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Page 1
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
University of Huddersfield
Realist Evaluation of Lancashire Children's Fund
Final Report
May 2006
Mansoor A F Kazi, Jenny Eades and Martin Manby
Mansoor A F Kazi, PhD, is Research Associate Professor & Director of the Program Evaluation Centre,
School of Social Work, University at Buffalo (The State University of New York).
Jenny Eades is Research Officer for the Evaluation Team.
Martin Manby is Director of the Nationwide Children's Research Centre (NCRC), Huddersfield.
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
Brian Jackson House
New North Parade
Huddersfield
HD1 5JP
Tel:
01484 415461
Fax:
01484 435150
E-mail:
m.manby@hud.ac.uk
Website:
www.ncrcuk.org.uk

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
University of Huddersfield
2
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the children, young people, parents and project workers who have participated in this evaluation.
Our thanks also to Lancashire Children's Fund Programme Manager, Jo Humphries and her predecessor, Mike Cooper; to
Programme Development Officers, Mohammed Sarfraz and Talha Wadee; and to the rest of the Lancashire Children’s Fund
Team for their co-operation and to Anne Robbins, who helped to produce the report as well as to Johanna Metsala and Pia
Toivonen, Social Workers from Korso in Finland, for their working visit as research assistants with the evaluation team
Mansoor Kazi
Jenny Eades
Martin Manby

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
University of Huddersfield
3
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Page 5
SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE FINAL REPORT
10
National Developments
10
Lancashire Children's Fund (including Key Scheme Milestones)
12
Every Child Matters and Migration towards Children's Trusts
14
Recent Strategic Developments
15
SECTION 2
INTRODUCTION TO THE EVALUATION
18
Methodology
19
Context of the Evaluation
20
Difficulties and Challenges of Implementing the Evaluation
Literature Review
Other Children's Fund Evaluations
20
22
30
SECTION 3
EVALUATION FINDINGS LINKED TO EVERY CHILD MATTERS OUTCOMES
36
Be Healthy:
Projects
37
Main Findings
37
Stay Safe:
Projects
39
Main Findings
39
Enjoy & Achieve:
Projects
39
Main Findings
41

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
University of Huddersfield
4
Make a Positive Contribution:
Projects
42
Main Findings
43
Achieve Economic Well-Being:
Main Findings
44
SECTION 4
SECTION 5
NOTES ON PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS AND COSTS
COMMISSIONING, MAINSTREAMING AND REPLICATION
45
48
SECTION 6 CONCLUSIONS
68
REFERENCES
70
APPENDICES:
74
Appendix 1: A table comparing Every Child Matters Outcomes and Children's
Fund Objectives
Appendix 1
Appendix 2: Templates describing services and summarising findings for 68
Projects
Appendix 3: Matrix Analysing Characteristics of 68 projects
Appendix 2
Appendix 3

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
University of Huddersfield
5
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Background
(i)
NCH took the role of lead agency for Lancashire Children's Fund (LCF) in July 2002. The Children's Fund represents a
major plank in the Government's Preventative Strategy, aiming to address gaps in preventative health and social care
provision for children aged 5-13.
(ii)
LCF developed a multi-million pound investment strategy based on wide-ranging consultation across the county with
children, young people, families and service providers.
(iii)
By 2003 LCF had funded 170 projects including new initiatives for children from ethnic minorities, children with disabilities,
transient children and children in rural areas. Funding, and the scale of LCF provision, was significantly reduced in March
2004. The Programme has now been extended to 2008 on a tapered basis.
(iv) This evaluation report has taken account of the Draft Plan for Children and Young People in Lancashire, the Lancashire
Children and Young People's Charter, consultation documents on supporting parents and families, and on engaging children
and young people, and Lancashire Partnership's Local Area Agreements, all of which have been produced during the same
time period.
Evaluation
(v)
Birmingham University is leading the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund. Local evaluators for LCF (the Nationwide
Children's Research Centre - NCRC - and the University of Huddersfield) were appointed from January 2003, measuring
projects against Children's Fund Objectives, which were later subsumed within the five Outcomes for children's services
identified in Every Child Matters (2003). Successful projects could be eligible for mainstream funding from Children's Trusts
which would be developed to provide integrated children's services in the period 2006/08.
(vi) Lancashire County Council published its own Preventative Strategy in 2004 aiming to re-position services to focus on early
intervention and on tackling social exclusion. Lancashire Partnership published Local Area Agreements early in 2006 which
included targeting improved school attendance, attainment at age 14 for under-achieving groups, targeting reductions in first-
time offenders and anti-social behaviour, and targets to increase the percentage of Lancashire Schools with National

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
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Healthy Schools status. Lancashire County Council has produced consultation documents on Supporting Parents and
Families, and on Engaging Children and Young People and also a Plan for Children and Young People (Consultation Draft
December 2005). These initiatives have the potential to assist mainstreaming of effective LCF projects.
(vii) The local evaluation has been based on a Realist Evaluation approach designed to integrate reliable outcome measures
relevant to project objectives. SPSS databases were installed in some 47 projects to assist monitoring and data analysis.
(viii) Most projects have made good progress with developing their evaluations, although some have experienced problems in
accessing school or crime data. Evaluation had to be discontinued for a number of projects when funding was reduced in
March 2004.
Literature Review
(ix)
A Literature review has been completed reviewing evidence about family support, parenting and nurturing programmes, and
evidence about school-based initiatives including the impact of Learning Mentors, reading groups, breakfast clubs and
initiatives to raise children's self-esteem and to tackle truancy. Out of school projects, summer holiday programmes and
targeted interventions directed to supporting children at risk of becoming involved in crime have also been reviewed. This
evidence provides valuable background information for the evaluation of Lancashire Children's Fund projects.
Other Children's Fund Evaluations
(x)
Further useful context has been provided by a review of local evaluation reports on the National Evaluation of the Children's
Fund (NECF) website. Lancashire Children's Fund is one of a small number that has succeeded in collecting "hard"
outcome data, which has tended to prove difficult, particularly for small, non-statutory organisations supported by local
Children's Funds. Lancashire Children's Fund is also one of a number that has had some success in recruiting and training
volunteers to support projects.
Project Characteristics
(xi)
This Report contains templates summarising objectives, processes and findings for 68 projects.

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
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University of Huddersfield
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(xii)
Out of sixty-eight (68) projects where evaluation data has been collected, 45 (two-thirds or 66%) have been allocated
positive intervention scores. Eighteen (18) achieved the highest evaluation score of 3 and twenty-seven (27) received an
evaluation score of 2. More than half of the projects are within the Enjoy and Achieve category; a quarter relate to Be
Healthy; and there are a smaller group of projects focusing on Make a Positive Contribution, most concentrating on
improving Law Abiding and Positive Behaviour. Enjoy and Achieve projects able to measure school attendance and
attainment produced more definitive results than projects focusing on sport or recreation.
(xiii) A much higher proportion of projects were community-based rather than school-based. Thirty-seven (37) projects were
located in the statutory sector and thirty-one (31) projects in the voluntary sector. The proportion of statutory and voluntary
sector projects receiving positive evaluation scores was the same. Statutory sector projects made more use of hard data
than voluntary sector projects.
(xiv) Unit costs varied widely across all projects. The mean unit cost per child per quarter across all projects was round about
£300. Unit costs were higher for projects which received the highest evaluation score (3) than for other projects.
(xv) Factors associated with successful projects included: clear objectives and programme design; positive leadership;
professionalism and stability of workers; ability to work with partners and other agencies; involving participants in significant
learning, creative experiences and change of attitudes; and involvement of parents in programmes targeted at children with
difficulties.
Every Child Matters Outcomes
(xvi) Projects focusing on Be Healthy and Stay Safe issues have been able to demonstrate positive impacts across a wide range
of outcomes including children's behaviour, diet, life-styles, emotional well-being and accident awareness.
(xvii) School-based projects have been successful in demonstrating positive impacts on children's school attendance and
attainment, the latter evidenced by improved results in numeracy and literacy tests, including reading accuracy and
comprehension.
(xviii) Community-based family support programmes have been successful in improving children's school attendance and
behaviour. There are examples of both school and community-based projects being able to demonstrate positive results for
children in lone-parent families and in families receiving Social Security benefits.

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(xix) A wide range of Enjoy and Achieve projects have demonstrated positive results through providing out of school activities
including homework projects, supporting fathers and encouraging sporting and cultural activities.
(xx) LCF has invested in both large and small-scale crime prevention projects which have been able to provide clear evidence of
reductions in police involvement or offending behaviour by young people.
(xxi) Projects targeted at Ethnic Minority Children, Children with Disabilities and Rural Children have produced mainly positive
results.
Overview
(xxii) Most projects continuing to be funded and evaluated by LCF appear to provide good, and in some cases excellent, value for
money.
(xxiii) LCF has been able to invest in some innovative and comparatively high cost projects, such as the Lancashire County
Council Educational Psychology Service, Nurture Groups (PR/HY20, HY169 and PE170) and the Lancashire Youth
Offending Team, GRIP (MA48), with positive results.
(xxiv) Detailed unit cost and outcome data is available to assist decision-making about continuation of funding or future
mainstreaming of LCF projects in line with Every Child Matters Outcomes.
Commissioning, Mainstreaming and Replication
(xxv) This section of the report analyses project outcomes according to the Every Child Matters themes.
(xxvi) In relation to "Be Healthy" a case is made for replicating After School Clubs based on the Community Food Project (BU13),
the Grow and Sow Project (PE/EM152) and the Lancashire Healthy Schools Project (PE132). Mainstreaming learning from
the Nurture Groups (PR/HY20, HY169, and PE170) and the development of therapeutic services similar to the Coastal Child
and Adolescent Therapeutic Service (WY15) is also recommended. A strategic gap has been identified in relation to the
provision of school-based counselling services to improve children's emotional well-being.
(xxvii) In relation to "Stay Safe" it is recommended that funding should be identified to mainstream teaching packs on accident
awareness for schools across the county, based on the Child Accident Prevention and Safety Scheme (PR179).

