DCSF reports must be accessible to all
Ruth Smith
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The last Thursday of each month is traditionally the day when government departments publish research reports on their websites. Last week was no different.
So, on the day that the media focused on the latest teenage pregnancy statistics, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) quietly released 10 reports - a total of 893 pages of analysis. Many are covered in CYP Now's news pages this week - everything from how targeted youth support is working, and whether free childcare helps parents into work, to how a scheme to get young people not in education, employment or training failed miserably.
All make interesting reading. They analyse how government initiatives totalling millions of pounds and affecting thousands of parents, children and young people are working in practice.
But the publication of these reports on a page buried deep within the DCSF website raises important questions about how research is used to inform practice.
Take the report on targeted youth support, which looks at how local authorities that piloted the scheme got on. It shows that the initiative has largely failed to spot young people who would benefit from youth work support at an early stage to stop their problems escalating - the whole point of the scheme.
However, this research is published two months after all councils in England were supposed to have such arrangements in place. Surely it should have been disseminated months ago to help councils learn the lessons from those who'd been there before them?
The other problem is language. The evaluation of targeted youth support starts with a page listing acronyms and terminology. For instance, LIST is a locality integrated service team, KSB is knowledge, skills and behaviour and MAPH is a multi-agency practitioner hub. Such extensive use of jargon makes it hard to translate research findings into lessons for practice.
This difficulty is compounded by the length of the reports - the one on targeted youth support is 189 pages alone. Will busy professionals find time to read the research and think about what they could learn from it?
Good communication is at the heart of improving practice. And important lessons on what works should not be buried within long, jargon-laden reports.
What's needed are clear pointers on how professionals can use the findings to improve their own practice on the ground.