HeadStart Kent Programme Board

19 th November 2014, 5.30pm – 7.30 pm, Oakwood House

Attendees: Nick Fenton (Chair), Angela Ford, Sarah Hindle, Andy Heather, Jess Mookherjee, Lauraine Griffiths, Heather Goodacre, Nicola Farrell, Mark Kerr, Eileen McKibben, George Hales, Kelly South, Ugochi Nwulu, Alex Holmes, Sharon McLaughlin, Dan Bride, Ellie Ransley, Tim O’Brien, Peter Heckel, Julie Stones, Sarah Gow, Chris Blanc, Louise Fisher, Marie Royle, Alison Small, Julie Albone, Jo Tonkin, David Weiss, Grace Dennis (notes).

Comments Action

1. Introductions and Apologies – Nick led introductions of attendees to the second HeadStart Programme Board meeting. Angela showed a video – ‘famous failures’ – which links into the ethos of HeadStart as it shows how famous faces have picked themselves up and moved forward after adversity, building their resilience. Angela said how this Programme Board meeting has three elements; 1. Evaluation - the Lottery are asking us where we are as a programme and where our intelligence is taking us. 2. The Knowledge Seminars. 3. The 15th December Big Lottery Workshop and our theory of change – we need this for our development of the Stage 3 bid. This meeting is to assess where we are and where we should be.

2. Project Updates – Angela discussed the HeadStart Partnership Agreement and the importance of the board members signing the agreement cards with their contribution to HeadStart, so the Big Lottery release payments. The Projects have started in each area (Canterbury, Thanet, North West Kent) and are going well. HeadStart needs to link with the Emotional Wellbeing strategy as this will contribute to service redesign and connects to a system which enables change. Resilience is more holistic than just emotional wellbeing so should HeadStart link into this? Where does HeadStart sit within the system? Stage 3 phase will mean redesign. If anyone needs the link to the Emotional Wellbeing strategy or any documents on HeadStart, let Grace know.

3. Evaluation & Evidence Update - Gochi gave attendees an overview of the HeadStart Evaluation; we have national evaluators from University College London and the University of Manchester. They have started to describe interventions and timelines and common measurement frameworks that will be implemented next year and how HeadStart can feed into them and how they can help us. We need to collect baseline data, both qualitative and quantitative, which will be tied in with young people and what we will focus on.. George talked about the evaluation meeting in London, which was interesting to see the different areas from each HeadStart project, the discussions, with a focus on young people’s evaluation of HeadStart Kent and understanding our priorities.

Kelly described the Shadow Board last week; we did an exercise on domains helped us understand the different elements of resilience. The theory of change was represented through a Chinese whispers activity; the outcome (the message reaching the last person

All/Grace

clearly) is achieved by the logic model supporting this (ie. repeating the message again, looking at the message printed). At the Shadow Board we considered each Project and our priorities, these are what young people think is important for each project and will make the most difference and have the most impact. Components included the HeadStart Resilience Mentors, Co-production and social marketing. The top 5 elements in each Project are: Canterbury - Social media, Online promotion, Co-production, Knowledge Hub, PRP family resilience. Thanet - Restorative approaches in primary school, Restorative peer ambassadors, Restorative parent ambassadors, Secondary school curriculum package, Restorative staff ambassadors. North West Kent - Safe Spaces, Resilience mentors, Online service directory, Coping packs, Promotional Material.

How do we evaluate these priorities? Juli Dosad has worked with young people to design

our HeadStart graphics. We will use a pop up shop, peer sessions and competitions which should give us our most effective feedback. We will hold a meeting in February to finalise the elements of the evaluation and our pop up activity. Nick asked about the Shadow Board young people’s numbers/ages, we need to broaden this, we are holding 5 Shadow Board meetings per year. Jo Tonkin said we need to keep in mind young people focussed solutions, we need to keep questioning. Jess Mookherjee asked what action learning is going on and what is HeadStart doing to change it? George said we are bringing action learning to the Shadow Board, and Angela reiterated that the Programme is about learning, if we need to change something we can, it is about testing ideas. Julie Stone asked about bringing more information on coproduction and consultation? Ellie said that young people have been working with Amy Merritt and met with Helen Cook immediately before the Emotional Wellbeing strategy consultation, so co-production is happening within the Project.

