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NIHR Children and Families Policy Research Unit
Latest News
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
How I cope: a young person's guide
How I cope: a young person's guide is a new resource created by young people for young people about how young people cope and like to receive support. It was developed by CPRU, with the HeadStart Learning Team, and the HeadStart National Young People's Group.
Cost of child maltreatment
Exposure to child maltreatment and/or parental domestic vioelnce and abuse in childhood was associated with increased risks of poorer outcomes across a range of measures including physical and mental health, behaviours known to pose health risks, employment and earnings.
New project on access to primary care
We hope to find out which groups experience difficulties in accessing primary care, and how primary care services could better address these difficulties.
New project on promoting safe sleeping for babies in high risk groups in England
CPRU explores programme implementers' perspectives on collecting and using cost data
What we found out
- Programme sites varied in terms of how much cost data they had collected, the extent to which they had begun planning or implementing local cost data analysis, and the degree to which they ascribed importance to cost data analysis as compared to impact data analysis.
- The relative importance of cost data collection, analysis, and presentation to programme implementors may be driven in part by their perceptions of audience priorities (such as those of schools, the community, or commissioners).
- Barriers to collecting and using cost data include the difficulties of costing a complex programme, contextual constraints, missing data, and the limitations of economic evaluation tools.
CPRU develops core outcome sets for family and child-focused interventions for child maltreatment and domestic abuse
We developed two core outcome sets that those who use, deliver and commission services agreed were the most important to measure.
CPRU reports on changes in hospital contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic among vulnerable children and young people
We found that vulnerable children bore large and disproportionate deficits in hospital contacts during the first nine months of the pandemic. These deficits were greatest for children with multiple vulnerabilities.
New data resource: Dashboard on Special Educational Needs in England
We have developed a resource that outlines data on the characteristics of SEN pupils and funding for SEN provision for local authorities in England.
Access Dashboard (for full functionality download copy to your computer)
Are infant mortality rates increasing in England?
Infant mortality (deaths in babies aged less than one year old) has been declining over past decades in England. Recently published data show that infant mortality appears to be going up since 2014, with some linking this trend to increases in child poverty. We used routinely published data from Office for National Statistics (openly available online) to explore why infant mortality might be going up.
Dyslexia and Mental Health
Higher levels of mental health problems in those with reading difficulties such as dyslexia are widely recognised. But the reasons for this are less clear. Our rapid review looked at existing evidence on the relationship between poor reading ability and/or reading disorders including dyslexia, and mental health problems.
We found three key pathways that explain the raised levels of prevalence.
Using the community services dataset (CSDS) for research on health visiting
Health visiting is a national service focused on promoting the health and development of young children and reducing the impact of adversity and inequalities. Information about health visiting activity in England is collected in the Community Services Dataset (CSDS). The CSDS has not yet been used for research. We investigated the completeness and accuracy of dataset by looking specifically at the delivery of the 2-2.5 year review.
