Information use project (IUP) specification
The North Yorkshire project seeks to explore how Children’s Social Care and its partner agencies can most effectively meet the needs of care leavers through the better use of voice-informed data and information.
This IUP specifically focuses on:
• bringing appropriate information together to enhance individual work with young people
• aggregating meaningful outcomes measures to inform service changes
• enhancing the voices of young people in the use of information
How the project has evolved and where we are now
North Yorkshire has a data dashboard for its care leavers’ service that is used by managers, assistant managers and data analysts. The dashboard is fed by data collected in the case management system, where personal advisors working with care leavers enter case notes and monthly data returns. It is updated daily and is used to monitor the effectiveness of the care leavers’ service.
However, the data in this dashboard focus primarily on the measures that are required by Department for Education data returns: accommodation, work, education and being ‘in contact’ with the local authority. Other geographical data are also provided, as well as the number of up-to-date Pathway Plans. Nevertheless, this leaves a number of gaps in the holistic picture of the care-leaving cohort’s needs and outcomes – consistently noted as central to improving care leaver outcomes. These data are also limited in how the voices of young people are included.
Our plans for the coming year
By the end of the project, North Yorkshire’s data dashboard will better reflect meaningful outcomes, as determined by young people and practitioners, rather than being dominated by outcome indicators as determined by government data returns. In time, this will lead to improved outcomes for care leavers.
Our team
The research team works flexibly across sites however Professor Lisa Holmes, Dr Perpetua Kirby and Georgia Hyde-Dryden are key members of the team working with North Yorkshire. In the site, key team members include Sam Clayton, Maggie Allen, Nicki Watkinson, David Gillson, Chris Houghton plus many more. Dr Caitlin Shaughnessey was a former team member and contributed widely to the project.
