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Making Child Well-Being Data Work Hard: Getting from Data to Policy and Practice

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Abstract

Lots of child well-being data is collected but it is rarely exploited fully. In this article we set out the data that directors and service commissioners in children’s services need and methods to help them analyse it optimally. Using a case example we show how this will help with critical but complex tasks, such as choosing which outcomes to address, estimating realistic achievable change, designing services, and monitoring progress. We then discuss how to make the data work even harder, for example gathering well-being data on children in systems, improving the quality of service use information, and making data ‘live’ for practitioners via continuous feedback systems.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all colleagues in Dartington and Birmingham who have contributed to the work described in this article, especially Louise Morpeth, Michael Little and Cheryl Hopkins. The work in Birmingham was funded by Birmingham City Council.

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  1. The Social Research Unit, Dartington, UK

    Nick Axford, Tim Hobbs & David Jodrell

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  1. Nick Axford
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  2. Tim Hobbs
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Correspondence to Nick Axford.

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Axford, N., Hobbs, T. & Jodrell, D. Making Child Well-Being Data Work Hard: Getting from Data to Policy and Practice. Child Ind Res 6, 161–177 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-012-9163-5

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