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(xxviii) In relation to "Enjoy and Achieve" learning from Hyndburn Park Primary School (HY/DI124) about speech development and
reading skills can be mainstreamed to schools with high Pakistani pupil numbers; Learning Mentors have achieved
successful outcomes linked to the provision of Breakfast Clubs and out of school activities; they should have a direct role in
supporting families, be integrated with school staff and have good links with external agencies (WL27 and WL/DI119). The
Pendle Pakistan Welfare Association project (PE65) has had positive experiences from Homework Clubs which merit
replication.
(xxix) The family support model using trained volunteers developed by Blackburn Diocesan Board for Social Responsibility
(PE149) also merits replication. Preston Parenting Project (PR161) has proved very successful in providing intensive
support for families and a "ladder of opportunities" for parental involvement. A strategic gap has been identified for county-
wide development of parenting education programmes, improving parents' self-confidence and helping them deal with
problem behaviour.
(xxx) Lancashire Children's Fund has also developed a number of successful examples of youth programmes and sports and
holiday activity programmes, many of which merit replication.
(xxxi) Barnardo's Inclusion of Children with Disabilities Programme (MA/DI43), Preston City Council's Inclusive Activities for
Children with Disabilities (PR/DI51) and Lord's House Farm (HY/PE/DI140) have all been successful in supporting disabled
children and their families.
(xxxii) In relation to "Make a Positive Contribution" evidence from GRIP (MA48) has confirmed reduced levels of offending and
reduced risks of offending for most children, and funding is being continued by LCF and Lancashire Youth Offending Team.
A number of other projects including Groundwork (PE111), Wyre Housing Dream Schemes (RC/WY67+RC/WY155) led by
volunteers, and Lancaster City Council Community Youth Sport Development Project (LA108) have provided positive
evidence about supporting young people, which merit mainstreaming. East Lancashire Deaf Society (MA/DI84) is providing
individual support and Homework Clubs for deaf children and an extensive programme of British Sign Language signing
courses in local schools, within the same Every Child Matters theme.

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
University of Huddersfield
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SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE FINAL REPORT
This introduction describes the national context of the Children's Fund and the objectives and target groups identified in
Lancashire. Every Child Matters has provided the framework for the development of integrated Children's Services and the
establishment of Children's Trusts as well as introducing new outcomes to be set alongside Children's Fund Objectives. The
evaluation has provided a wealth of data to inform investments in effective interventions for children and families.
National Developments
1.1 The Children's Fund is part of the Government's strategy to tackle child poverty and social exclusion. The Fund aims to
address the gap in preventative health and social care measures for children aged 5-13 by providing more and better co-
ordinated services. The Children's Fund is a transitional and experimental programme with the capacity to inform future
investment in Children's Services in order to promote optimal outcomes for children, young people and families.
1.2 The Children's Fund was introduced in response to the publication of the Social Exclusion Unit's Policy Action Team 12 on
young people (PAT12). The report argued that early identification of children and families at risk of running into severe
difficulties could be helped by the implementation of effective service interventions designed to improve children's long-term
prospects. Most Children's Fund resources are aimed at preventative work with children and their families helping them
before they reach crisis point. The Fund is intended to "provide a flexible and responsive approach to meeting needs and
developing good practice for services for vulnerable children, supporting them and their families in breaking the cycle of
poverty and disadvantage". In particular the Fund aims to set "children and young people on pathways of participation in
society rather than on trajectories of social exclusion" (DFES 2004 Developing collaboration in preventative services for
children and young people - the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund, First Annual Report 2003). The Fund has
sought to act as a lever to influence the way services are focused around prevention, partnership working and the
involvement of children and young people in their delivery.
1.3 The Children's Fund has been developed alongside a range of complementary initiatives including Sure Start, On Track,
Integrated Youth Offending Services, Connexions, Children's and Young People's Strategic Partnerships, Education Action
Zones and Extended Schools. Reference should also be made to Behaviour Improvement Programmes, improvements in

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
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University of Huddersfield
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services for Looked After Children, Healthy Schools Initiatives, Community Safety Strategies and new investment
opportunities through, for example, Neighbourhood Renewal Strategies (NRS) and the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB).
1.4 Children's Fund strategic objectives include promotion of inter-agency partnership working to improve public accessibility to
services and empowerment of children and families to decide on relevant interventions and solutions. Over-arching
Children's Fund Objectives are to ensure:
• an agreed programme of effective interventions in each area, to pick up on early signs of difficulties, identify needs and
introduce children, young people and their families to appropriate services; and
• that children and young people who have experienced early signs of difficulties receive appropriate services in order to
gain maximum life chance benefits from education opportunities, health care and social care, emphasising informal and
self-referral and empowerment strategies for children, young people, families and communities. (From Annexe D,
Children's Fund Part 1 Guidance - adapted).
1.5 In order to set a clear pathway towards achieving these over-arching objectives seven specific sub-objectives were specified
i.e.
• promoting school attendance;
• achieving improved educational performance;
• ensuring fewer young people commit crimes and fewer children are victims of crime;
• reducing child health inequalities;
• developing services that are accessible and which tackle social exclusion;
• developing services which are experienced as effective;
• involving families in building community capacity to create pathways out of poverty (sustainability).
1.6 The National Evaluation of Children's Fund (University of Birmingham) has produced reports on the role of Partnership
Boards, and on participation strategies including benefits for children and young people to increase political engagement,
citizenship and social inclusion. The NECF produced a Summary of Emerging Findings from local evaluation reports in the
autumn of 2005. NECF has also completed case studies reporting on Children's Fund Partnerships and exploring the
impact of local Children's Funds on the development of inter-agency practice.

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Lancashire Children's Fund (including Key Scheme Milestones)
1.7 Lancashire Children's Fund Partnership, covering one of the largest areas in the country, has overseen a multi-million pound
investment programme funding over 170 projects. The county-wide Partnership comprises voluntary, community, faith and
statutory sector representatives that provide services for children and families. The Partnership appointed a Programme
Manager and support staff in 2001/02. External evaluators (Nationwide Children's Research Centre and the University of
Huddersfield) were appointed in January 2003.
1.8 Lancashire's strategy has been to encourage projects meeting Children's Fund Objectives to apply for funding from the 41
wards ranked in the top 10% in England according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation (30 wards) or ranked in the top 10%
according to the Child Deprivation Index (11 wards). These wards were mainly in Pendle, Wyre, Burnley, Hyndburn, West
Lancashire, Preston and Lancaster. Encouragement was also given to projects in rural areas where families could
experience difficulties in accessing services. Following national guidelines, part of the available funding was directed
towards high need groups including:
• traveller families
• minority ethnic communities
• children with disabilities
• highly mobile (transient) children and young people and their families
• young carers
Opportunities to bid for funding were widely advertised across the county in September 2002.
1.9 LCF’s impressive promotional activity included consultation with Primary School and Year 7 children and young people and
county-wide consultation with parents and families about perceived needs and gaps in services. As well, a detailed audit of
existing services was carried out in District Council areas across the county including analyses of educational attainment,
authorised and unauthorised absences and fixed-term and permanent exclusion from schools.
• LCF was a first wave Children’s Fund and was originally scheduled to run from April 2001-March 2004.
• The LCF Plan was approved by the relevant Government department in November 2001.
• Phase 1 of grant allocation resulted in 25 services being commissioned across the county, also in November 2001.
• A further 77 services were commissioned in April 2002 as Phase 2 projects.

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• LCF also received additional funding under the Street Crime Initiative in May 2002. A total of £850,000 was allocated for
years 2002/3 and 2003/4.
• In the summer of 2002 the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and the Children and Young People’s Unit (CYPU) decided that
25% of Children's Fund programmes' budgets should be used in partnership with the Lancashire Youth Offending Team
to achieve services selected from a menu provided by the YJB. As a result a number of LCF projects have been funded
through cross selection.
• NCH assumed responsibility for lead agency status for LCF in July 2002, from Lancashire County Council.
• NCH assumed responsibility for the accountable body status for LCF in October 2002, from Lancashire County Council.
• 68 Phase 3 projects were approved by the Partnership in April 2003.
• At its highest point, LCF had a funded portfolio of 176 projects.
• All Phase 1 & 2 projects were reviewed in October 2003 and as a result 40 of these projects received some level of
funding during 2004/5.
• Due to reduced funding from the CYPU and the identification of less successful projects, 48 projects had funding stopped
in March 2004.
• By 1 April 2005 the total number of commissioned projects still live stood at 89.
• When the Government announced the Children's Fund, it was planned for three years, to April 2004. Since then further
extensions have been announced and the current end date is March 2008.
• A major review of all funded projects by an external consultant was undertaken in the summer 2005 to allocate funding
for years 2006/7 and 2007/8
• The table below shows the level of funding drawn down from the Government Office North West by year:
Year
Grant Allocated (£)
2001/02
280,669
2002/03
2,786,924
2003/04
7,230,578
2004/05
4,264,704
2005/06
3,620,287
Planned 2006/07
3,219,289
Planned 2007/08
3,158,639
Total
24,561,090

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Lancashire Children's Fund: Final Report – May 2006
Nationwide Children's Research Centre
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Every Child Matters and Migration towards Children's Trusts
1.10 Evaluation of LCF projects started in January 2003 measuring progress against the seven Children's Fund Objectives. The
publication of Every Child Matters in September 2003 provided an important landmark for the future development of
Children's Services. Five Outcomes:
Be Healthy,
Stay Safe,
Enjoy and Achieve
Make a Positive Contribution
Achieve Economic Well Being
were identified against which all Children's Services were to be measured. The "fit" between the new required Every Child
Matters Outcomes and the Children's Fund Objectives is described in Appendix 1. Children's Fund Objectives to improve
school attendance and attainment and to reduce crime and child health inequalities, linking to wider objectives to improve
accessibility, social inclusion and sustainability, had provided a powerful impetus for the development of Children's Fund
projects - and a focus for their evaluation.
1.11 Every Child Matters was important, secondly, because it set out a framework towards the integration of Children's Services
through the development of Children's Trusts in all local authority areas. Mainstream health, social services, educational
and recreational services were to be united under the leadership of a Director of Children's Services, to be implemented
between 2006 and 2008, coinciding with the period when Children's Fund services were to come to an end. This
development now provides the context for the evaluation of Children's Fund projects provided during the transitional period
beginning in 2001. Services with a proven contribution to make towards the five Every Child Matters Outcomes and which
could contribute to knowledge about evidence-based practice have the potential to be mainstreamed within the new
Children's Trust arrangements. Services that had worked particularly effectively might be directly funded by Children's
Trusts. Strategic investments would be informed by lessons learnt through the evaluation of school-based or community-
based projects which contributed to preventative services and improved the life chances of children and young people and
families.

