Local Evaluation of Children's Services Learning from the Children's ...

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4. Evaluators identified diverse definitions of participation among stakeholders inmost partnerships. Many evaluators reported that professionals’ and adults’definitions of participation tend to predominate, rather than those of childrenand young people themselves. Often these equate to consulting children andyoung people in order to inform the development of responsive services.Despite considerable commitment to participation, in practice progress tendsto be relatively limited, with few examples of children and young people’sdirect participation in decision making at strategic and project levels.5. A number of evaluators suggested that ‘hard to reach’ children and youngpeople and younger children were particularly under-represented in Children’sFund participative activities, although some evaluators identified examples ofparticipative activities that had been effective in engaging an inclusive rangeof children and young people.6. Local evaluators pointed to the importance of partnerships resourcingdedicated participation officers, the need to train practitioners and servicemanagers and the importance of providing organisational support for serviceproviders to develop effective participative practices. Considerable investmentof time is also needed if participation strategies are to be effective. Someevaluations suggest that voluntary and community organisations may beparticularly effective in promoting participation due to their abilities to work inflexible and innovative ways.7. Evaluators reported different experiences and understandings of partnershipworking, although within many partnerships agreements had been reached onwhat partnership working means. Some stakeholders saw partnership boards’responsibilities as ensuring probity and demonstrating that they met CentralGovernment requirements. Others emphasised collaborative working betweenorganisations to bring about cultural change in children’s services.8. Conditions reinforcing effective partnership working include: sharing a visionof the purpose of the initiative; transparency of decision making; clarity aboutstakeholders’ responsibilities; good communications between groups ofstakeholders including members of the partnership board, Children’s Fundstaff, service providers and service users.Chapter 4 59
9. Evaluators reported that some collaborative arrangements and networksbetween Children’s Fund projects had been facilitated by partnerships,although many suggested that such arrangements are relatively unevenacross partnerships’ activities. Other collaborative arrangements and networkswere reported as having been established by the organisations themselves.10. A number of evaluators commented that statutory agencies tended to leadstrategically, whilst voluntary and community organisations tended to provideChildren’s Fund services. However, within some partnerships voluntary andcommunity organisations had been strategically influential, indeed, theChildren’s Fund had raised the profile of the sector. Some stakeholderspredicted, however, that the voluntary and community sector would bemarginalised in the next phase of integrating children’s services.60Chapter 4
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RESEARCHLocal Evaluation ofChildren
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When citing this report please show
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ContentsExecutive SummaryIIntroduct
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Local Evaluation of the Children’
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10. Local evaluators highlighted th
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20. Some evaluators involved childr
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successes of partnerships’ work (
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38. Conditions reinforcing effectiv
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Children’s Fund initiative, namel
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engaging with policy makers, practi
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starting points and timetables of d
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Page 33 and 34: acknowledge that findings presented
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Page 38 and 39: Chapter 2: Methods Adopted by Child
Page 40 and 41: place. In one Wave One evaluation t
Page 42 and 43: provided by projects weakened the a
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Page 46 and 47: A Wave Two evaluation report descri
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Page 52 and 53: Chapter 3: How Local Evaluation Sup
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Page 73 and 74: Where partnership working was descr
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Page 81 and 82: National Evaluation of the Children
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