ABS: Scoping a joint campaign to promote early social, emotional and language development

‘A Better Start’ (ABS) is a major strategic programme focused on developing and testing new approaches to improve early child development. Following a competitive application process, five local partnerships - Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend - were awarded funding in summer 2014 to begin implementation of their ten-year local programmes and strategies.

The local partnerships are already well underway with work to redesign local support pathways and implement portfolios of direct evidence and science based services to help families during pregnancy and the first three years of life. In addition to direct delivery of services by professionals and volunteers, the local partnerships have identified the potential of a joint social marketing campaign to improve outcomes in the areas of early social and emotional and language development.

This short contract will involve working with the ABS local partnerships, their communities and key expert stakeholders to co-produce a) a core narrative about early social, emotional and language development, b) a creative brief for a subsequent shared communication campaign to promote children’s early social, emotional and language development (ESELD), and c) an evaluation brief for the rigorous assessment of the impact of the campaign.

In undertaking this work, the contractors will help build the capabilities of the local partnerships to undertake similar co-design and development work in the future, which will add great value to their broader public health and communications goals in subsequent years of the programme, and beyond.

The focus of this work on both children’s social and emotional development, and their speech, language and communication development, recognises that these two outcomes are closely interrelated. The campaign presents an opportunity to promote social and emotional development through encouraging parents and the wider community to communicate and talk with babies, in turn impacting on speech, language and communication development.

The contractor will be required to complete the following work:

Strand 1: Scoping a joint campaign to promote ESELD

A. Produce a framework which can be adopted by A Better Start sites to serve as a message platform for communications on ESELD. This document should include a succinct, expert story and key messages on ESELD, based on consultation with scientific experts and ABS partnerships. It should also be supported by, and reference, relevant academic evidence. B. Rapidly review learning from, and ensure good fit with, existing and planned social marketing or behaviour change campaigns relevant to the aims of this campaign, ensuring this is reflected in the campaign and evaluation briefs. C. Co-produce a campaign brief enabling ABS partnerships and Big Lottery Fund to go out to competitive tender for a communications agency to conduct the social marketing campaign. To avoid a conflict of interest, contractors