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Recent Strategic Developments
1.12 Lancashire produced its own local Preventative Strategy in 2004. The Strategy has identified three overall priorities: ie
Parent and Family Support; Children and Young People with Emotional and Mental Health Issues; and Information-sharing
by Professionals to enable better assessed early intervention.
1.13 Lancashire Partnership, an over-arching multi-agency body responsible for strategic planning, has produced a countywide
community strategy entitled Ambition Lancashire, incorporating a vision for Lancashire over the next twenty years.
Lancashire Partnership produced a document entitled Local Area Agreements in February 2006 setting out key priorities
from Ambition Lancashire for the period 2006 - 2009 in the form of a Delivery Plan. The document identified the most
deprived areas and districts across the county, including areas with highest indices for child poverty.
1.14 The Children and Young People’s Block in the Local Area Agreements sets out to improve the life chances of children and
young people in Lancashire by delivering services in an integrated way. The document identifies a thematic approach aimed
at:
Increased positive social participation by children and young people
Improved health of children and young people
Improved outcomes for young people aged 14 - 19
Improved outcomes for looked after children and young people
1.15 More specifically, the document targets improved school attendance; reduced fear of crime and anti-social behaviour
amongst children and young people; and also targets for all under-achieving groups to show progress in attainment at age
14. Amongst the targets most relevant to the Children's Fund age group (5 - 13) are specific reductions in authorised and
unauthorised absences in Primary and Secondary Schools; and increases in the percentage of excluded children offered
full-time alternative education provision. Baselines and targets are being set for children to engage in positive and
diversionary activities, and to halt the rise in the numbers of first-time offenders. Targets are also set to increase the
percentage of Lancashire schools with National Healthy Schools status.
1.16 The Local Area Agreement refers to the potential for alignment of Lancashire County Council mainstream budgets, specific
grants, including CAMHS and Connexions, and targeted funds, including the Teenage Pregnancy Grant, the Drugs and
Alcohol Team (DAT) and the Children's Fund.

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1.17 Lancashire County Council produced a Plan for the Children and Young People of Lancashire (Consultation Draft) in
December 2005, in response to a requirement in the Children Act 2004 for local areas to produce a single, strategic over-
arching plan for all services affecting children and young people.
1.18 The four key themes identified in the Plan are:
Early intervention, prevention and protection
Family support
Partnership
Workforce reform
1.19 The Plan involves all relevant services for children and young people engaging with Lancashire County Council and, again,
covers the three-year period from April 2006 - March 2009. The consultation period for the Plan lasted until February 2006,
and a final version of the Plan will be produced in the spring of 2006.
1.20 The Plan relates to the five Every Child Matters Outcomes. For each one, county-wide priorities are identified, statistical
trends in the county are summarised and the views of children and young people are highlighted. As the final evaluation
report for the Children's Fund is being produced to virtually the same timescale as the Draft Plan for the Children and Young
People of Lancashire, detailed references are made to relevant sections of the Plan in Section 5 of this report entitled
Commissioning, Mainstreaming and Replication.
1.21 Three further documents have recently been produced by Lancashire County Council (LCC). LCC produced a consultation
document entitled Every Child Matters - Supporting Parents and Families in November 2005.
1.22 This acknowledged that although much excellent work had been developed in Lancashire supporting parents and families,
this had not always been strategically planned and delivered, and access to such help varied considerably across the
county. The document argues that support is needed for parents with children aged 0 - 19 including very early intervention,
and additional support for parents with adolescent children. This strategy will be presented to Lancashire's Children and
Young People's Strategic Partnership by June 2006, and will cover the full range of services from universal provision to crisis
intervention.

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1.23 Lancashire has also published a Children and Young People's Charter based on work carried out by children and young
people identifying a principled approach to involving children and young people in decisions about services which affect
them. LCC has now produced a further consultation document - Every Child Matters: Engaging Children and Young People
on proposals for a strategic approach to involving children and young people in the design and delivery of services. The
consultation period was due to end in February 2006 with a view to publishing Lancashire's Strategy for Engagement of
Children and Young People in the summer of 2006. (This document includes the Children and Young People's Draft
Charter.)
1.24 The comprehensive range of planning documents related to improving the position of children, young people and their
families, provides important context for the evaluation of Lancashire Children's Fund, and should help increase opportunities
for mainstreaming effective projects, including those supported by LCF.

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SECTION 2: INTRODUCTION TO THE EVALUATION
2.1 The focus of this report is on the evaluation of selected projects from the portfolio of LCF projects. Forty projects were
evaluated and produced the data for this report, along with evidence from Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects which have been
discontinued. Summaries of these projects are included in this report on a template designed by LCF.
2.2 The overall purpose of the evaluation is to investigate what interventions work and in what circumstances. This approach
requires baseline data to be collected and then analysed against the repeat data. The majority of the projects have made
good progress with the evaluation. However, some projects have had problems gaining data from other organisations and
this has hampered their part in the evaluation. Other projects took longer to have sufficient data for analysis as the measure
which they used may only be available every year, for example, school attainment data (SATs and PIPS).
2.3 The evaluation strategy is based on Realist Evaluation approaches to integrate reliable outcome measures into practice in
each project; and on a ‘clear box’ (Scriven 1994) approach to identify the key factors or mechanisms in the circumstances of
the service users as well as the key components of the diverse interventions that may be influencing the desired outcomes.
Specifically, the methods include single-subject, pre-test post-test, and comparison group designs. Binary logistic regression
analysis is used to investigate the circumstances in which particular interventions are likely to be effective (Kazi 2003).
2.4 The Children’s Fund has provided opportunities to test diverse preventative approaches to meeting the needs of children
affected by poverty and at risk of social exclusion. The interventions that have been found to be effective provide an
important source of knowledge for the future commissioning of mainstream children’s services provided in Lancashire. This
evaluation is an example of accountability and the development of evaluation knowledge within children’s services.
2.5 The projects received regular visits from the evaluation team where support and assistance was given. A variety of outcome
measures were used, with the projects either selecting from a range of recommended standardised measures or developing
their own measure with the help of the evaluation team. Most of the projects also used secondary data, where available.
Forty-seven (47) of the projects had a Statistical Package for Social Services (SPSS) database installed, which enabled
progress against the key Children’s Fund Objectives to be analysed at regular intervals.
Objective 1: To promote school attendance – School attendance data was collected on a termly basis.
Objective 2: To achieve overall improved educational performance – School attainment data (SATs and PIPS) was
collected regularly. Projects could also have additional material that could be used, eg reading tests and tutor assessments.

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Objective 3: Fewer young people to commit crime and fewer young children to be the victims of crime
Questionnaires were developed that indirectly measured these crime objectives. Access to crime data was difficult to obtain,
although a few projects were able to solve this problem.
Objective 4: To reduce health inequalities: A number of projects designed their own measure specific to their project.
Several projects used standardised measures of well-being from the Department of Health’s Assessment Framework.
Methodology
2.6 The approach is based on the realist evaluation methodology as developed by one of the authors (Kazi 2003) and as applied
in a number of health and social welfare services in the United Kingdom as well as in Finland, eg Moray Council, Leeds
Social Services, and Helsinki Social Services. Firstly, appropriate outcome measures (specific to each programme) are
applied repeatedly. Secondly, an SPSS database is integrated into the daily practice of the project, including:
• contextual and demographic details of the service users, eg ethnicity, age, school, area, whether they have special
needs, and health and care status;
• details of the components of interventions applied, eg counselling sessions, homework clubs, play and leisure activities,
and other services received from mainstream agencies;
• Outcomes achieved including both process (eg levels of attendance in the project sessions) and impact outcomes (eg
emotional well-being as measured with Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; self-esteem as measured by Hare Self-
Esteem Scale; other indicators such as school attendance and attainment, drug misuse, police cautions and arrests).
2.7 The SPSS software is installed on the projects’ computers, and the database is created specific to the needs of each project,
but also includes the variables that are common for all projects, facilitating the aggregation of the local databases into a
central one. This database serves the purposes of both monitoring and evaluation. The quarterly reports are completed with
the numbers of children, their ages, ethnic origins, etc. At the same time, quarterly data analysis can be used to inform
practice, including the numbers of children that improved or not against the specified outcomes, the factors associated with
the level of outcomes achieved, and explanations of why outcomes were achieved in some circumstances and not in others,
enabling projects to develop their interventions informed by these findings. The integration of the realist strategies into
practice ensures that the findings from evaluation inform practice on an on-going basis, helping to better target services to
meet needs.

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2.8 Agreed outcome measures and the systematic recording of both service and service-user circumstances on a SPSS
database are the minimum requirements for each project. Use was made of quantitative research methods such as
comparison group analysis in the form of binary logistic regression to provide explanations for why the desired outcomes
improved for some service users and not for others. The forward-conditional binary logistic regression method (as developed
in Kazi 2003) identifies patterns in the data where multiple factors are influencing the outcome, and selects the main factor or
factors responsible for the outcome, with a prediction of the odds of achieving a given outcome in particular circumstances.
In this way, the outcome can be linked to the potential causal factors without a control group. This evidence provides
information about the effectiveness of the models of intervention in terms of what works, for whom and in what context. The
evaluation helps the project workers to better target their interventions, and to develop new strategies for users in the
circumstances where the interventions are less successful.
Context of the evaluation
2.9 The evaluation started in January 2003. At the beginning of the evaluation 102 Phase 1 and Phase 2 Lancashire Children’s
Fund projects were being evaluated with two main types of evaluation approaches taking place: self-evaluation and full-
evaluation. Self-evaluation involved providing advice and guidance on the evaluation strategy to be adopted within the
project. Full-evaluation was carried out with 59 projects which entailed regular meetings with them to provide assistance with
the evaluation. This normally involved advice on appropriate outcome measures to use, and the installation and creation of
an SPSS database to provide an in-depth analysis.
Difficulties and Challenges of Implementing the Evaluation
Discontinuation of projects
2.10 Due to reduced funding and the identification of less successful projects, some projects had their funding stopped mid-way
through the evaluation. Many of these projects were being evaluated and had collected data. However, as they had their
funding withdrawn only a year into the evaluation, the data collected from these projects was extremely limited and only a
small number had used repeated outcome measures. Much of this data was inadequate for analysis, and for these projects
only limited findings were possible.

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Use of outcome measures
2.11 Most of the projects have engaged positively with the evaluation team and have not experienced major problems in
measuring relevant outcomes. Some projects have experienced difficulties in accessing data from schools or in accessing
crime data. A smaller number of projects have had limited understanding of the purpose and importance of evaluation
despite having met with the evaluation team on several occasions. These projects have been less successful in collecting
data and, for them, the evaluation team has limited findings to report.
Every Child Matters Outcomes
2.12 The projects were funded in relation to the seven Children’s Fund Objectives. Therefore, the evaluation data collected
related wherever possible to the Children’s Fund Objectives. The projects are now expected to demonstrate their
effectiveness in relation to the Every Child Matters Outcomes. Children’s Fund Objectives do not exactly match Every Child
Matters Outcomes, and these differences may cause slight difficulty. Appendix 1 attempts to compare Children's Fund
objectives and Every Child Matters outcomes.
Children’s Fund Objectives
2.13 The projects were funded in relation to the seven Children’s Fund Objectives with the majority being funded in relation to the
four main Children’s Fund Objectives of school attendance, school attainment, crime and health. Therefore, the evaluation
team have attempted to engage the projects in using relevant outcome measures to demonstrate their effectiveness in
relation to these objectives. However, discussions with the projects indicated that although they agreed to be funded in
relation to these objectives, a minority of them considered that they were not easily able to demonstrate a direct impact on
any of these four objectives and therefore the data collected was not always relevant to the Children’s Fund Objectives.
School-related projects
2.14 Projects that are school-related are not in all cases school-based. These projects aim to have an impact on school
attendance and/or school attainment; therefore they need to collect school attendance and school attainment data. Some of
these projects have encountered problems gaining this information from the surrounding schools for a variety of reasons.
This has led to these projects having extremely limited data on school attendance and school attainment or having to use
alternative outcome measures that do not accurately demonstrate the project’s effectiveness.

