeping is a primary focus of a number of this month’s resources. For example, Public Health England’s Health Matters explores the scale, causes and consequences of rough sleeping. It cites 2018 Rough Sleeping Statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), indicating that official estimates via street counts of the number of people rough sleeping on a single night in England fell by 2% between 2017 and 2018. MHCLG’s impact evaluation of the Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) 2018 suggests that this reduction might be connected to RSI funding; an analysis comparing changes in street count numbers in the 83 areas which received RSI funding to 83 areas which did not suggests the RSI led to a significant reduction in the overall number of people sleeping rough between 2017 and 2018.

A process evaluation of the RSI is due to be published in the coming months and we await its findings with interest. This will help to shed light on how the RSI has achieved or contributed to reductions in rough sleeping in areas which received funding. It also has the potential to identify learning for policies, strategies and programmes aiming to reduce rough sleeping or improve outcomes for people who experience it.

We would expect findings from the RSI process evaluation to resonate with existing research on support for people who are homeless and/or experiencing multiple disadvantage, including findings from our independent evaluations of Making Every Adult Matter and Blackpool Fulfilling Lives. For instance, existing research highlights the importance of accessible, flexible, integrated and person-centred support based on trusting relationships in engaging and supporting individuals. Crucially, the evidence to-date suggests that for reduced rough sleeping and improved outcomes to be sustained, individuals need support on a medium to long-term basis. This improved support to individuals must also be accompanied by system-level changes in areas such as strategic planning, commissioning, support pathways and workforce development. Therefore, the RSI and similar initiatives are likely to contribute to sustained reductions in rough sleeping only if they are able to facilitate the development and implementation of sustainable interventions and systems change.

Interventions designed to reduce and manage demand

October 2019

We have recently completed a number of evaluations concerning interventions which aim to reduce or manage demand for mainstream services. These innovations are increasingly common as health and social care services look for ways to reduce the strain they are experiencing. Having delivered a number of evaluations now, we thought it would be interesting to look across a selection of them to see if we can spot any emerging themes. In particular, we wondered:

• Are there key factors which contribute to the success of these approaches?
• How useful is the policy of investing in interventions designed to reduce or manage demand for mainstream services?

Download our blog below to find out more.

MEAM Approach evaluation: year 2 report

October 2019

This is the year 2 report for the longitudinal evaluation of the MEAM Approach, which is a non-prescriptive framework to help local areas design and deliver better coordinated services for people facing multiple disadvantage. The MEAM Approach is currently being used by cross-sector partnerships of statutory and voluntary agencies in 27 local areas across England. Our evaluation takes a mixed methods approach, in which we are collaborating with an expert research group of eight people who have lived experience of multiple disadvantage. The report presents nine early findings on the impact of the MEAM Approach on individual wellbeing for clients, on the use of resources in local areas and on local services and systems.

The MEAM Approach has been developed by the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) coalition, which is formed of the national charities Clinks, Homeless Link, Mind and associate member, Collective Voice.

Cordis Pulse: September 2019

September 2019

A number of resources this month focus on the impact of experiencing multiple disadvantage. For instance: Alcohol Change UK and the effect of alcohol on intimate partner violence; the Health Foundation on allostatic load, the Lancet Public Health on adverse childhood experiences; Public Health Wales and the WHO on wellbeing; and NICE on coexisting mental illness and substance misuse. This emphasis on multiple need mirrors a lot of our current work, e.g. evaluations of Making Every Adult Matter and of Fulfilling Lives programmes; and research on prevalence of adverse childhood experiences. We agree that it is important to have an ongoing focus on multiple challenges: not only because of the particularly poor outcomes experienced by this group, but also because of the challenges for providers in ensuring services are delivered in a joined-up and impactful way. Finally, a number of these reports examine resilience as well as risk. We welcome this as it ensures a focus on people’s strengths and avoids deficit models of delivery.

Whole system approaches to domestic abuse

September 2019

This literature review looks at research, evaluations and guidance to identify recommendations for designing and delivering a whole system approach to domestic abuse. This includes principles for good practice, what works, what the main challenges are and how best to overcome them. In this review, we report and distil the key findings on whole system approaches to responding to domestic abuse. We focus particularly on whole system approaches as they apply to criminal justice agencies, but the findings may also be relevant to other sectors and agencies that are seeking to improve the whole system response. Research in this area is relatively established in the domain of health and social care, but lacking in the domain of criminal justice. We therefore also integrate guidance about multi-agency working from criminal justice sources into the review.

Looked after children stress test 2019

September 2019

This document uses publicly available data to examine recent trends in the numbers, rates and spend on looked after children in England.

The first section presents national trends from 2012 to 2018.

The second section examines trends across local authorities.

As part of this, it highlights those local authorities that we think, from the data, may be experiencing the most pressures in catering for looked after children.

We also highlight local authorities that may be sites of effective practice.

Cordis Pulse: August 2019

August 2019

It’s been a bumper month for interesting reports: three in particular to highlight were:

• The Youth Justice Board’s (YJB) disproportionality tools outlines the extent to which BAME children are over-represented in each stage of the youth justice system.
• The Howard League for Penal Reform report on the criminalisation of children in residential care shows that some children’s homes are excessively calling the police, but efforts to reduce criminalisation are beginning to have some impact.
• The Children’s Society research on responding to children who are criminally exploited show that 14-17 year-olds are the most likely to be exploited by criminal gangs, and professionals are struggling to keep up with the scale of the problem.

Cordis Bright has recently worked with Central Government Departments, Multi-Agency Boards, Police and Crime Commissioners, Local Authority Children’s Services and Voluntary and Community Sector organisations on their responses to Serious Youth Violence and Gangs, Modern Slavery, Trafficking and Exploitation, evaluated programmes, innovations and initiatives designed to improve responses to these issues, and worked with Youth Offending Team Boards to review their work on disproportionality. Based on this experience we agree with the call from these reports for a more joined-up approach and improved sharing of information between statutory and non-statutory agencies to better support children and young people involved, or at risk of involvement, with the criminal justice system.

You can download the full version of the Pulse below.