Leads: Dr Helena Tuomainen, Dr Domenico Giacco (Youth Mental Health), Prof Robin Miller (Social Care), Dr Nick Parsons (Meths)

We will work with families, including young people, to develop our application. The Youth Mental Health theme has strong representation from the public on its Advisory Committees.

Dates: TBC

Background:

Birmingham Children’s Partnership (BCP) is seeking to commission an evaluation that will help them quantify the impact of the planned transformation programme.

BCP was set up in 2019, to integrate and align services and help families earlier to improve outcomes and the experience of services, and to be more financially sustainable.

A change programme for children and family services has been funded for the first year and includes significant investment in early help and a new locality model for delivery of services, rebalancing investment from crisis to prevention so services are more financially sustainable. The programme will have implications for the following areas of service: Locality teams; School, further education, nurseries; Community connections; Mental health and emotional wellbeing; Autism support; Placements; Transitions; Culture change.

The transformation programme (2020-24) will amount to c. £15m per year. Major investment will start in April 2021, and the return on investment is expected to take around two years. The partners are the following six organisations: Birmingham City Council, WM Police, Birmingham’s Children’s Trust, Birmingham Community healthcare NHS FT, Birmingham and Solihull CCG, and Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT.

Policy and Practice Partners:

The partners are the following six organisations: Birmingham City Council, WM Police, Birmingham’s Children’s Trust, Birmingham Community healthcare NHS FT, Birmingham and Solihull CCG, and Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS FT.

Co-Funding Partners:

Birmingham City Council, Birmingham’s Children’s Trust, Birmingham Community healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group, and Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.

Aims and Objectives:

BCP require an evaluation that will capture the impact of investment in the reforms that aim to bring about earlier intervention in the lives of children, young people and their families. It is envisaged that the evaluation conducted between 2021-24 will answer the following overarching questions:

1. What is the return on investment for each of the six organisations involved in BCP?
2. What has changed as a result of the investment in earlier intervention?

In addition to the early help focus, BCP are looking for an evaluation that identifies the impact of investment in the ‘Transitions’ strand (2021-23) which is based on a proof of concept that looks to test the impact of a new and creative whole system approach to supporting young people earlier and differently when transitioning from Children’s Services to Adulthood.

Methods:

TBC. The tender opportunity has been postponed due to COVID-19. Once the tender is out, a multidisciplinary team from ARC WM and the Strategy Unit with experience of evaluation, working in partnership with young people and families, will put together a proposal for a mixed methods project, with multiple studies to capture the various elements of the transformation programme.

Main Results:

Initial discussion with senior members of the ARC WM has been held. The idea is to collaborate with Strategy Unit to maximise the opportunity.

Conclusions:

Waiting for Birmingham City Council to advertise tender opportunity to take this research idea forward. If we conduct the evaluation, the findings will inform further implementation of the transformation programme and linked activities.

Implications for Implementation:

If we conduct the evaluation, the findings will inform further implementation of the transformation programme and linked activities.