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Crime-related projects
2.15 Many of the projects that are crime-related focus on crime prevention. These projects should be targeting children and young
people that are at risk of offending. A number of these projects are mainly engaged in more preventative work, consistent
with the overall objectives of the Children's Fund. However, the impact on reducing offending behaviour is difficult to
measure. Another challenge encountered has been with the projects that are targeting children who are at risk of committing
offences but who are not able to gain any crime data from the police to show the project’s effectiveness. When this has
occurred, wherever possible, self-report crime measures have been used.
Literature Review
Family Support Projects
2.16 Much research evidence has been collected about the effectiveness of family support and parenting programmes, many of
which are similar to the family support projects that LCF funds. Five programmes are specifically highlighted below:
Parenting Positively Programme
Triple P (Positive Parenting Programme)
Webster Stratton Parent Child Videotape Series
Handling Children's Behaviour Project
Family Nurturing Network
2.17 The Parenting Positively Programme is an eight week course that provides parents with booklets about how to parent
positively which have been used in group work settings, one-to-one home visits and even via the telephone. Results from
this study indicate that children’s behaviour improved as a result of this intervention. It was also found that mothers'
depression reduced as the children’s behaviour improved. (Sutton, 1995).
2.18 The Triple P (Positive Parenting Programme) is a family support intervention that aims to prevent poor behaviour, emotional
problems and developmental issues within children aged 0-16. The project has five levels of intervention dependent on the
severity of the child’s problems such as accessing information about parenting, group work sessions and one-to-one
sessions. There have been many evaluations of this project, most of which have used random control trial designs. The
findings indicate that this parenting approach can significantly improve children’s poor behaviour, help parents to parent

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better and prevent parental stress and depression. The project has also been effective in working with families from ethnic
minorities. (Sanders et al, 2004).
2.19 The Webster-Stratton Parent-Child video tape series has been widely used in the UK. Evaluations have demonstrated
improvements in aggressive anti-social behaviour and improvements in parenting skills (Scott et al, 2001).
2.20 The Handling Children’s Behaviour project works with children aged between 3 and 11 and aims to encourage positive
behaviour. The intervention consists of a ten week group course often run in a nursery or family centre. The aim of the
intervention is to improve parents’ self-esteem and help them to understand the different problems that they may encounter
with their child’s behaviour. An evaluation of this project with 27 mothers found that parents’ attitudes and knowledge of
children’s behaviour problems increased. (Lawes, 1992).
2.21 The Family Nurturing Network works with children aged 2-12 and their families. The main aims of the intervention are to
improve the parent’s self-confidence in order to support their child’s development and learning and to manage their
behaviour. It also aims to enhance the nurturing of the children and help vulnerable children succeed at home and at school.
Families are referred via a variety of means or can refer themselves to the programme which consists of 14 weekly sessions.
Evidence from this programme demonstrates that the parents’ experience improvements in their parenting skills and their
children’s behaviour. (Gardener and Burton, 2003).
2.22 The evidence from these family based interventions indicate successes, particularly in relation to children’s behaviour, and
can also make a contribution to improving parent’s self-esteem and confidence. LCF has funded a variety of family support
projects that are fundamentally very similar to these projects outlined such as projects that use home visitors and adopt one-
to-one support and parenting training. Evaluations of the LCF family support projects demonstrate positive results,
particularly in improving children’s attendance at school and issues with behaviour. It is evident therefore that parenting and
family interventions can be successful in improving children’s behaviour and school attendance, all of which are key
elements for a child to succeed in life and help to prevent more severe problems later in life such as truancy, poor academic
achievement and anti-social and criminal behaviour.
LCF family support projects include:
Template Page Numbers
• LA/TC22 – Signposts, Morecambe Bay Pupil Mobility Project
110
• PR/TC129 – Signposts, Preston Pupil Mobility Project
133
• PR161 – Preston Parenting Project
139

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• PE149 - Blackburn Diocesan Family Support Project
137
School-based projects
2.23 Three programmes, or programme types are highlighted:
Nurturing Programmes
“I can problem solve”
Truancy reduction and school-based family support projects
2.24 Dealing with children’s behaviour is important as often poor behaviour can lead to being excluded from school and becoming
involved in anti-social and criminal activities. There have been several evaluations carried out that have aimed to identify the
successes of school-based projects.
2.25 The Nurturing Programme works with children aged 3-13 and is based within primary schools. It aims to develop children’s
communication and social skills, promote attachment between children and their peers and their school, link the school,
home and the community and provide teachers with a range of strategies and techniques to achieve positive behaviour.
Teachers and other school staff receive training for 2 days about behaviour management techniques. The parents and
children also receive support via sessions at the schools about behaviour, self-awareness, and self-esteem. The evaluation
of this project found that the children who took part were less aggressive than the children who did not take part. It also
found that the children were more assertive, constructive and socially aware. (Layton and Hunt, 1997).
2.26 The ‘I can problem solve’ programme in the United States is aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 12 to develop their
cognitive and interpersonal skills. An evaluation of this programme indicated that children have improved their behaviour and
cognitive skills as a result of taking part in the intervention. (Shure and Spivak, 1982). The DfEE provided funding in the
1990’s to a wide range of truancy reduction projects. Some of the main conclusions about factors that had worked well to
prevent these problems were parental involvement in school life and activities, action on the first day of unauthorised
absences via contact with the child or the parent and behaviour management training for teachers and playground staff
(Communities That Care, 2005).
2.27 An evaluation of three family support projects funded by Coventry Children’s Fund highlighted that parents welcomed having
someone to listen to their problems at school who was non - judgemental and provided practical advice. Effective outcomes

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were linked to support from head teachers and other school staff and establishing positive relationships with other agencies.
(Holmes and Manby, 2004).
2.28 The evidence outlined about school-based projects has been positive. LCF funds a variety of school-based projects such as
learning mentors, reading programmes, Nurture Groups and self-esteem projects. The findings from these has also been
positive, particularly again in relation to improvements in children’s attendance, attainment and behaviour. All of these
factors are important in enabling a child to succeed in and out of school and prevent her/him from encountering problems
later on in life such as experiencing poor housing and low income or involvement in crime and anti-social behaviour.
However, the evidence from both parenting programmes and school-based projects is positive, but hardly any of the
evaluations have followed children over a long period of time to identify if these positive changes are maintained as the child
gets older. This is an area of research that needs to be undertaken to identify if the benefits are long-term or not.
LCF school-based projects include:
Template Page Number
• PR/HY20, HY169, PE170 – Nurture Groups
91
• WL27 – Moorside School
111
• PE47 – Holy Saviour RC Primary School
116
• WL63 – Holland Moor Primary School
120
• PR70 – Deepdale Junior School
124
• WL/DI119 – Learning to Learn alongside Learning Mentors
130
• HY/DI124 – Hyndburn Park Primary School, Integration with Speech & Language 131
Youth
2.29 School activities can contribute to diverting children and young people away from anti-social behaviour and crime and can
also provide a safe environment for younger children if parents are at work. ‘Out of school activities can ensure that children
are properly and safely supervised by enabling parents to work normal hours can reduce the risks associated with low
income’ (Communities That Care, 2005).
2.30 Five programmes, or programme types, are highlighted:
Breakfast Clubs
Summer Holiday Activity Programmes

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Targeted interventions
Mentoring Programmes, for example Big Brothers and Big Sisters
Youth Inclusion and Support Programmes (YISPs)
2.31 School breakfast clubs have been highlighted as improving children’s nutrition and school performance, improving their
attendance at school, decreasing their lateness and improving their self-esteem (Lucas and Liabo, 2003). A national
evaluation of a Department of Health pilot initiative claimed that school breakfast clubs are extremely effective as they
encourage children to eat breakfast and can reduce the stress and pressures at home before going to school (Shemilt et al,
2002).
2.32 Summer holiday activities can provide children with activities to divert them from becoming involved in crime and anti-social
behaviour. An evaluation of a summer programme for children aged 8-19 engaged children during the summer holidays in a
variety of sport, music and outdoor activities reported that there was some evidence to suggest that the summer programme
was effective in reducing the levels of youth crime. (Sutton et al, 2005).
2.33 Many targeted interventions for children and young people at risk of becoming involved in crime employ mentors to work with
the young people. However, many mentoring programmes have found problems in demonstrating their intended aim.
Mentoring children and young people at risk of offending is shown to be successful in helping them to build a positive
relationship with a good role model, but much evidence has suggested that the majority of mentoring programmes are not
successful in reducing offending behaviour with young people who are already involved in anti-social behaviour and criminal
activities. (Communities That Care, 2005). For instance, an evaluation of the Youth Justice Board’s mentoring scheme only
found limited evidence to suggest a reduction in offending behaviour. However, it did find that there was more success in
relation to improving school attendance and helping young people to engage with education and training programmes.
(Tarling et al, 2004).
2.34 However, some mentoring programmes have been able to demonstrate successful outcomes. For example, the Big Brothers
and Big Sisters mentoring programme in America works with children aged between 10 and 16 and matches a responsible
adult to the child to act as a ‘mentor’. An evaluation of this programme found that the young people who had a mentor were
less likely to become involved in drugs and alcohol and were also less likely to truant from school. (Tierney et al, 1995).
2.35 Youth Inclusion and Support Programmes (YISPs) are multi-agency planning groups helping children aged 8-11 who are at
risk of involvement in crime and anti-social behaviour. The evaluation of the YISPs is being carried out by Newcastle

