Information use project specification
The original project aims focused on reducing the frequency with which young people in Hampshire escalate in need to require involvement from children’s social care. Creating an online dashboard that brings together information from different sources and which includes the voices of young people, families and practitioners, may enable professionals to make faster and more informed decisions about how best to support young people and their families. The initial focus was on exploring whether and how using data analytics to flag situations, events and episodes that might place individual adolescents at greater risk of escalating need, will also enable practitioners to offer timely, earlier and more meaningful support, and build better relationships with young people. Collating this information about young people and their families across Hampshire has the potential to help the local authority to ensure that it is commissioning the most appropriate services for the local population.
The project aims to ensure that the voices of young people, families and practitioners are embedded in the information that is used. Identifying where voice appears in existing information and where there are opportunities to hear more about their views and experiences will ensure that decisions take these into account and can help families to feel more empowered in the process.
Update on progress
In the second half of 2023 activities were focused on the development of a data model, led by the embedded data analyst in Hampshire. Existing administrative datasets have been utilised to analyse routes to referral to children’s services for young people in middle childhood (pre-adolescence) covering the pivotal transition from primary to secondary schooling. An emphasis was placed on the use of predictive analytics. The process of initial review of the model, along with the external environment, and scrutiny of ethical aspects of the use of predictive analytics, led to a review of the role of this approach for the work in Hampshire. Preliminary work has been carried out to explore how voice of children and families, and practitioners can be integrated into the data work.
Plans for next year
This site experienced staffing changes towards the end of 2023: The site lead and the data analyst have both left Hampshire. A new site lead has been identified (Heather Slocomb) and has taken over leadership of the project from January 2024. A replacement data analyst is being identified, although this change will see a move from an external appointment, to a secondment arrangement (as per the arrangements in North Yorkshire). In addition, Lisa Holmes has taken over leadership of the research team work in this site as of January 2024. This change in research team leadership will create closer working with North Yorkshire Council and will facilitate a shared cross site focus on children’s social care data. These changes, and concerns about a predominant focus on predictive analytics have led to a review and proposed changes to the IUP in Hampshire. A focus will still be maintained on a data driven approach, and the linking of datasets to create a single view of the child, but without underpinning predictive analytics.
As such the new project team in Hampshire are revisiting project plans and timelines in the first three months of 2024. Subject to these discussions the research team will complete discovery phase interviews and write-up in the first half of 2024. They will also undertake consultation sessions with parents and carers to capture their views around how their information is used. Finally, the research team will complete shadowing of practitioners to understand further how data is collected, stored and used in the authority.
Lisa Holmes will introduce a series of meetings to bring together the Hampshire site lead with the North Yorkshire site lead to discuss synergies between the two Information Use Projects, and how we collectively move towards outwardly facing activities, via the Learning Network, and other national groups and organisations (such as the Children’s Social Care Data User Group and Data to Insight).
“New Year New You has never been more relevant as we approach a new phase which pulls us closer into partnership with the Nuffield project. With a move toward a focus on better use of data, creating a single view to better understand the most important asset we have – our children. Data driven culture and data driven decision making is a passion of mine personally, and so I am excited for where this next phase takes us in using data for the greater good. I look forward to working with Lisa and Sam - thank you for such a warm welcome.” (Heather Slocomb, Site Lead)
The team
The research team works flexibly across sites, however Prof. Lisa Holmes, Dr Liam Berriman and Prof Elaine Sharland are key members of the team working with Hampshire. In the site, key team members include Sarah Plummer, Heather Slocomb and Holly Greaves.
