Children in Need Outcomes Research - Market Engagement

The Children in Need Review, which was concluded in June 2019, included a commitment to build the evidence base on what works to improve the educational outcomes of children in need.

To address this gap, we have funded activity to test and evaluate the strengths of interventions targeted at improving outcomes for children in need. This includes:

- Embedding social workers in schools - Testing the impact of supervision models for Designated Safeguarding Leads - Testing new interventions to improve the attainment of children who have social workers

The Department is considering future plans for building further evidence of what works to effectively support this cohort. We want to use this market engagement to:

- Gain feedback from the market to support our thinking regarding future potential areas of research to effectively support the outcomes of children with a social worker over the next one to three years. - Gain feedback from the market of how they could deliver this package of research over the next one to three years. - Identify market barriers and ways the Department can support the market to overcome barriers.

This event will take place at 14:00-15:25pm on Wednesday 11th August via Microsoft Teams. All organisations wishing to attend the event and/or a follow up one to one session should book a place via this email address: [email protected] by 5pm on Friday 6th August with the following information:

- name of your organisation - name of attendees (maximum two) - contact details

If you would like to book a one to one session, please state this in your email when you register for the event.

The Department is interested in research organisations that have significant expertise and experience. We are open to different commercial arrangements, including consortia and partnerships, to undertake this breadth of research. Ideally, the research organisation(s) would have a strong track record in:

- Delivery of interventions to create new evidence preferably within the children's social care and/or education sectors - Knowledge of a range of different methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, to conduct research that can be used by social workers, leaders in the sector and the Department to support children and their families. - Expertise in using evidence to facilitate and influence changes in professional practice in the children's social care and education sector.

We encourage organisations of any size with the necessary expertise to come to our event.

We anticipate that any successful provider(s) may start to deliver in April 2022 and that delivery could be from one to three years.

The Department will be undertaking further market engagement once priority areas for future research are more firmed up.

Additional information: Copies of the presentation, a summary of questions and answers from the session and any other additional documents will be made available on Contracts Finder after the event.

This notice does not constitute a call for competition to procure any services for the Department. The procurement of any services will be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The purpose of this PIN is to stimulate early market interest and invite interested parties to take part in preliminary market consultations.