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University and started in January 2004. The evaluation is using both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection
at each of the 14 pilot sites. As yet there has not been a report produced, although this should be available towards the end
of 2006.
2.36 The programmes discussed seem to portray mixed findings with regard to their success in preventing children and young
people from becoming involved in crime and anti-social behaviour, particularly in relation to mentoring schemes. There is
also not much evidence about the effectiveness of youth clubs in reducing children and young people’s involvement in crime.
One of the main reasons for this is because there have been few rigorous evaluations in the area. (Communities That Care,
2005).
2.37 LCF funds a variety of projects for young people and children in relation to the prevention of crime. The evaluation of
diversionary activities has been limited as it has been hard to demonstrate the effectiveness of these projects against real
crime involvement, a limitation also apparent in national evaluations. However, the more targeted crime projects funded by
LCF seem to be more able to demonstrate their impact in relation to crime and the results of these types of projects have
mainly produced positive findings in reducing children and young people’s involvement in crime.
LCF youth projects include:
Template Page Number
• PR01 – Spotlight on Sport
107
• BU14 – Stoops and Hargher Clough Community Centre
143
• WL30 – West Lancs. Community Safety Partnership
112
• MA36 – EDGE
145
• MA48 – GRIP
146
• LA108 – Lancaster City Council Community Youth Sport Development Project
150
• PE111 – Groundwork East Lancashire, Youth Works Pendle
151
• WL128 – LCC West Lancs. Youth Crime Initiative
152
• WL/RC138 – Grove Community Association
135
Target Groups – Children from Ethnic Minority Groups and Children with Disabilities.
2.38 Lancashire Children’s Fund has several target groups of children who they aim to support such as children from ethnic
minority groups and children with disabilities. Often children with disabilities and children from ethnic minorities may need

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additional support to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with their demographics. Certain interventions can be
particularly effective with children from ethnic minorities such as family support projects.
2.39 Four programmes, or programme types are highlighted:
Incredible Years Programme
School-based interventions
Health Visitor support for hyperactive children and their families
Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) Developmental Exercise Programme for Schools
2.40 The ‘Incredible Years Programme’ is a family support project and uses ‘videotape modelling’ in which parents watch video
clips that demonstrate other parents effectively employing a variety of every day techniques with their children. Parents are
encouraged to discuss the different techniques used and also discuss any other problems that they may be experiencing
and are also given parenting advice. Scott et al (2000) found improvements for the black and ethnic minority families in their
study on the Incredible Years Programme in the UK. An evaluation of this programme in America by Reid et al (2001) found
that African-American, Hispanic and Asian families experienced particularly positive outcomes. Furthermore, attendance
levels and parent satisfaction were higher amongst the ethnic minority families compared to the Caucasian families.
2.41 School-based interventions can also help to overcome some of the difficulties that children from ethnic minorities may
experience. Communities That Care (2005) claim that children who go to school with limited language skills, in particular
ethnic minority children need exposure to reading material in the home in order to develop their literacy skills. They claim
that it is important to recruit parents, and in particular fathers from ethnic minorities in order for a scheme to be effective. In
addition, the evaluation of out-of school activities in the USA indicate that they are particularly effective in overcoming
disadvantages associated with ethnic minority groups (Oyserman et al, 2002).
2.42 Children with disabilities and special needs require additional support to help them succeed in life. The project "Health Visitor
support for hyperactive children and their families" is an intervention for children aged 2-9 who have ADHD or other over-
activity problems. It consists of a manual that can be used with families during the 8 week home visits and addresses
techniques that parents can use with their children to maintain their attention, stay calm and avoid arguments and tantrums.
The evaluation of this programme using a control group found that the families who received the 8 week home visits with the
use of the manual made greater improvements in their children’s behaviour than the families who received support but
without the use of the manual (Weeks et al, 1999).

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2.43 Similarly, the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology (INPP) Developmental Exercise Programme for Schools targets
children aged 5-11 years who may be suffering from Neuro-Developmental delay (NDD) which is preventing them from being
able to learn at school. The programme helps children within the school environment and uses special exercises to improve
the motor skills and co-ordination skills of the child. An evaluation of this programme in Leicester and Birmingham found that
the targeted groups had improved greater in reading, writing and spelling compared to the control group (Pettman, 2001).
2.44 The evidence from these interventions indicate successes for children with disabilities and for children from ethnic minorities.
LCF have funded a variety of projects that specifically target children from these groups and evaluations of these projects
demonstrate positive results. It is evident therefore that a variety of community and school based interventions can be
successful in helping children and their families overcome disadvantages and barriers to social exclusion that are associated
with disability and ethnicity.
LCF target group projects include:
Template Page Number
Children with Disabilities
• MA/DI43 – Barnado’s, Inclusion of children with disabilities
115
• HY/DI124 – Hyndburn Park Primary School, Integration with Speech & Language
131
• HY/PE/DI140 – Lords House Farm
136
• PR/DI51 – Preston City Council, Inclusive activities for children with disabilities
117
• MA/DI84 – East Lancs. Deaf Society
149
Transient Children
• LA/TC22 - Signposts, Morecambe Bay Pupil Mobility Project
110
• PR/TC129 – Signposts, Preston Pupil Mobility Project
133
Ethnic Minority Children
• PE/EM65 – Pendle Pakistan Welfare Association
122
• PE/EM152 – Pendle Leisure Trust – Grow and Sow
100
Rural Children
• RC/WY67+ RC/WY155 – Wyre Housing Association
147
• MA/RC136 – Dads and Lads (Mums and Daughters too!)
134
• WL/RC138 – Grove Community Association
135

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Young Carers
• MA/YC175 – Junior Carers
141
Other Children's Fund Evaluations
This section of the report comments on the evaluations that have been undertaken by the Local Children’s Funds, where reports
are available from the National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund website. It firstly addresses the different ways in which evaluators
have attempted to measure the impact of the services being funded and issues that they have encountered when attempting to
access data. The role of volunteers is then outlined, followed by information about how projects have attempted to ‘cost’ the
Children’s Fund. Finally it identifies how projects attempt to connect to each other and ways in which children are involved in
decision-making. This section enables the evaluation carried out by Lancashire Children’s Fund to be identified in a wider context.
Impact
2.45 It is important for the Local Children’s Funds to identify whether the services that they are funding are impacting on the lives
of the children that they are working with. Although many of the local evaluations have focused on process outcomes, some
have managed to collate data on the impact of the services through a variety of means. Birmingham Children’s Fund
collected data on school attendance and school attainment nationally and compared these results with the data taken from
the wards in which the Children’s Fund operates (Matrix Research and Consultancy, 2004). Leicester adopted the same
approach and made comparisons between SATS results nationally and SATS results of the children living in targeted wards
of Leicester Children’s Fund (Stewart, 2005). A limitation of this approach is that it is not evident exactly which children within
these wards were receiving support and which were not.
2.46 Some of the projects funded by the Blackburn Children’s Fund managed to collect impact data and stated that some of the
children’s school attainment and school attendance had improved as a result of the children’s involvement with their project
(Thorpe, 2005). Liverpool managed to collect some data on the impact that the project’s services were having on the
children’s attendance at school (O’Brien, 2004). Northamptonshire also managed to gather hard evidence that family support
projects in their area were improving children’s attendance at school (Percy-Smith, 2004).

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2.47 Other evaluators have collected data through various methods such as interviews and case studies to attempt to measure
service impact. For example, Bradford evaluators carried out interviews to obtain opinions about the extent to which Bradford
Children’s Fund had met its strategic objectives and its sub-objectives, for example mainstreaming or reaching children at
risk of exclusion. The Bradford evaluators recognised that data needed to be collected on impact but felt that new measures
needed to be developed in order to collect this information (Walton, 2003). Gateshead also interviewed key informants and
has used these reported impacts to form the basis of their argument that its Children’s Fund has achieved some success for
all the Children's Fund sub-objectives (Shenton, 2003).
2.48 Other Children’s Fund evaluations have attempted to collate evidence of impact directly from the projects. For instance,
Blackpool administered questionnaires to projects for them to state what impact they were having on the children they were
working with (Dobson, 2003). Cornwall also adopted this approach by meeting with the project employees to discuss their
opinions about service impact (Rodd, 2004). Similarly, Nottingham interviewed the projects to identify the impact that they
were having on the Children’s Fund sub-objectives (Becker, 2004).
Issues about accessing data
2.49 Gaining access to ‘hard data’ to provide evidence about services has been a difficulty for several local evaluators. This has
especially been the case for smaller non-statutory organisations that are funded by the Children’s Fund. For instance,
Blackburn highlighted the problems of smaller community organisations due to the extensive amount of bureaucracy and
paperwork involved (Thorpe, 2004). Leeds Children's Fund found that many projects simply do not have the time and skills
to collate the necessary information about the impact of their project (Percy-Smith, 2003). Another barrier to gaining data has
been the reluctance and time of the statutory organisations, for example, schools, to provide non-statutory organisations with
information. Both Gloucestershire and Cornwall stress the need for co-operation and the sharing of information on
performance indicators by the statutory sector which holds this information (Kyprianou, 2005, Rodd, 2004).
Volunteers
2.50 Many Children’s Fund projects recruit and train volunteers to work on their projects. For instance, thirty-two of Leeds
Children’s Fund projects have successfully recruited and trained volunteers with a total of over 11,000 hours being accrued.
These volunteers are from a variety of backgrounds such as unskilled, skilled, parents and carers, and even project
managers have volunteered hours to provide supervision and training (Percy-Smith, 2003). This is an example of a
Children’s Fund which has been successful in recruiting and training volunteers. Other Children’s Funds such as Newham

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have encountered problems in recruiting and retaining volunteers. ‘Some problems that are difficult to resolve quickly (relate
to) recruiting and retaining staff and volunteers’ (Newham C F, Sampson, 2003:4 ).
Costing
2.51 Some evaluators decided that it was important for the costing of Children’s Fund services to be highlighted. It is important for
costing to be addressed as ‘the local evaluation has encouraged projects towards establishing and reviewing their cost
effectiveness - whether or not services provide value for money’ (Blackpool CF, Dobson, 2003:5).
2.52 Costing has been addressed in a variety of different ways ranging from identifying how much the particular Children’s Fund
has spent on different areas, to providing a breakdown of cost per child at particular projects. For example, Enfield identified
the proportion of their funding that had been spent on the areas of crime prevention, family support, play and leisure and
mental health (Whiteley, 2004). Similarly, Wiltshire addressed how much money had been spent on the community,
voluntary and statutory sectors within their area (Turkie, 2004). Children’s Funds in Cumbria, York, Stockport and Cornwall
all went a stage further to identify how much each individual project was costing to ascertain if the projects were providing
value for money (Brown, 2004, Percy-Smith, 2004, Barkat, 2005, Rodd, 2004).
Collaboration between Projects
2.53 It is important for projects to work together and several evaluators have identified that the projects are doing this
successfully. For instance, several projects funded by Islington Children’s Fund co-ordinate joint activities together and also
meet regularly to discuss ideas (Harnett, 2003). In the main the evaluators that have addressed how projects connect with
each other, have concluded that the projects are working well together and are sharing ideas and resources successfully.
Involvement of children in decision-making
2.54 Many of the evaluations at a local level have looked at how children have been involved in decision-making. Some of the
findings indicate that children have been actively involved from the start. For example, Dudley and Newcastle both involved
children from the beginning in the design, delivery and commissioning of services (Dudley Children’s Fund, 2005, Murphy-
Waters, 2005). Medway Children’s Fund created a children’s forum to ask about preferred methods of communication and
consultation (Sesnan, 2005). Some of the evaluation in this area has focused on carrying out interviews with key members to

