Local meets national in evaluation:
The case of the Children's Fund
Ian Plewis, Institute of Education, University of London
Ian Shemilt, University of East Anglia
Joint meeting of Birmingham and District Local Group and the Social
Statistics Section of the Royal Statistical Society
Thursday, 10 March 2005 at 6.00pm
In
Meeting room, National Evaluation of Children’s Fund, Ground floor, Watson
Building, University of Birmingham
Synopsis: There are considerable methodological problems faced by local and
national evaluation of the impact of social exclusion initiatives such as
the Children's Fund. The talks by national and local evaluators will
contrast their different remits and how they are approaching these
problems. The projects and services funded by the Children’s Fund have
different aims and are targeted at different groups in different parts of
the country. This leads to considerable methodological problems when trying
to establish the impact across England of the Children’s Fund on those
outcomes often collectively referred as social exclusion. The local
initiatives are also diverse in their operation and each local programme
has its own evaluation of the service activity set up under the Fund. These
raise additional issues. The talks will discuss these issues and how the
National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund (NECF) and a Local Evaluator are
addressing them. There will be discussion led by Anne Edwards (Director of
NECF) and David Allen (Local Evaluation Support Officer, NECF).
Visitors will be welcome at the meeting, in addition to Fellows of the
Society. However, due to possible space limitations all must indicate their
intention of attending by e-mailing [log in to unmask]
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