How can I trace the outcomes of partnership in terms of learning?
What could I look out for, with families, as outcome indicators?
What could be used as signs that progress is being made?
The Creating Better Futures study took an educational perspective on support for families with young children. This means that when we looked for outcomes, we were interested in learning. This section has two parts, one focused on children's learning, and the other on parents' learning.
Our findings show you not only what to look out for and to share with parents, but also what is necessary to make this learning possible.
There are other important outcomes of partnership, including those more directly related to physical changes, such as a child's weight gain after feeding difficulties, or lowering scores on a parent mental health assessment scale. However, these are generally well documented and are often what services focus on when seeking to document their impacts.
Our research shows that impactful partnership requires and delivers outcomes in terms of children's and parents' learning. Explicitly looking for signs of these outcomes and using this evidence as a basis for practitioner reflection can be useful in refining practices and making every precious moment with families be as impactful as possible, keeping the partnership in the high value-add zone.
Find out more in the sections dedicated to each of these, via the links below.
Children's learning
Overcoming difficulties always had an aspect that related to supporting children’s learning. All the helpers we studied helped parents understand childhood as a process of learning. Building on this, they helped parents understand what they can do to foster their child’s learning.
Parents' learning
Partnership can have impacts in many domains, including physical and mental health. We found that:
- Many outcomes depend on parents’ learning
- Parents’ learning is an outcome in itself.