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understand to what extent children have been involved. From this, both Camden and Bradford concluded that children have
been extensively involved in decision-making with the Children’s Fund (Wyvill, 2003).
Target Groups
2.55 It is important for Children’s Funds to ascertain whether services provided are reaching their target groups, for example,
children with disabilities, or black and ethnic minority groups. Where this has been addressed, this has been mainly through
the use of monitoring figures which provide evidence of investment but not about impact. For example, both Leicester
Children’s Fund and Enfield Children’s Fund have monitored the numbers of children from their target groups that are
accessing the services (Stewart, 2005, Whiteley, 2004).
2.56 However, Brent Children’s Fund carried out an evaluation of one of their projects whose target group was Black and Asian
children. The ‘Boys2men’ preventative service aimed at young black males experiencing emotional and behavioural
problems involves a wide range of intervention such as mentoring, one-to-one support, school support and counselling. The
evaluation concluded that the project had been successful in reducing risk factors and involving Afro-Caribbean boys and
their families in mainstream services (Jakhu, 2005).
Lancashire Children’s Fund Evaluation
2.57 As identified, many of the local evaluations encountered difficulties in obtaining substantial information about the impact of
the services that the Children’s Fund projects are providing. In some cases, the local evaluators managed to collate some
impact data, but this was often minimal or not for the specific children who were receiving the intervention. However,
Lancashire Children’s Fund was able to gain substantial data from many of the projects about the impact of their service.
The majority of the projects co-operated with the evaluation team and provided information about the impact of the services
which enabled the evaluators to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Lancashire Children’s Fund in relation to the sub-
objectives and to the Every Child Matters Themes. Findings indicate that the majority of the services commissioned by the
Lancashire Children’s Fund have been effective in either improving children’s school attendance or school attainment, or
improving children’s health and wellbeing, or reducing the amount of young people becoming involved in crime.
2.58 Many of the Local Children’s Fund evaluators stated that they have encountered difficulties in obtaining hard data to
measure the impact of their Children’s Fund. As highlighted previously community and voluntary organisations, particularly,
struggled to demonstrate their effectiveness as they do not have the same access to performance indicators available to

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statutory organisations. This issue was also a main barrier when attempting to evaluate the community and voluntary
organisations in Lancashire. However, this was overcome where the organisations had strong links or were working in
partnership with the statutory sector, for example, schools or the police. When access to readily made performance
indicators was not as straightforward, the evaluation team and the Lancashire Children’s Fund intervened and contacted the
statutory sector organisations or developed other ways of measuring service impact.
2.59 Some of the Children’s Fund evaluations (notably Leeds) have highlighted the use of volunteers. Many of the services
funded by the Lancashire Children’s Fund have used volunteers and in the main have been successful in doing this,
particularly if there was a paid person who co-ordinated the volunteers. Many projects were extremely successful and
managed to retain volunteers for long periods of time, and in some cases, the volunteers went on to paid work or education
in a similar area after volunteering.
2.60 Costing has been addressed in a variety of different ways by local evaluators, including identifying how much money has
been spent on target wards, on different areas of service (for example, family support and crime prevention), and for each
individual project. Our evaluation has also provided some evidence about costing of the Lancashire Children’s Fund by
providing information about how much each project costs to run, broken down by beneficiary. This has enabled the
evaluation team to compare how much each project is costing, per child, with other projects in relation to the type of support
that the project is providing, and also by Every Child Matters themes. This information is essential as it is important to
recognise whether services are good value for money and are cost effective. It also enables the Children’s Fund to discuss
and understand why particular projects are more expensive than others.
2.61 Findings from the local evaluations indicate that many projects are working successfully together and are sharing ideas and
resources. The evaluation of the Lancashire Children’s Fund has highlighted that the more successful projects are more
likely to be the projects that are working in partnership with each other and also with other agencies.
2.62 Many of the local evaluations have highlighted the ways and the extent to which children were involved in the decision-
making of the services provided. The Lancashire Children’s Fund commissioned Save the Children to focus on the borough
of Hyndburn to assess to what extent the children have been involved in the planning and delivery of services. This report
found that the projects were committed to the principle of participation and a number of projects were identified as good
practice. In addition, the evaluators have found that although there may not have been a strategic intervention to involve
children in decision-making across Lancashire, many of the projects funded are offering children a choice of activities and
are constantly reviewing the service that is provided through children’s questionnaires and participation in discussion groups.

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Therefore, it is evident that the Lancashire Children’s Fund has involved children in decision making, particularly on a project
basis.

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SECTION 3: EVALUATION FINDINGS LINKED TO EVERY CHILD MATTERS OUTCOMES
3.1 Projects have been themed according to Every Child Matters Outcomes, i.e. Be Healthy, Stay Safe, Enjoy and Achieve, and
Make A Positive Contribution. These projects include those whose period of funding by LCF has already ended as well as
currently funded projects.
3.2 A summary of key findings is presented for each Outcome. It should be noted that some projects relate to more than one
Every Child Matters Outcome. For example, there is some overlap between the Be Healthy and Enjoy and Achieve; and
some overlap between Stay Safe and Make a Positive Contribution is also evident.
3.3 Templates for the 68 evaluated projects are included in Appendix 2.
3.4 Each template consists of the project title, a brief project description, average number of children supported per quarter, the
‘Every Child Matters’ Outcome, the type of Children’s Fund project, the project location, the target group, the main findings,
the intervention’s effectiveness rating, and evaluators’ comments. The evaluators have rated the project interventions’
effectiveness on a scale of three, as follows:
Intervention Effectiveness Ratings:
1 = intervention is largely not effective
(eg findings are largely negative)
1 / 2 = findings generally weak
2 = intervention may be effective,
but findings are inconclusive (eg soft data or largely mixed findings)
3 = intervention is largely effective
(eg findings are largely positive)

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Every Child Matters Outcome: Be Healthy Projects (15)
Project Code
Project
RO11
East Lancashire CAMHS, Rossendale Emotional Health School Project – (closed)
BU13
Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust, Community Food Workers’ Project
WY15
Coastal Child and Adolescent Therapeutic Service, previously the Fleetwood Home School Support &
Liaison Service (FHSSLS)
PR/HY20
HY169
PE170
Lancashire County Council Educational Psychology Service, Nurture Groups
PR31
Preston City Council, Community Sports/Health Co-ordinators Project – (closed)
PE32
Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust , PHASE Project – (closed)
BU52
Burnley Borough Council Community and Recreation Services, Step 2 It
RO56
Rossendale Borough Council, Community Sports/Health Co-ordinators Project - (closed)
EM/PR72
Nguzo Saba Centre, Education Project – (closed)
DI83
Chorley and South Ribble Primary Care Trust, Relationship Issues for Young People with Disabilities -
(closed)
BU/HY98
Burnley Football Club, Leisure and Community Programme – (closed)
PE132
East Lancashire Public Health Network, Lancashire Healthy Schools Project - Pendle
PE/EM152
Pendle Leisure Trust, Grow and Sow
PE153
Gingerbread, Brightening Lives – (closed)
WL162
West Lancashire Primary Care Trust , Young People’s Well-Being Initiative – (closed)
Every Child Matters Outcome: Be Healthy - Main Findings
Coastal Child and Adolescent Therapeutic Service (WY15)
Very positive impact achieved, particularly with regard to children whose behaviour is worse at the start of the
programme.
Children who improved most were likely to be male, children with special needs, children involved with CAMHS, or
children from families with financial problems.

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High levels of parental satisfaction evident, especially those with younger children.
Lancashire County Council Educational Psychology Service, Nurture Groups (PR/HY20, HY169 and PE170)
Positive impact achieved particularly with children with special needs. Positive improvement in scores, hyperactivity,
conduct, emotional well-being and peer relationships.
Positive impact on numeracy and literacy levels.
Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust, Community Food Workers' Project (BU13)
Successful in improving children's knowledge about healthy eating and increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables
eaten.
Success linked to involving children in growing and cooking food.
Improvements evident for all children regardless of age, gender or ethnicity.
Pendle Leisure Trust, Grow and Sow Project (PE/EM152)
Able to demonstrate children's positive attitudes to importance of diet through involvement with growing food.
East Lancashire Public Health Network, Lancashire Healthy Schools Programme – Pendle (PE132)
Able to demonstrate impact on children's diet, levels of physical activity and awareness of the dangers of smoking,
through introducing Healthy School Tuck Shop and appropriate teaching aids.
Preston Primary Care Trust, Preston Parenting Project (PR161) - primarily Enjoy and Achieve
Able to demonstrate positive impact on physical health, mental health, and alcohol/substance use.
Groundwork East Lancashire, Youth Works Pendle (PE111) - primarily Make a Positive Contribution
Achieved improvements on adolescent well-being for 4/5ths of young people using the service.

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Every Child Matters Outcome: Stay Safe Projects (4)
Project Code
Project
BU28
Burnley Women’s Refuge, Community Support Workers – (closed)
LA38
Poulton Community Centre – After School Clubs (closed)
PR80
INTAG, Recreation Zone Project – (closed)
PR179
Preston Primary Care Trust, Child Accident and Prevention Scheme (CAPS)
Every Child Matters Outcome: Stay Safe - Main Findings
Just one project, the Preston Primary Care Trust, Child Accident Prevention and Safety Scheme (PR179) focused directly on
Stay Safe, with an aim of keeping children safe from accidental injury and death.
This very low-cost scheme achieved a very high success rate in improving children's knowledge about safety issues.
This project could be integrated within Healthy Schools Initiatives.
Arguably, a high proportion of Children's Fund projects impact indirectly on children's safety through increasing school
attendance, improving children's self-esteem, reducing high risk behaviours, or providing diversionary activities.
The Building Bridges Project (PE69) under the Make a Positive Contribution Outcome is a school-based programme aiming to
develop positive relationships and choose not to bully or discriminate. Its objectives are close to the stay safe aim - safe from
crime and anti-social behaviour in and out of school.
Every Child Matters Outcome: Enjoy and Achieve Projects (35)
Project Code
Project
PR01
Preston City Council, Sports Development Out of School Activities
PR02
Preston YMCA, Community Development Project – (closed)
PE08
Sacred Heart Primary School, Club 2000+
LA/TC22
Signposts, Morecambe Bay Pupil Mobility Project
WL27
Moorside Primary School, Home-School Mentor

