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The Children’s Fund is a national initiative supported
the Children, Young People and Families Directorate of the
Department for Education and Skills. The purpose of the fund
is to support the development of preventative services for
children between the ages of 5 and 13. In Cumbria, the Children’s
Fund is run by a multi-agency partnership. Since its inception
in 2002, it has supported well over a hundred individual projects
and become very actively involved in working with key partners
in the county to ensure that preventative services feature
high on the agenda of the Change for Children Partnership
and of the new Directorate of Children’s Services.
Local evaluation by independent evaluators is a requirement
of the initiative. Jane Humphries, manager of Cumbria Children’s
Fund, took the decision to appoint evaluators from the very
beginning. She believes that are real advantages to building
in evaluation at an early stage. “Evaluation is much
more effective and meaningful if there is a before and after.
Our projects have learned about evaluation processes from
Judith and John. They have helped them understand the benefits
of evaluation and how to build it into everyday working and
how to collect the evidence needed to demonstrate the impact
they intend to have, right from the start.” |
