Children and Families
Policy drivers
The future mainstreaming of Children's Centre services and
extended schools wrap-around care' remains a rapidly-evolving
aspect of the new government's policy. M·E·L Research's
extensive involvement in the Sure Start local programmes,
undertaking project evaluation, parent engagement, general needs
analysis and activity-based costing, provided a model of good
research and evaluative practice in this field. Similarly we are
engaged in building customised toolkits and parent skillbuilding
training to enable good practice to be embedded as services are
mainstreamed.
Engaging young people will also become increasingly important,
particularly as an arm of the volunteering aspects of Big Society.
Here our work for Connexions and for Youth Involvement Programmes,
involving youth audit research, participative budgeting for young
people and young citizens' training, will be important for future
agendas.
Maternity services now rest on strong user focus and we have
developed a particular specialism in involving parents and
mothers-to-be on their preferences and choices in maternity care
services, and the link to other aspects of community-based
maternity service support. These will continue to pay an important
part in the future development of policy in this area.
Older people's services are under huge pressure as numbers
increase and budgets are tightened. Controversial decisions on
paid-for care services and charging policies will need to be made.
Our experience will be of great value in taking social care
services through formal consultation procedures, ensuring the
government's principles for Consultation are met. We ensure that
vulnerable service users, carers, stakeholders and the wider public
are all fairly and inclusively engaged in genuine consultation over
real choices, and are not manipulated with tokenistic
consultation.
Our expertise
- Consultation with children, young people and parents
- Parent surveys
- Chattabout groups
- Sure Start and Childrens Centre evaluations
- Project/service evaluations
- Older people's care service consultations
Case Studies
Father
Involvement in Family Support Services
Low
Income Families Consultation
Review of
Maternity Services
Sandwell
Childcare Consultation
Account Manager: Claire Hall
For further information on any of our Children and Families
services or to speak to someone informally about your requirements,
contact Claire Hall (0121
604 4664).
Team: Click here to see
our team structure