A project to assist Family Actions's Building Bridges practitioners with the use of the Index of Family Relations as an outcome measurement: final report

With support from DCSF’s Parenting Fund, Family Action commissioned a team of researchers from the University of East London to evaluate the utility of the Index of Family Relations (IFR) for continued use as an outcome measure to evaluate its work

A project to assist Family Action’s Building Bridges practitioners with the use of the Index of Family Relations as an outcome measurement (Final Report).

This report describes the methods and findings of a partnership project between Family Action practitioners and managers, and a research team led by Angela Harden and Eva Lloyd of the University of East London. Since 1999, Family Action has been providing services in a number of locations across England under the Building Bridges name, working with families affected by parental mental health problems and other complex needs. Since 2004, Building Bridges projects have been using four separate validated psychometric tools to measure family functioning, parental satisfaction, self‐esteem and depression in order to evaluate the impact of its services on outcomes for parents and their children: the Index of Family Relations (IFR); the Kansas Parental Satisfaction Scale; the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale; and the Depression Rating Scale. Some years ago, the Building Bridges service model was independently evaluated (Morris, 2007). In the light of Family Action’s commitment to ongoing monitoring and evaluation of its work, a decision was taken to build on the findings of the 2007 evaluation. The focus selected for further research was an important cultural issue identified by Morris (2007: 25) regarding the appropriateness of the Index of Family Relations for black and minority ethnic (BME) communities, in particular Bangladeshi and Somali families. With support from DCSF’s Parenting Fund, Family Action commissioned a team of researchers from the University of East London to evaluate the utility of the IFR for continued use as an outcome measure to evaluate its work

What is known about the long-term economic impact of centre-based early childhood interventions?

There is a substantial literature about cost-benefi t studies of social welfare interventions. It is widely assumed, and widely quoted by politicians and policymakers, that early childhood interventions in particular are effective and bring returns in the order of seven dollars saved for every one dollar spent. These savings do not appear to be apparent until the children who received the intervention reach adulthood. We wished to scrutinise this evidence in detail

How effective are measures taken to mitigate the impact of direct experience of armed conflict on the psychosocial and cognitive development of children aged 0–8?

This report looks at research that assesses the effectiveness of measures taken to mitigate the impact of direct experience of armed conflict on the psychosocial and cognitive development of children aged 0–8