How do you represent the reality of children’s lives – the challenges that they face, their hopes and their strengths – through data? An enormous amount of administrative data are collected about the children involved with children’s services. Data, used well, provides important insights and helps guide evidence-based decisions, but there are some things that cannot easily be captured by a spreadsheet or a case file. And, from a child’s perspective, the information that is missing might be the most important of all.  

The Children’s Information Project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, aims to bring in that nuance by supporting local authorities in England in how they listen to children so that their voices and wider needs are better represented within the data that are collected about them, and about how that information is used.

The project team – made up of five local authorities and researchers from five universities, working closely with practitioners, children and families - is developing ways to ethically collect, process and share this data, to improve support and services for children.  

Ultimately, the project hopes to improve the lives of children through a richer understanding of what they themselves say they need, and through forging greater trust with the practitioners and agencies around them. While there is much activity looking at how to improve children’s services and issues using children’s data, the innovation at the heart of this project is to make those issues around information and voice the central point of enquiry.

A group of young school children in uniforms are seated on a bus. The focus is on a young black teenager with long brown hair in the foreground who is looking at a smartphone intently. She is seated on a blue bus seat with white rectangular patterns and a black and yellow headrest.

A young schoolgirl with long brown hair and wearing a school uniform is sitting on a school bus watching something on her smartphone. The background is darkened to black and white with a dark green tint while she remains in colour framed by a light green square.

Current
Challenges

Statistical data about children are collected by different agencies, including health and education, as part of universal services for all children, and by local authorities as part of children’s services. This information is used by central government for administrative purposes and to shape services. But although this data is vitally important, it is often not joined up, and can provide a one-dimensional view which does not reflect the reality of an individual child’s needs or experiences. 

According to Leon Feinstein, a Professor of Education and Children’s Social Care and Director of the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford, the limitations and gaps in the information currently collected about children means it is “often not fit for purpose”. Even answers to basic questions, such as the number of children facing difficulties that could severely limit their life chances, are not fully known.

“I find it shocking that, as a country, we don't know the levels of need of children,” says Professor Feinstein, who is leading the project.

In an increasingly data-driven world, public services are becoming more reliant on data systems to inform decision-making and to allocate resources. But aggregating and simplifying data to make it comprehensible at scale runs the risk of losing sight of what it is ultimately supposed to represent: the individuals for whom the services are provided.

Professor Feinstein, who was previously Director of Evidence at the Children’s Commissioner’s Office, argues that the existing data are too dependent on simplifications and averages to accurately reflect the complex reality of children’s lives. He sums this up: “We're quite good at knowing where people are in the system, but we don't know how they are.”

Elaine Sharland, Professor of Social Work Research at the University of Sussex and a co-investigator on the project, gives an example of the limitations of the data currently collected about children in care. “The data will show if children have a roof over their heads, but not if they feel safe. Being in prison, by default, counts as suitable accommodation because they've got a roof over their head,” she says. “So it's a very service-led, administrative measure of outcome that doesn't in any way reflect what is a good thing or a bad thing.” 

Despite the system’s over-reliance on averages and proxies, the amount of information demanded about children by central government puts a significant burden on local authorities. The process is described as “extractive” by Professor Feinstein, since much of this information is not ultimately fed back to those working with children to help with their decision-making.  

Without a holistic picture of the real challenges faced by children and families, the project team argue, local services and national policies cannot be fully responsive to their needs. Even worse, it can lead to resources being misdirected or policies that have the opposite effect to those intended. John Pullinger, a former National Statistician who is steering the project as a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation, says that the project is uncovering areas in which the current information system is “not so much poorly performing, but performing perversely”. 

“The system is spending a huge amount of its time feeding this beast of data collection that is ending up on the desks of ministers or directors of social care, and then they are assuming that is the reality. Their decisions are guided by what's in those spreadsheets, and if they're measuring the wrong things, we're going to make the wrong decisions,” he says. 

There is also an ethical challenge at the heart of the project: the children themselves often do not understand, and have no say in, where and why their data are being recorded, and how this may influence critical decisions being made with regards to their care.   

“The data will show if children have a roof over their heads, but not if they feel safe. Being in prison, by default, counts as suitable accommodation because they've got a roof over their head,”

Elaine Sharland,
^{Professor of Social Work Research at the University of Sussex}

A young child stands outdoors on a grassy area. The child is wearing a purple cardigan with flower designs and a red and white striped shirt underneath. They are holding a dandelion that has gone to seed. The background includes scattered leaves and the trunk of a tree."

Two sisters, approximately 9 and 14 years old, are playing together on a nest swing seat in a playground covered in autumn leaves. They are smiling and appear to be having fun.

Two sisters, approximately 9 and 14 years old, are playing together on a nest swing seat in a playground. They are smiling and appear to be having fun. The background is in black and white. A light green circle frames the two children.

‘Turning
the system
on its head’

Instead, Professor Feinstein argues that the information system needs “turning on its head”: rather than being driven from the top by central government, the views of the children and young people themselves should be prioritised. 

