The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s services
Launch of the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes - greater support to help Children's Trusts improve outcomes for all children (10 July 2008)
Improving outcomes for children, young people and their families is at the heart of the Every Child Matters agenda and has been given a renewed impetus through the Children's Plan, published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) in December 2007. The Children's Plan places an expectation on local authorities and their strategic partners in Children's Trusts to champion and take responsibility for achieving measurable improvements in the lives of children across all five of the Every Child Matters Outcomes.
The Centre will support a focus on the difference that still needs to be made to improving outcomes for children, young people and their families, by co-ordinating local, regional and national intelligence about what works. The Centre will also provide an offer of support to local government, and its partners, to tailor the learning from this intelligence to their local contexts.
Following a national competitive process, the Department earlier this year announced that the C4EO consortium (under the leadership of the consortium's Director, Christine Davies CBE) will run the new Centre from July 2008 for three years. The C4EO Consortium, led by the National Children's Bureau (NCB), has as its partners the National Foundation for Education Research (NfER), Research in Practice (RIP), the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and a number of other organisations from the sector.
The Centre will identify, co-ordinate and disseminate national, regional and local knowledge and evidence about systems and practice - where outcomes and services for children and young people are improving. It will achieve this by:
- Identifying where, why and how the lives of children and young people are
improving as a result of both the services they and their families receive, and
the initiatives in a local area to improve outcomes.
- Facilitating the bringing together of new partners at local, regional and
national level to support a focus on outcomes, analysis of trends and
action.
- Using local government and its partners to improve and build its own capacity and expertise to share good practice, improving both services and outcomes for children and young people.
In its first year of operation, the Centre will commence work on three themes: Early Years; Disabled Children; and Vulnerable Children (in Care). Under each theme there will be three priorities. Further information on the themes and the order in which they will be addressed can be found in the CfEO launch press notice.
Further information on the Centre is available in the CfEO Q&A. You can also visit the C4EO website.
The thinking behind the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's services has been influenced by a number of models, including the Outcome-based Accountability model. You can read more about the Outcome-based Accountability model at the Resources and Practice page, Better Outcomes for Children and Young People - From Talk to Action.
This page was last updated on 10 July 2008
