The Family Review is exploring all aspects of modern family life and how families understand themselves. The Review will allow us to look at how families can best be supported, with a particular focus on children’s perspectives on family life. It will bring together the best available evidence on the effectiveness of current Government support and community-led support networks.
As part of the Family Review, the office has issued a Call for Evidence to ensure we gather the latest and highest quality research and expertise to inform our work. We welcome research on all areas of family support and evaluation of family services, government or community led. Government family services include both universal services like Family Hubs as well as targeted support through programs like Supporting Families. Community-led family services include charities or networks that support families with specific needs, such as families affected by domestic abuse or mental illness.
The Children’s Commissioner’s Office would particularly like to gather:
- Data on family structure, living and childcare arrangements, and pressures facing families across the UK that is not captured in official statistics such as the census or ONS data on household composition.
- Research on the impact of family structure on outcomes for children and families.
- Research on the impact of family support interventions on outcomes for children and families.
- Research on any barriers to accessing family support programs.
While the most robust evaluations of interventions will take the form of Randomised Control Trials or quasi-experimental designs, we are not restricting our call for evidence to these types of research. We are also interested in other forms of evaluation, including pre- and post-intervention surveys and qualitative research.
The Call for Evidence will run until May 27th. You can respond as an individual, or on behalf of an organisation. Evidence should be from the past five years and findings should be relevant to England or the UK more widely.
In our report at the end of the Family Review, we will summarise the research and data received from this Call for Evidence, alongside findings from a comprehensive literature review on family support.
