UK children's policy shows signs of changing direction

The introduction to the UK debate on children’s policy of questions about workforce quality, professional process and sustainability suggests that the preoccupation with ‘outcomes’ that has dominated policy for over a decade is being modified.

The shift is detectable in a series of papers on the long-terms effects of early deprivation by leading education researcher Leon Feinstein [1], Director of the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning at the Institute of Education, London.

Mortality rates among men aged 20-64 are two and a half times greater for unskilled manual laborers than employers, managers or professional staff. The chances of multiple deprivation at 30 are five times higher for children born into the lowest social class than those born into the highest.

Underlying Feinstein's work are models that explain how poverty propels children towards such poor outcomes. Some of the influences occur outside the home: for example, poor families do not make great choices in choosing schools for their children. But what happens inside the home will affect what happens in the interaction between pupil and school.

In the UK at least, in addition to attempts to reduce poverty (within a stated objective of eliminating relative poverty), central government has invested heavily in better prevention, witness the flagship Sure Start program. But the results of evaluations are at best mixed, and indications of the well-being of UK children are also a causing disquiet.

So where next? One of the surprising features in Feinstein's work, now beginning to be echoed by some government policy makers, is his attention to the quality of the provision, workforce and processes for dealing with children.

Some of the themes are familiar. The requirement for better integrated, high quality services that are enduring, personalized, relevant to the child's needs and are part of a coherent intervention strategy has informed UK policy for some time.

So too has professed government determination to address tough political issues such as school selection and funding, and inequalities of wealth.

But the call for the professionalization of the social care workforce, and better methods for enhancing the quality of services is new. The argument goes something like, "How can we expect prevention programs to work if pay rates are so low and the quality of people employed to deliver them so variable?"

The attention being paid to the processes that underpin children's services, – education included – represents a clearer shift from a purely outcome-driven agenda. How children get the help they need, sustaining their involvement in quality interventions, and guaranteeing continuity of support may be as important as proven models and reliable service structures.

Feinstein ends his presentations with a call for sustainable reform. His work makes the case for better integration, internalization and deepening of the changes to children's services during the past decade. But he also hints at a subtle shift in the connections being made between evidence and policy.

References
Feinstein, L. "Inequality in Early Childhood Development of British
Children in the 1970 Cohort" Economica (70), 277, 73-97.

Feinstein, L. "Mobility in Pupils' Cognitive Attainment During School Life," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, (20), 2 (Education), 2004.

Feinstein, L. "The effects of adult learning on self-efficacy," London Review of Education, 3, 3, 2005, pp 265-287

• first published by Prevention Action on August 20th 2007