Getting the Measure of Child Health and Development Outcomes (2): The Picture for a Local Authority in England

Abstract

The measurement of child well-being in the UK for needs-led service planning and outcome assessment has tended to be poor. This article sets out the broad results from the application of a new methodology to assess the health and development of children aged 0-18 in a large local authority in England. It discusses briefly how these data helped inform strategy development and service design in the local authority and how the approach might be enhanced.

Cross‐sectional survey of daily junk food consumption, irregular eating, mental and physical health and parenting style of British secondary school children

“…The procedure is described in detail in previous papers (Axford & Hobbs ; Hobbs et al . ), but is summarized briefly here; data on ethnicity and socio‐economic status were gathered through administrative data from the 2010 School Census and matched to the survey data. A sample of 10 645 children completed the questionnaire online during lesson time; 55.2% were girls and the mean age was 13.5 years old (standard deviation.…”

The effectiveness of the Incredible Years pre-school parenting programme in the United Kingdom: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

“…In Birmingham, the UK's second largest city, where the present evaluation was conducted, a survey involving 500 parents of children aged 0-6 and using the parent version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) found a significantly greater proportion of children aged 5-6 years (n=80) were at risk of a conduct disorder (19%) compared to 7% in Great Britain as a whole (Hobbs et al, 2011). A parallel survey, involving over 10,000 young people aged 7-18, and using the SDQ self-report measure, found that a significantly greater number of children aged 11-15 in the city (n=3,293) were likely to meet a clinical diagnosis for conduct disorder (21%) compared with Great Britain as a whole (11%) (Hobbs et al, 2011). Provision for such children in the city was considered by local commissioners and managers to be limited, with most children's centres offering universal parenting programmes but very little that was targeted.…”

“…the screening required for the evaluation demonstrated that while children's centres reach thousands of disadvantaged families, those with children with significant impairments to development were under-represented. Where epidemiological data indicated that around 19% of children in the city present with behavioural problems at any given point (Hobbs et al, 2011), less than 3% of the children's centre clients met that threshold (Axford et al, 2012). There is no incentive for parents to put their difficult children on show in children's centres, and there are few incentives for managers of children's centres to reach out to the families in greatest need.…”

The Effectiveness and Micro-costing Analysis of a Universal, School-Based, Social–Emotional Learning Programme in the UK: A Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial

“…A city-wide survey involving 500 parents of children aged 0-6, using the parent version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ: Goodman, 1997), found a significantly greater proportion of children aged 5-6 years (n=80) were at risk of a conduct disorder (19%) compared to 7% in Great Britain as a whole (Hobbs et al, 2011). A parallel survey, involving over 10,000 young people aged 7-18, and using the SDQ self-report measure, found that a significantly greater number of children aged 11-15 in the city (n=3,293) were likely to meet a clinical diagnosis for conduct disorder (21%) compared with Great Britain as a whole (11%) (Hobbs et al, 2011). A range of evidence-based programmes at each stage of children's development were selected to address these and other difficulties, and tested by RCT (Little et al, 2012).…”