Report: Social care innovations in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight

How the measures aim to help improve social work practice, reduce the need for repeat interventions and increase the resources to deal with rising demand. This evaluation examines how well each of the programme areas is working and in what circumstances.

The overall objective of the Programme was to create the right conditions and capacity for professionals to work as effectively as possible with vulnerable children and families in order to safely reduce demand for remedial or repeat interventions.

With some lead-in for recruitment and preparation, the start-up operational time frame to be evaluated for most but not all strands was from October 2015 to August 2016.

This evaluation from the Institute of Public Care at Oxford Brookes University has sought to understand the extent to which each of the programme strands is beginning to work well, for whom, in what circumstances, and why (Pawson and Tilley 1997). Where strands have showed promise, evaluators have also been tasked with identifying the extent to which they are cost effective.

A mixed method approach to evaluation has been applied, including rapid research reviews; case file analysis; interviews with families; longitudinal interviews with team managers, social workers and administrators; broader stakeholder interviews and questionnaires; secondary analysis of performance and cost data collected by the host authorities relating to the programme strands.

To download, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-care-innovations-in-hampshire-and-the-isle-of-wight