Looking ahead to 2021/22 As we start a new work year, early intervention is at a crucial juncture. The Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped our world, and especially the needs of many families and young people, and the landscape of additional support services available to them.
A national Covid recovery programme is taking shape as the nation emerges from lockdowns and restrictions, and the government is focused on its commitment to levelling up our places and communities. The comprehensive spending review will set the terms of public spending for the years ahead. Taken together, this means there is both an unprecedented need for effective early intervention to be as widely available as possible, and an invaluable opportunity to invest in achieving that goal.
from national, local and frontline stakeholders. In addition to the planned projects outlined below, we will continue to provide bespoke advice to stakeholders working in relevant Whitehall departments, to inform and support government policies and programmes.
At the same time, EIF has passed the midway point in our current five-year strategic cycle, and so we have identified three overarching priorities for the 24 months ahead.
• Review and refresh existing evidence on the effectiveness of early years programmes, so that we can add to and update programmes on the EIF Guidebook database.
Our priorities for the next two years are: • To be integral to achieving increased government prioritisation of and investment in effective early intervention and family help. • To address the most substantive gaps in the evidence base by generating new evidence, including through running trials or robust impact evaluations. • That our evidence is changing policy and practice, through applying tested methods to support evidence-use locally and nationally. Our three major portfolios of work cover areas where early intervention can be effective, and where there is considerable demand for evidence and evidence-informed guidance
Improving outcomes for children in the early years In 2021/22, our work in the early years will:
• Undertake a significant programme of activity to mobilise existing evidence on early years practice, including supporting system planning and evaluation in local areas, supporting children’s early language provision, partnering in the DfE’s Growing Up Well and family hubs programmes, and continuing our work on understanding the maturity of the local early years system, using data generated through the EIF maturity matrix tool to paint a national picture. • Continue our ongoing research for the Nuffield Foundation, in partnership with the University of Cambridge, into the ‘common elements’ of effective early education provision.
22 | Early Intervention Foundation / Annual Report 2020–2021