“There is an accountability problem at the heart of our system, that central government owns information and drives information use, but it does so in its interests. It doesn't do so in the interest of children and families who are the ultimate users of services,” he says. “We're trying to turn that on its head: by having more participation in and about data to be able to get a more accurate picture of the realities of children's lives, to inform service development but also to improve it, and have a better public understanding of the state of the nation.” 

The information being considered as part of the project ranges from official statistics covering all those in contact with services, to the individual case files of children in care.

Case files are reviewed by Ofsted to assess the quality and impact of practice – but they are also a record of childhood, which is available to a young person after they leave care and can be critical to that individual’s memory and sense of identity.

Professor Feinstein says that this perspective can be lost if case files are seen as primarily administrative records, and that they should be developed through the lens of the young person who may go on to read it.  

Pullinger believes that this type of thinking requires a fundamental shift in perspective within the system.

A young boy with Down syndrome, wearing a school uniform, sits at a desk in a classroom. He is smiling and has his hand raised, as if he knows the answer to a question. The classroom is bright with educational posters on the walls and books by the window.

Listening to children’s
voices

Central to the project’s attempts to enable more subjective ways of capturing the views, perspectives and experiences of those for whom the services are being developed, is the concept of “voice”.

This aims to show the depth and reality of children’s experiences in their own words or expressions. By integrating this qualitative data with quantitative data, the project team hope to ensure that diverse voices, including those of children, young people, families and practitioners, are heard much more clearly within children’s information. 

“We're treating voice in, I hope, a very nuanced way, as something that is relational,” Professor Sharland explains. “Voice isn't simply what's said in words. Voices can be non-verbal or verbal, be implicit or explicit. They can be expressed in formal ways and in everyday encounters. And they can be expressed individually and collectively.” 

The project is also addressing the participation of children, families and practitioners in questions of how their data is used.

To support this aim, the project is developing a practical toolkit for practitioners and managers to think about the ethical principles and considerations that arise, starting from what gets asked, to where this information goes and how it gets used.

Professor Sharland says: “It's not simply about coming in with a laptop saying, ‘This is an informal conversation’, but meanwhile, typing everything down without indicating where this is going or who this is for.” 

There are academic challenges as well as practical challenges to incorporating voice, so it is not seen as “muddying the waters” of rigorous statistical analysis.

Pullinger says: “You need to be open minded to the fact there are complementary methods that actually enhance your insight, rather than dilute it. We have to do that pretty carefully, because concepts like independence in statistical measurement are really critical.” 

“Voice isn't simply what's said in words. Voices can be non-verbal or verbal, be implicit or explicit. They can be expressed in formal ways and in everyday encounters. And they can be expressed individually and collectively.”

Elaine Sharland,
^{Professor of Social Work Research at the University of Sussex}

A child in a wheelchair is playing on a climbing frame in a park. The child is wearing a red jacket and is holding onto the bars of the climbing frame with both hands. An adult, partially visible in the background, appears to be assisting or supervising the child. The park is surrounded by trees and greenery.

Young teenage girl is making dumplings with her smiling mother guiding her and her father making the dough. They are in modern kitchen with the ingredients scattered across the counter.

What is the project currently doing?

The project is a collaboration between the Greater Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, North Yorkshire, and Hampshire local authorities, and academics from the University of Oxford, the University of Sussex, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University College London, and Manchester Metropolitan University. There is also a wider learning network of 20 other local authorities in England and Wales, to test findings and co-produce tools and guides, which is being run by Research in Practice.

The work is organised around four local sites. At each site, the project team is exploring how mixed methods of data collection, incorporating qualitative and quantitative data, can support each other to build a better understanding of children’s lives, and how these can be improved through better information use.

The project focuses, in part, on children and families using local authority children’s services, who are often the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.

In North Yorkshire, the team — led by Lisa Holmes, Professor of Applied Social Science at the University of Sussex — is examining how using good quality information can improve the experiences and outcomes of young people leaving care. In Hampshire, the focus is on how information use can enable children and families to receive support as early as possible when difficulties start.

The project also considers universal services, such as Family Hubs, and targeted services such as speech and language support for two-year-olds. In Oldham and Rochdale, together with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the focus is on how information is used to help younger children be ready to start school.

The project began in 2021, and it is currently at what Pullinger describes as a “pivot point”, with two years remaining. Professor Feinstein says: “We're trying to help local authorities use information better, to test the hypothesis that doing so will help them improve their services: that if they understand needs, they're going to be better able to meet them. But we're also working with them on how they do that.”

Two sisters in red and white football kits are kicking a ball toward a goal in a green field. The park is surrounded by a wire fence and some trees while the a tall block of apartments sits in the background

Two sisters in red and white football kits are kicking a ball toward a goal in a field. The park is surrounded by a wire fence and some trees while the a tall block of apartments sits in the black and white background. The children are framed a light green zig zag.

