May 2026: This new chapter is based on Guidance: Families First Partnership Programme (Department for Education). The guidance emphasises the importance of using evidence-based approaches to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. It explains what the term ‘evidence based interventions’ means and highlights where local authorities and partner agencies can find resources and information on the most effective ways to support children and families.
CONTENTS
1. Evidence-based Approaches to Improve Outcomes
The Children’s Social Care National Framework highlights the importance of promoting evidence-based approaches to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. Local leaders should use evidence to inform and improve how services are commissioned and delivered in their local area.
Local Authority Children’s Services bring together a diverse network of partners to support children, young people, and families. These partners not only deliver vital services, but also help shape and co-ordinate broader systems, fostering collaboration across education, health, safeguarding, community services, and the voluntary sector. At the heart of this is the effective use and implementation of evidence.
In order to enable local partnerships to access information on the best available evidence, the Department for Education have commissioned a series of Practice Guides from Foundations – the What Works Centre for Children & Families. The Practice Guides set out high quality evidence about how best to achieve the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework and translate this into key principles and actionable recommendations to support local leaders in strengthening family services. Local partnerships should look to the Practice Guides as a key source for guidance on the latest evidence of ‘what works’ in Children’s Social Care.
Further expert advice and toolkits capturing the best evidenced approaches to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence are available from the Youth Endowment Fund.
2. What are Evidence Based Interventions?
There are a range of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) that have been proven to be effective through rigorous impact evaluation. These EBIs provide the most reliable way to improve child and family outcomes and strengthen the consistency and quality of Family Help services. EBIs focus on increasing practitioners’ knowledge of scientifically proven theories of change and provide effective methods for engaging families experiencing vulnerabilities. Leaders should consider embedding EBIs in their approach, commissioning and delivery of system transformation. A list of parenting support programmes known to have impact on parent and child outcomes can be found at Foundations – Parenting Interventions.
3. Supporting Implementation
Local leaders should also look to accompanying resources published alongside Practice Guides such as Reflective Tools and summaries for elected members to support implementation of evidence-based approaches and interventions (Practice Guides – Foundations).
4. Supporting Local Evidence Use
To support local authorities to strengthen their use of evidence, the Foundations Evidence Pie highlights the full range of evidence that should inform the commissioning, design and delivery of services. Alongside What Works evidence outlined in Practice Guides, effective local decision-making also depends on drawing on a broader set of evidence.