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WL30
West Lancashire Community Safety Partnership, Rap Plus Project
PR33
Preston City Council, Art in the Park – (closed)
DI/PE39
Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale CVS, Caring Today – (closed)
MA/DI43
Barnardo’s, Inclusion of Children with Disabilities
PE47
Holy Saviour RC Primary School, English Language Homework and ICT Club – (closed)
PR/DI51
Preston City Council, Inclusive Activities for Children with Disabilities
BU55
Education Learning Activity Centre (ELAC), Homework and Activity Clubs – (closed)
BU61
Cherry Fold Primary School, Outreach Worker and Out of School Activities – (closed)
WL63
Holland Moor Primary School, Sport, Learning and Recreation Manager
WL64
Lathom High School, Learning Support Centre – (closed)
PE/EM65
Pendle Pakistan Welfare Association (PPWA), Raising Achievement Project
PR68
Brookfield Spaceplace, Leisure/Educational Opportunities – (closed)
PR70
Deepdale Junior School, Spotlight on Sport – (closed)
EM/PR71
Sahara, Homework Club/ICT Support for Minority Ethnic Children – (closed)
BU94
Burnley Borough Council, Play-team – (closed)
PR95
Business in the Community – (closed)
WL97
Lathom High School, Breakfast/Homework Club – (closed)
BU103
Cherry Fold Primary School, Personal/Group Incentives and Dream Scheme Project – (closed)
WL/DI119
Holland Moor Primary School, Learning to Learn Alongside Learning Mentors
HY/DI124
Hyndburn Park Primary School, Integration with Speech and Language
WL125
West Lancs. Play Association, Bridge the Gap – (closed)
PR/TC129
Signposts, Preston Pupil Mobility Project
MA/RC136
LCC Parental Involvement Teaching Support Team, Dads and Lads (Mums and Daughters too!)
WL/RC138
Grove Community Association, Holiday Activity Scheme
HY/PE/DI140
Lords House Farm, Fun on the Farm
PE149
Blackburn Diocesan Board for Social Responsibility, Family Support Project
PE151
Pendle Leisure Trust, Brighter Futures
PR161
Preston Primary Care Trust, Preston Parenting Project
PE/EM171
Pendle Women’s Forum, Pendle Female Development Project
MA/YC175
Pendle, Burnley and Rossendale Council for Voluntary Service, Junior Carers

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Every Child Matters Outcome: Enjoy and Achieve - Main Findings
School-based projects
Moorside School (WL27), through the deployment of a Home-School Mentor, achieved a positive impact on school attendance
and punctuality; and very positive impact on literacy and numeracy SATS results. Attendance at the school Breakfast Club
improved children's punctuality.
Holland Moor Primary School, Sport, Learning and Recreation Manager Project (WL63), through deployment of another
Learning Mentor, and provision of a range of extra-curricular activities, achieved positive impact on numeracy and literacy SATS
results; and very positive impact on school attendance (notably for children from single-parent families) and on children's
behaviour.
Holland Moor Primary School, Learning to Learn alongside Learning Mentors (WL/DI119), a partnership project involving three
schools in Skelmersdale focusing on children with emotional and behavioural problems, achieved a positive impact on children's
attendance, and very positive impact on school attainment.
Hyndburn Park Primary School, Integration with Speech and Language (HY/DI124) provided, three times a week, reading
support to children in the transitional school years and achieved very positive results for children's reading accuracy and
comprehension and school attendance; the project also provided speech and language support with positive results for both
children with English and Punjabi as their first language.
Community-based projects
Preston Primary Care Trust, Preston Parenting Project (PR161) provided a family support service which achieved positive
impact on children's school attendance, particularly for children from families receiving Social Security benefits or headed by a
lone parent; a large majority of parents reported a range of improvements, including children's behaviour, and positive impact on
physical health, mental health and alcohol/substance use.
The Blackburn Diocesan Board for Social Responsibility, Family Support Project (PE149) made use of a Co-ordinator and
volunteers and achieved very positive impact on children's school attendance, with extremely high satisfaction levels from
parents.

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Other findings
Pendle Pakistan Welfare Association (PE24) provided a Homework Club which achieved positive impact on literacy and
numeracy SATS tests (project targeted at ethnic minority children).
Pendle Women's Forum, Pendle Female Development Project (PE/EM171) provided a Homework Club and other recreational
activities and achieved positive impacts on literacy and numeracy SATS tests.
Barnardo's, Inclusion of Children with Disabilities, (MA/DI43) providing a range of support for children with disabilities,
established links with local community services and experienced extremely high satisfaction levels from parents, and high levels
of satisfaction from children.
Deepdale Junior School, Spotlight on Sport (PR70) had run a range of sporting and out of school activities; a large majority of
children reported positive impact on physical fitness, and a majority of children reported they had increased enjoyment of
school.
LCC Parental Involvement & Teaching Support Team, Dads and Lads (Mums and Daughters too!) (MA/RC136) focused on
literacy and sport and the project was regarded as successful in a survey of sixteen schools, including fathers being more
involved in reading with their sons, and boys' attitudes to writing.
Lords House Farm, Fun on the Farm (HY/PE/D1140) provided riding and animal therapy to socially-excluded children: parents
reported improvements in children's self-esteem, behaviour, communication and relationships.
The Education Learning Activity Centre (ELAC), Homework and Activity Clubs (BU55), used volunteers to provide homework
sessions: children's and parents' satisfaction levels were high and most children valued the learning and staff support available.
Every Child Matters Outcomes: Make a Positive Contribution Projects (12)
Project Code
Project
LA05
Poulton Community Centre, Morecambe Centre-Based Youth Groups - (closed)
BU14
The Excluded Children’s Project – (closed)
SR35
The Leyland Project, Dream Scheme – (closed)

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MA36
Lancashire Youth Association, The EDGE – (closed)
MA48
Lancashire Youth Offending Team, GRIP
RC/WY67+
RC/WY155
Wyre Housing Association – Live Wyre! – (closed)
PE69
“Building Bridges”, Interfaith Project – (closed)
MA/DI84
East Lancashire Deaf Society, Family Support Services
LA108
Lancaster City Council, Community Youth Sports Development Project
PE111
Groundwork East Lancashire, Youth Works Pendle
WL128
West Lancashire Community Safety Partnership, Youth Crime Initiative
PE150
Pendle Leisure Trust, Active Futures
Every Child Matters Outcomes: Make a Positive Contribution - Main Findings
Lancashire Youth Offending Team, GRIP (MA48), a county-wide crime prevention project has achieved a very positive impact
on crime reduction; and positive impacts on school attendance and on assessed risk scores have also been achieved.
Groundwork East Lancashire, Youth Works Pendle (PE111) has provided intensive interventions in close liaison with a local
secondary school and has achieved very positive impact on reducing participants' involvement with the police, and also on
young people's well-being (Adolescent Well-Being Scale). The latter is referred to under Be Healthy above. These positive
results are particularly evident for young people aged 10 - 13.
The Excluded Children Project (BU14) provided intensive out of school support to young people with extremely disruptive
behaviour and achieved very positive impact on school attendance and completion of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts; positive
impact on young people's self-esteem; and received high satisfaction ratings by parents.
WYRE Housing Association, Live Wyre!, (RC/WY67 and RC/WY155) supported children at risk of social exclusion which
achieved high satisfaction ratings by participants and positive reported results on children's participation and behaviour.
Building Bridges, Interfaith Project (PE69) provided inter-faith education programmes for children in primary and secondary
schools which achieved generally positive results on children's attitudes, particularly for children with worse baseline scores who
attended higher numbers of sessions.
Higher levels of improvement were evident for Pakistani Heritage children than for British white children.

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Every Child Matters Outcomes: Achieve Economic Well-Being - Main Findings
As noted above, Achieving Economic Well-Being is not a primary outcome for any of the LCF projects which are targeted at
children too young to be economically active or involved in further education, training or employment.
However, Children's Fund projects aim to support families from economically disadvantaged areas and the following projects
impact tangentially on this outcome.
As noted above, Holland Moor School, Sport, Learning and Recreation Manager (WL63) achieved particularly positive
results on the school attendance of children from families on Social Security benefits, and on single-parent families.
Also as noted above, the Preston Parenting Project (PR161) achieved particularly positive impact on the school
attendance of children from families on Social Security benefits.
Pendle Women's Forum, Pendle Female Development Project (PE/EM171) targeted girls from disadvantaged
backgrounds experiencing poverty and low household income, with positive impact on the young people's literacy and
numeracy SATS results.

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SECTION 4: NOTES ON PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS AND COSTS
Intervention scores and location
4.1 Eighteen out of the 68 projects had the highest intervention score - 3. Three projects scored 1 / 2. Data was not available
for 20 projects. Forty-five projects, 66% of the total, were allocated positive intervention scores of 2 or 3. Twenty-seven
projects scored 2.
4.2 Sixteen (24.2%) projects related to Every Child Matters Outcome 1, Be Healthy. Four of the projects (6%) related to
Outcome 2, Stay Safe. Thirty-five (53%) projects related to Outcome 3, Enjoy and Achieve. Eleven (16.7%) projects related
to Outcome 4, Make a Positive Contribution. There were no projects directly addressing Outcome 5, Achieve Economic
Well- Being.
4.3 All seventeen projects which scored 3 used hard data.
4.4 Just over half (54.5%) of the projects were based in the Statutory sector and just less than half (45.5%) were based in the
Voluntary sector.
4.5
The proportion of Statutory and Voluntary sector projects which received positive intervention scores (either 2 or 3) was
about the same: 25/37 (just over two-thirds) for Statutory sector projects and 20/31 (just less than two-thirds) for Voluntary
sector projects.
4.6 A much higher proportion of projects (54/68) were Community based than School based. Although numbers were small, a
higher proportion of School based (5/13) projects than Community based projects (13/55) received a score of 3.
Factors associated with successful projects
This section is based on data analysis and on discussion between the evaluation team and LCF Programme Managers.

