The data landscape for children who come into contact with early intervention services or children’s social care is patchy. This limits its potential to drive research, practice and policy that improves children’s lives. In recent years, there has been a lot of progress in making valuable national datasets available; however, researchers are still making insufficient use of them. Currently, knowledge is fragmented; there is no clear sense of research gaps or priorities, and where evidence exists, it often gathers dust on a shelf. Researchers in the field have varying levels of connectivity and support.

The ADR England Research Community Catalyst for Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes aims to address these issues by building a community of data users. This community will provide national strategic leadership for administrative data and research, focusing on children and young people supported by early intervention services or children’s social care. 

Using ECHILD administrative data, this project aims to identify children directly at risk because their administrative data indicate that they have been under the remit of child welfare services, or alternatively by sampling children who can be identified as at elevated risk, due to characteristics of their mothers.

The project is co-funded by ADR UK with Foundations: The National What Works Centre for Children and Families. The project will be co-led by Dr Lucy Griffiths of Swansea University and Professor Karen Broadhurst, of Lancaster University. Co-investigators include Dr Jenny Woodman and Professor Katie Harron (University College London), Professor Lisa Holmes (University of Sussex) and Dr Dougal Hargreaves (Imperial College London).