Interview: Tina Haux, director of NatCen’s Centre for Children and Families

Tina Haux was appointed director of the National Centre for Social Research’s (NatCen) Centre for Children and Families more than a year ago, but it’s only now that the work she was brought in to lead can properly begin. Alongside deputy director Gayle Munro, Haux is about to put into action plans to develop the centre into a more “visible” body which is more integrated into the wider research work that NatCen does. The centre, formally launched in June, brings together long-standing expertise in children’s social care, family justice, early intervention and youth offending within NatCen.

You were appointed last May, what progress have you made in establishing the centre?

Part of why we were brought in was with the idea of creating the centre and enhancing the visibility and impact of the children and families team. During the past year we’ve been growing our team and developing our capacity and expertise, as well as pushing ahead with some major projects. Not least among these are A Better Start, which is an enhanced version of Sure Start, as well as the Study of Early Education and Development, which NatCen has been awarded a contract extension to lead until 2029.

Will the new centre differ from what went before?

Children and families work has always been a core part of NatCen and it is a well-established team of 25 staff. We want the researchers to become more prominent and visible.

Our vision for the centre is to take all that good work and focus on impact and dissemination. We want it to be much more outward facing and engaged in dialogue. For example, I’ve been talking to the all-party parliamentary group on social mobility. We want to be involved in those public conversations around children and families.

How will you go about doing this?

The way to engage with us is to invite us to conferences, workshops and we’re very keen for collaboration on research. We’re very aware that we are sitting on a lot of high-level research and expertise that will be useful for other organisations and that partnering up will make our research stronger.

The charity Gingerbread is really good at that. Its website has facts about lone parents, links to resources and where to find answers. I would like us to have some of that.

What would collaboration with the voluntary sector look like?

One way that would work well is if voluntary sector organisations have any questions about big national datasets, that they would team up with NatCen for those secondary data analysis bids.

It seems a lot of funders are moving to funding secondary data analysis – which analyses findings from existing surveys – because everyone has so much data.

The UK is amazing at collecting data but there aren’t enough people with quantitative research skills. The data is usually quite messy and takes time to work with which is where you need grant funding. It wouldn’t be effective for smaller organisations to do that.

Why is analysing quantitative data so important?

It is such a cost-effective way of doing research. It costs millions to do quantitative data collection so spending £200,000 to analyse it is money well spent. It is very impactful: you can get publicity about the findings, it can help frame funding bids and contextualise local work in a national context.

What principles underpin the centre?

NatCen stands for quality research and robust methods. We are revisiting ideas of inclusion and Covid has helped with that, moving more things online and hopefully how to involve children and young people more in our research. Currently, we involve the National Children’s Bureau’s young people’s panel but we’re talking about having our own advisory and reference group. The hesitation is that they take a lot of work to set up and run so we want to give it plenty of thought before moving into that space. If we can’t do it well then we’re better off collaborating with others.

How do you hope the centre will link into NatCen’s wider work?

One of the things the children and families team hasn’t done as much is to link into the other things NatCen wants to do in the future such as climate change, migration, equality and diversity. These issues have a large children and families element to them and will play out in families – they will capture the anxieties and developments that take place.

Mental health is an area we’ll increasingly focus on, particularly in primary school children and the role of friendships.

In addition, the cost of living will affect everything – housing, nutrition, the ability to participate in life, working practices of parents, whether you can afford to drive to work, the impact on childcare. It will all be mediated in the family homes for years to come.

Tina Haux CV