Driving change
through practice

Currently, data collection is not usually seen as connected to the relationship between social workers and children – it is transactional, and often considered a burden that distracts from the core work that social workers are trying to do. But the project team are also considering whether a new approach which centres children’s voices could have a transformative effect in relationships between young people and the services developed for them.

“It's about really making sure that children and families are well enough informed about why they're being asked for their input and how their input may be shared, and finding ways of enabling them to see that their voices are being heard and valued and taken seriously,” says Professor Sharland.

Listening to children does not mean always doing what they say they want; it means ensuring that their expressions of need are sought out and genuinely considered as part of decisions that affect them.

“If we do engage people - in this case, children, young people and families - where they do have a voice in how their information is used, where they both understand it and have some say in it, and it's done in a more meaningful way, they're much more likely to engage more broadly with services that are being provided or offered to them. It’s an issue of trust,” Professor Sharland continues.

At a broader level , the project team hope that this could contribute to a wider “democratic renewal”, to counter declining trust in public institutions, through greater transparency and more accurate data driving improvements in local services.

A young child wearing a thick blue coat is sitting on her own on a bench in a playground area. She is watching a groupd of older children having fun in the distance. The rest of the playground is empty.

Listening to those who do not want to engage, or cannot engage verbally  

The project also aims to identify whose voices are less likely to be heard within the information system. “It's much harder to hear angry voices or marginalised voices, disenfranchised voices,” says Professor Feinstein.

Pullinger says that these voices are “the most important to be listened to”. “Some children have learnt that being silent is the best way to protect themselves,” he explains. “We have to not give up on them. So we have to find ways of capturing an expression of their experience so that we can include it, as inclusion is a critical part of this.”

There are other complexities when considering those children, young people and families who are not able to engage verbally. These could include young children who are pre-verbal, or children with special educational needs or disabilities.

The project is looking at approaches incorporating a range of methods to reflect non-verbal voices, through body language, creative play and technology, such as the use of emojis and apps. The team are also addressing the challenge of how to listen to those who are wary of interactions with children’s services and who may not want to engage at all.

These approaches are resource-intensive, but the project is committed to not increase the burden of data collection on local authorities, many of which are under-resourced and under-funded. The team intends to show how better use of data can help local authorities improve services and outcomes in a cost-effective manner, and identify current areas of data collection which could usefully be cut, and unnecessary repetition reduced.

“Some children have learnt that being silent is the best way to protect themselves,” he explains. “We have to not give up on them. So we have to find ways of capturing an expression of their experience so that we can include it, as inclusion is a critical part of this.”

John Pullinger,
Trustee at the Nuffield Foundation

 

A young boy in a school uniform is sitting in a bright classroom next to two girls. He looks very focused, drawing something in his notebook with a set square while his classmates speak to each other in the background.

A mother wearing a hijab is walking down a residential street pushing a stroller with a baby in front of her while her young daughter walks beside her. The mother is smiling, enjoying the walk while her daughter focuses on what's in front of her.

What will success look like?

If successful, Pullinger, believes that the project will help address “two absolutely profound needs we've got at the moment: of those very early years of life and of the most vulnerable children, whom we have the greatest duty to protect and support.”

Through a bottom-up approach of learning from the local sites, and testing these findings through the wider network of local authorities, the project team hopes to create a significant shift in the way in which data from and about children are collected, which more accurately reflects their lives and needs, and shapes better services.

The project aims to unpack critical issues of ownership and access to children’s information, so that it is transparent to children, families and practitioners.

It will establish ethical frameworks that will help practitioners feel confident about asking difficult questions, and methodologies that will enable qualitative data about voice to be analysed at scale, calibrating quantitative research while also identifying new areas for enquiry.

It will also demonstrate ways of making more effective use of existing data, through a set of resources which will enable agencies to examine the quality of their use of information in relation to children’s services, and guidance on how to improve. The findings from the project will be shared through a series of workshops, webinars, podcasts and documents, to make them accessible to the wider sector and policy makers.

Professor Feinstein hopes the project will start a movement away from excessive use of “raw, average, binary variables” in data about children, and in social policy generally.

Change, however well-evidenced, doesn’t just happen because it’s shown to be a good idea. Roadblocks to change can be substantial – very often, they’re systemic. Any approach to meaningful change needs, by necessity, to look to the long-term.

Feinstein explains: “The project can’t transform cultures and behaviours within its five-year funded lifetime. Our aim is to lead and catalyse change, to lay out a set of practices and an understanding of why things don’t work this way already. That way, we’re best placed to support, enable and drive through a fundamental strategic shift in how children’s information is understood and used long into the future.”

Further information

The project is a close collaboration across disciplines and organisations. In addition to Professors Feinstein and Sharland, the directors of the project also include Lisa Holmes, Professor in Applied Social Sciences at Sussex University, who leads on implications for children’s social care and ethics, and in the research work in North Yorkshire and Hampshire; Dr Polly Vizard, Associate Director at the LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, who leads the work on understanding child and family need; and Dez Holmes, Director of Research in Practice, who leads the work on Local Authority impact.

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