Research and Evaluation
The aims of the local and national evaluation of HeadStart were to identify whether the programme is making an impact on young people’s resilience and mental wellbeing and to understand which elements of support are associated with the most positive outcomes for children.
HeadStart was a six-year, £11.25 million programme, set up and funded by The National Lottery Community Fund which aimed to provide resources to develop approaches that support young people to build their resilience to cope with everyday pressures they may face throughout their lives. Being resilient means you can ‘bounce back’ when you face difficulties.
HeadStart was a ‘test and learn’ research programme, so learning about what was and wasn’t working was very important to the development of programme from the beginning.
Evidence was gathered from lots of different people and in various ways. Some people took part in interviews or focus groups and others may have answered a survey. Where things weren’t working as well as hoped, they could be adapted to make them better based on what people were feeding back and saying.
The Headstart Final Evaluation Report was published in May 2023.
Evidence briefings, learning updates and case studies produced by the HeadStart National Learning Team are available.
Local evaluation
In addition to supporting the national evaluation, the local evaluation aims to answer questions under the five objectives:
- Understand the level and extent of awareness of HeadStart.
- Explore and evidence how the programme is being implemented.
- Evidence the extent to which HeadStart is reaching and engaging with its target population.
- Describe and measure the effect HeadStart has on young people and their outcomes.
- Describe whether, and in what ways, HeadStart is facilitating system change in school and community approaches to young people’s mental health.
The local evaluation uses systematic and rational approaches to research and analysis, combining data from relevant sources to produce robust and valid reports.
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Final Programme Report
This report provides a narrative of what has worked well in the programme, what impact has been made and how the learning will be used to sustain the outcomes of the programme
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Learning from Local Evaluation
This booklet pulls together key learning from the local research that was carried out over the past six years of the HeadStart Kent Programme in one place to give a summary of what was found.
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Kent Resilience Hub and MoodSpark Website Evaluation Report
A range of interviews, focus groups and surveys were carried out with various stakeholders to explore their views around awareness, use, best features, and potential improvements of the websites.
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Young people's thoughts, feelings and coping strategies report
The aim of this research report was to find out what problems or difficulties young people were facing in their daily lives and what coping strategies or sources of support they were using.
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HeadStart Kent 2019/20 year-end report: Reaching and engaging the target population
HeadStart Kent (HSK) continues to further expand the reach of the programme at all levels and to the intended target populations. Find out how in this report.
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HeadStart Kent 2019/20 year-end report: System change in school and community approaches to young people’s mental health
There is evidence that over the past year HeadStart Kent (HSK) has taken strategic steps in facilitating system change in school and community approaches to young people’s mental health. This report highlights some of the key findings.
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HeadStart Kent 2019/20 year-end report: Outcomes of young people supported by HeadStart Kent
See the most recent year end report for outcomes of young people supported by HeadStart Kent
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HeadStart Participation Evaluation Report 2019/20
Participation and Coproduction: what effect do they have on the outcomes of young people?
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A whole school approach: how does it help to build the resilience of young people?
There are many actions schools can take to embed a whole school approach and build the resilience and improve the emotional wellbeing of their students. However, when speaking to staff and students in some of the HeadStart Kent schools, they had similar views on certain topics.
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Year-end Report 2018/19
Over the past year awareness of HSK has improved and positive engagement was received from stakeholders.
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Training Summary Report
This report combines evidence collated from a range of quantitative and qualitative sources to summarise the performance and outcomes of the training provided by the HeadStart Kent (HSK) delivery partners up to March 2019.
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Qualitative Insight Report Additional Support - Provider and Young Person’s Perspectives
This document summarises learning from interviews with staff from the HeadStart Kent Level 3 additional support delivery partners commissioned by the programme and also young people who received the support.
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Qualitative Insight Report Year 2 Early Help and Preventative Services Implementation Interviews
This document summarises the learning from the second wave of interviews with Early Help & Preventative Services staff involved in the delivery of HeadStart Kent.
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Qualitative Insight Report Year 2 School Implementation Interviews
This document summarises the learning from the third wave of interviews with staff in HeadStart Kent secondary schools.
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Year-end Report 2017/18
This report combines all of the findings from 2017-18