4. Knowledge Seminars – Mark Kerr discussed how resilience within HeadStart is focussing on 10-14 year olds, it was asked what happens at 15? We need to sustain resilience, we need consistency across services. There will be 4 Knowledge Seminars during phase 2 of the HeadStart Kent project, therefore conceptualising resilience and building a Community Of Practice. The first Seminar focussed on understanding resilience in Kent and what it is, how resilience has evolved as a concept over the years. Resilience is a combination of factors and it is argued we cannot demonstrate resilience unless we have experienced adversity. Protective factors come into play when looking at young people’s resilience. There has been some concern over evidence based outcomes (potential negative picture of service), managers/commissioners need to consider this. Mark discussed breaking down resilience into factors rather than just one concept. The wider picture is important too, including the community and social factors. Young people need the ability to navigate and negotiate their way through support.

Mark discussed the HeadStart graphic and at the Shadow Board we looked at what/who/how to achieve resilience, the idea ‘to allow me to have the ability to bounce back’. The resilience domains are world-wide culturally. The Shadow Board will guide us for young people’s questions/answers. Grace to send out the slides from the Shadow Board to Programme Board members. We need support for families and parents as well as young people. It was discussed how different programmes such as the PRP training in Canterbury could need a 6 month boost after the training? What do you do at the end of programmes with young people, how does it end so young people keep benefitting? Mark described the resilience strings which can go across different domains.

Jess asked about resilience types, ie. if a young person has a temper, how would that work? Mark said this example is like the domains. Jess said we need to factor in a young person’s growth. Andy Heather said we need a balance between risk factors and protective factors and can therefore identify how the balances shift. Mark said HeadStart is more targeted ie. In the Thanet area we could predict what is more likely to be a risk factor. There are risk factors within an individual, within a system and the community. Eileen said that some factors we cannot control. Andy Heather said we can use data to do some predictive analysis of risk factors. Jo Tonkin discussed the need to be mindful of the individual and the community. Play, sport, talent, feeling good has been lost in the system/services we provide. Mark asked where are young people going for support? How are they accessing this support? Julie Albone said it is good to have more bespoke programme and to look at individual needs within each district.

Mark discussed the ways forward for Seminars 2 and 3 (slides). Angela reiterated how the domains are useful to frame our conversations. Jess said that the Emotional Wellbeing Strategy is still under consultation, and that adult mental health are using similar ideas. Andy suggested that we could use a range of factors in identifying if an individual is resilient, or if a community is resilient and what we can do to recover. Jess said resilience is often dependent on interactions with other people. Eileen talked about strategic evaluation frameworks within councils/organisations. Jo Tonkin said how HeadStart is a partnership, including the VCS, the health system – we need to hear from all partners if this resonates with them and their vision.

5. Updates - Angela discussed a potential Operational Group for HeadStart for people within the system with responsibility, to implement HeadStart, as our weakness is that we need more systems’ viewpoints therefore enabling change, rather than just meeting once a quarter. This will inform the Project Groups and the Programme Board. Who in Early Help should be involved in this discussion? Florence Kroll? The Heads of service? VCS? Julie said we can learn from change and data. David agreed we need a small group for a look in, to support an Operational Group. Nick asked who was at the Knowledge Seminar? The attendees are on the Seminar report.

6. Logic Model- Gochi introduced the Logic Model; a visual statement of activities that will bring about change, we will be using it to plan the evaluation and it will reveal data gaps/needs, informing a common language so we can describe and evaluate together. We need to name interventions, providing a snapshot of why, what materials, procedures, who provides, who receives, where this will be delivered, how much, and tailoring. One intervention can have a lot of aspects/reasoning ie. Safe Spaces example. We use interventions, then change mechanisms, resulting in outcomes. We asked the Programme Board to help us with these outcomes, asking what do we need for these to be achieved? What indicators will demonstrate these outcomes? Jo Tonkin said some outcomes have been specified by BL themselves. Answers included that we need to capture context and impact, politically and financially. Adult services should make sure they consider the impact on the child, so is a whole system impact on the family. A whole family approach was emphasised. We need to be clear this is about building resilience and not dependence, we need to build young people who are resilient and life ready, not using services for the sake of it, we should challenge young people and not wrap them in cotton wool. An idea could be to widen the concept of corporate parents, so we achieve a one single child workforce. We need to prepare the workforce to work in a systemic way.

7. Project Support – Big Lottery are facilitating a Review Workshop on the 15th December which will be the first of four Workshops. Phase 3 for the £10m bid is only in two meetings time. Jo discussed how the evaluators may look for self-efficacy within the HeadStart Project and how we need to take this further.