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4.7 Characteristics of successful projects are likely to include:
Clarity of objectives and programme design, and consistency
Project part of the core activity of the service (not an add-on)
Professionalism and stability of workers
Work well with partners and other agencies
Involving participants in significant learning, creative experiences and change of attitudes
Intensity of programme and high levels of attendance of young people
Involvement of parents for programmes targeted at children with problems
Effective liaison with, and support from, related services and professionals
Sound resources and finances
Successful programmes are also likely to be committed to continuous improvement, to be able to demonstrate
flexibility to respond to changing circumstances, and to co-operate with evaluation proposals.
4.8 High intensity / frequent contact have been features of a number of projects which have received positive evaluation scores.
These include Community Food Workers (BU13); Hyndburn Park Better Reading (HY/DI124), which provided three fifteen
minute reading sessions per week; the Excluded Children's Project (BU14), which delivered three sessions per week and
weekend contact for very challenging young people; and Groundwork (PE111) which also ran three sessions per week for
young people. Very intensive contact has also been provided for children supported by the Nurture Projects (PR/HY20,
HY169 and PE170).
4.9
A combination of several positive factors appears to have been a feature of projects which have worked well. Examples
include Moorside Primary School (WL27) where a combination of targeting children with problems, individual work with
parents and children, a programme of out of school activities and effective liaison with teaching staff, produced positive
results. The Excluded Children's Project (BU14), already mentioned, working with disruptive 10 - 14 year olds, using a
similar mix of individual and group work, showed determination to stick with children to achieve improvements in
behaviour, and managed to liaise well with schools, courts and the police: again with positive results. A third example is the
Preston Parenting Project (PR161) which demonstrated successful outcomes, targeting families needing support and
offering a range of one to one and group support, and running parent training and summer play schemes.
4.10
It is noteworthy that a number of projects have made effective use of local people and volunteers. Community Food
Workers (BU13) recruited and trained local people as part-time community food workers, under professional supervision.
Business in the Community (PR95) used volunteers from business as reading partners/pupil mentors. BSR Family Support

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(PE149) trained volunteers to provide practical and social support for the whole family. These projects all received the
highest Intervention score. The Education Learning Activity Centre (BU55), a project wholly run by volunteers, with help
from parents and in liaison with the local school, was also rated positively.
Unit costs
4.11
The average cost per beneficiary per quarter was calculated from the Children’s Fund monitoring database by first
averaging the money spent per quarter, then averaging the number of beneficiaries reported by the projects, and then
dividing the average cost per quarter by the average number of beneficiaries per quarter. This method was selected as
many of the beneficiaries may be receiving services for more than one quarter and may be counted more than once if the
quarterly figures were simple added up for the year. However, there were some limitations, as the number of beneficiaries
were not reported by seven projects (e.g. where the money spent was on equipment or other type of investment), and
some projects appeared to include large numbers of children where the intervention included the distribution of publicity
materials (e.g. the Child Accident Prevention Scheme (PR179) where the average number of beneficiaries per quarter
was reported to be 4000.
4.12 Bearing in mind these limitations, the average cost per child per quarter across all projects was found to be round about
£300, calculated for 163 projects in the period up to December 2004. In the enclosed table of projects (Appendix 2), the
unit cost ranges from £5 to £3132, indicating that some interventions are rather expensive when compared to others, and
that some interventions are achieving very positive results at a lower cost. The GRIP project (MA48) appears to be fairly
expensive at a cost of £957 per quarter per beneficiary; however, project outcomes are positive and provide good value
for money when compared with the potential costs to the communities and to the criminal justice system if the young
people had continued to offend at the same level as previously. Similarly, the Nurture Groups (PR/HY20, HY169, and
PE170) appear to be expensive, but have been proven to be effective particularly with children with special educational
needs. With regard to school-related projects, it appears that school-based projects are not only effective, but also provide
very good to excellent value for money. In Hyndburn Park School (HY/DI124), for example, a control group design was
used indicating that children benefiting from the Children’s Fund project at the school were achieving better outcomes
then their peers who were not receiving the Children’s Fund project’s services.

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SECTION 5: COMMISSIONING, MAINSTREAMING AND REPLICATION
5.1 The Children's Fund was developed as an experimental project able to test out effective and less effective strategies for
supporting children and families, primarily at Level 2 and 3. This section aims to highlight practice developed by LCF
projects, where a clear evidential base has been established, which can be recommended for mainstreaming and replication.
5.2 Analysing projects according to the Every Child Matters Outcomes Framework has some limitations. The five outcomes
each contribute to an integrated whole. A strong case can be made that a number of LCF projects contribute to all five
outcomes. This would appear to be self-evident, for example, the Lord's House Farm, and for a number of Be Healthy
projects. The argument would appear to hold good for most Enjoy and Achieve and Make a Positive Contribution projects,
as well.
5.3 However, quite appropriately, projects have had to be categorised according to a main ECM Outcome. While this works well
enough for some, others can seem to be slightly straight-jacketed. One point of tension is between community-based
projects categorised as either Enjoy and Achieve or as Make a Positive Contribution where there is a good deal of overlap
between project objectives. This is particularly so for some projects which were originally designed to prevent crime or
tackle anti-social behaviour. While some projects have remained focused on crime prevention, others have promoted
diversion and involvement in creative activities, partly because of concerns about focusing on negative aspects of behaviour.
Some projects have negotiated a change in focus, while in others an element of drift may have been apparent.
5.4 The Outcomes Framework acknowledges that there is scope for the five Children's Outcomes to be buttressed by a wider
strategy for supporting families. Parents, carers and families are expected to promote healthy choice (Outcome 1); provide
safe homes and stability (Outcome 2); support learning (Outcome 3); and promote positive behaviour (Outcome 4). They
are also expected to be supported to be economically active (Outcome 5), and financial pressures on poorer families are
acknowledged.
5.5 This section makes reference to the Consultation Draft of A Plan for all the Children and Young People of Lancashire, the
production of which has been co-ordinated by Lancashire County Council on behalf of the Children and Young People’s
Strategic Partnership. The Plan sets out a number of county-wide key Priorities and highlights views of young people and
emerging local priorities. Evidence from the Children's Fund is one of a range of sources which can influence LCC's
mainstreaming and commissioning policies, particularly for children aged 5 - 13. Self-evidently, the priorities already

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developed by other key stakeholders, Education, Health, Social Services and the Voluntary Sector also have a key
contribution to make to these developing policies.
(1)
Be Healthy (Outcome 1)
5.6 This outcome promotes children and young people's physical, mental, emotional and sexual health; healthy lifestyles;
choosing not to take illegal drugs; and the role of parents, carers and families in promoting healthy choices.
The County-wide Key Priorities are:
Reduce infant mortality rates particularly in those areas above the national average.
Improve access to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (LAA).
Increase the % of Lancashire's schools with National Healthy School Status (LAA).
Improve the impact of specialist intervention on vulnerable young people at risk of substance misuse (LAA).
Ensure that children and young people choose not to take illegal drugs, smoke or misuse alcohol.
Reduce teenage pregnancy rates particularly in the under 16 age group (LAA). ) Provided at
) the Urban
Increase the number of young people accessing sexual health services (LAA). ) Exchange
Preston
5.7 The LCC Draft Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) summarises relevant evidence:
What children and young people say is important:
Having a chance to eat a healthy diet and more choice about food in school.
Access to regular exercise and sport.
Not being affected by drink, smoking and drugs.
Getting help and support when needed.

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(i)
Healthy Lifestyles
5.8 The Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Community Food Workers Project (BU13) has provided clear evidence about
improvements in children's diet, as measured by the number of portions of fruit and vegetables eaten each day, following
involvement in After School Clubs involving children in growing and cooking food. The project is run by sessional staff and
involves a four-week programme for groups of twelve children in Years 4, 5 and 6 (Primary School). The project has been
run in communities with high numbers of people from South Asia. A major benefit has been sharing food cultures between
mainly white and mainly Pakistani Heritage communities. The project has attracted high level interest and support from
Health and Education.
The case for replicating After School Clubs based on the Community Food Project across Primary Schools in
Lancashire, including Extended Schools, is strong.
5.9 The Grow and Sow Project (PE/EM152) in Pendle has achieved positive results in improving children's dietary health, in
enabling children to feel fit and healthy, and wanting to learn more about healthy lifestyles. Feedback from large numbers of
schools has been excellent. The project advocates that every school should have its own garden, and that each class
should be involved in gardening once per week. The project has received support from the local Primary Care Trust and
accessed Lottery funding to support families with limited garden space growing vegetables.
This project is imaginative, energetic and visionary, and deserves to be mainstreamed and widely replicated.
5.10 The Health and Fitness Project (BU52) based in Burnley aims to improve lifestyles, diet and fitness levels and to reduce
obesity for Primary School children in the Burnley area. The key feature of this project is focusing on both lifestyle and
recreational (sporting) activities. The project has been intelligently designed and has worked with substantial numbers of
children. Clear evidence has been found about the project's positive impact on the fitness of children taking part.
This project merits mainstreaming and replication.
5.11 The Lancashire Healthy Schools Project (PE132) has been able to demonstrate improvements in children's awareness of
the importance of healthy eating and physical activities, and of the dangers of smoking for a majority of children. More than
a third of children have increased their intake of fruit and vegetables. The project has been run in fifteen schools in deprived
wards. Schools can identify their own priorities, for example healthy eating or emotional well-being. The project has proved

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effective in both High Schools and Primary Schools of different sizes. Best results have been linked to targeting younger
children.
This project is being mainstreamed by Pendle Primary Care Trust from April 2006 to a much larger number of
schools. The model developed by the project should be considered for mainstreaming across the county, although
there are concerns about the resource being stretched too thinly if a much higher ratio of schools per project worker is
required.
(ii)
Children's Emotional Health
5.12 LCF has made substantial investments in Nurture Groups (PR/HY20, HY169, PE170), which provide selected young
children with an alternative school-based experience of nurturing and support, run by LCC Educational Psychologists for
children aged 5 - 7 in Primary Schools in East Lancashire. Nurture Groups have been particularly successful in improving
the emotional health of children with special needs and there is also evidence of improvements for most children involved in
number and reading skills. The lead Educational Psychologist has argued for roll-out of training in the principles of Nurture
Groups and the development of a continuum of nurturing provision in schools across Lancashire. Nurture Group costs are
high. Nurture Groups make links with parents, but do not engage with them closely, and benefits are unlikely to be
experienced by other siblings in the family.
LCF has developed a successful model for running Primary School-based Nurture Groups. Direct replication is
unlikely to be affordable because of high costs. The strongest case is for mainstreaming learning from Nurture
Groups and for investing in a programme of training for school staff in nurturing principles.
5.13 The Coastal Child and Adolescent Therapeutic Service (WY15) has been able to demonstrate improvements in
behaviour for a large majority of children and young people, particularly for those with the highest level of problems.
Parental satisfaction levels have been very high. The project is now mainly supporting Secondary School age children,
providing substantial levels of intervention through one-to-one support, group work and family counselling, aiming to improve
children's emotional health. Inter-agency links, particularly with the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service
(CAMHS) are strong. The service is delivered through an independent voluntary trust employing a very well-qualified multi-
agency staff team. CCATS provides a unique front line children's mental health service to secondary (not currently to
Primary) Schools in the Fleetwood area. Experience has demonstrated the importance of funding needing to "travel" with
children needing support, rather than being project-based.

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Similar developments county-wide are to be strongly encouraged, although commissioning multi-agency teams with
similar high-level qualifications could be problematic.
(iii)
Further Commissioning Implications
5.14 LCF projects promoting children's healthy lifestyles can help develop county-wide strategies, particularly towards achieving
Healthy School Standards. The need for strategic alliances between Health and Education to fund healthy lifestyle
programmes is emphasised. The Coastal Child and Adolescent Therapeutic Service provides a model front line service for
improving children's emotional health. Although LCF school-based projects contribute to improving children's mental health
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