What is the problem?
What happens in the first few years of a child’s life is critical in shaping their health, wellbeing and opportunities for the rest of their lives.
There is strong evidence that offering the right support in these critical early years will improve children’s life chances and reduce inequalities, but there are very few evidence-based interventions that have been proven to reduce these inequalities.
What are we doing?
In three inner-city wards, Better Start Bradford (a National Lottery Community Fund programme) delivers multiple early years add-on interventions to improve the nutrition, socioemotional and language development of children aged 0-4.
To evaluate this programme, and to enhance the evidence base of early years interventions, Born in Bradford set up the Better Start Bradford Innovation Hub. This includes the world’s first interventional birth cohort – Born in Bradford’s Better Start (BiBBS) [link to BiBBS page] which is designed to evaluate the interventions being delivered.
What have we found?
- The BiBBS population includes a high proportion of vulnerable families
- How to integrate research into practice
- There is variation in engagement with the interventions
- We have been able to enhance the evidence base of all of the early years interventions delivered by Better Start.
- We have also demonstrated evidence of impact for some projects
- The 0-19 Core Outcomes Framework
What has changed as a result?
Our evidence has encouraged commissioners to fund some projects into other areas across the district, including a number of Better Start Bradford projects now being delivered through the Best Start for Life programme in Bradford.
