Breaking the link between education, disadvantage and place: What future for area-based initiatives (ABIs)?

Lead Research Organisation: University of Manchester
Department Name: Education

Abstract

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Description The four main findings are:

1. The series revealed that while area-based initiative (ABI) remains a viable general term that is useful in signalling a broad family of initiatives that have in common an attempt to bring strategies, resources and actions to bear in some (in this case, highly disadvantaged) places that are different from those used elsewhere, ABIs are far from homogenous. The series found that differences between ABIs are often more than random variations in local provision, but arise out of different conceptualisations about the nature of educational disadvantage and how this is experienced. The series demonstrates that it is unhelpful to treat ABIs as a singular and static approach to intervention; this was found to disguise alternative conceptualisations and innovations in policy and practice which can move the field forward.

2. While the research evidence on ABIs suggests they have limited positive outcomes, the series identified that a problem may lie with the way they have hitherto been conceptualised and operationalised, rather than with any more fundamental limitation. Previous government-led ABIs have typically sought to improve outcomes in the most disadvantaged places without fully understanding either the complex nature of disadvantage or, more particularly, the complex nature of the processes operating within and through places that create and sustain disadvantage. The series has helped to clarify and develop an alternative and emerging conceptualisation, which locates ABIs as risk-reducing and resilience building interventions in children's social ecologies, and holds greater promise for improving children's outcomes locally.

3. The series has identified three overlapping yet distinctive generations of ABI. In doing so, it has created a new heuristic to better understand the field and to point to new directions for research, policy and practice. The first generation were 'traditional' ABIs, which were mandated by national policy but otherwise stood alone as an attempt to tackle the local manifestations of disadvantage through purely local action. The second generation began as 'traditional' mandated standalone ABIs, but eventually become embedded in wider policy efforts to tackle disadvantage. The third generation are essentially locally developed and locally owned initiatives, making the best use of the resources provided by national policy but free to shape these to local needs and able to survive, to some extent, the short-termism and shifting priorities that are the unavoidable characteristics of policymaking at the national level.

4. The series established that this third generation marks a fundamental shift from previous approaches. This is both conceptual, in terms of how places, and the processes that create and sustain disadvantage in places, are understood, and practical, in terms of how ABIs develop their strategies and governance and accountability arrangements. This suggests that more effective ways of conceptualising and operationalising area-based approaches are not only possible, but actively being sought. What these new-style ABIs might achieve is yet to be seen, but it appears important, particularly in a context of austerity, that they are seen as potential contributors to wider strategies for tackling disadvantage, and supported and evaluated appropriately.
Exploitation Route These outcomes are being taken forward in multiple contexts by wide ranging stakeholders, including:
• locally-emerging initiatives driven by groups of schools or community development organisations informed by the series outcomes. One example is the Greater Shankill Partnership in Belfast.
• local authorities using their influence over local service configurations, or devolution or school improvement agendas, to encourage the emergence of third generation ABIs. One example is Nottinghamshire County Council's 'Together for.' initiative rolled out to different localities in the authority. This has been explicitly informed by the series output 'Taking action locally: schools developing area-based initiatives.'

The outcomes have also explicitly informed the development of Save the Children's 'Children's Community' initiative, which it is developing in four UK sites, and the plans for their evaluation.

The outcomes have informed discussions with the Welsh government's education and public services group, and particularly in relation to how these might inform thinking around the Well-being of Future Generations Act which establishes seven well-being goals for Wales and requires the creation of public service boards to work towards achieving these.

Conceptually, the outcomes have informed further research and publications on school-community relations for AHRC, and new institutional designs to address area-based disadvantage.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice
 
Description Development of Children's Communities
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The research formed part of a body of work which informed the development of a national initiative led by Save the Children to develop strategic approaches to improving children's outcomes in disadvantaged areas. The key contribution of the ESRC seminar series has been to the conceptualisation of the initiative drawing on the characteristics of third generation ABIs. Four sites are active in the UK with a fifth in development. Policy makers and practitioners elsewhere are monitoring these developments with interest and a network of similar initiatives has been established so that there can be mutual learning. Impacts are on children's outcomes and the wellbeing of the local community.
URL http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/developing-childrens-zones-england
 
Description Discussions with Welsh government
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description Work with Nottinghamshire County Council
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact Nottinghamshire County Council has explicitly drawn on the seminar series outcomes and published outputs from the series to develop a new model for locality working in disadvantaged areas in Nottinghamshire which has the characteristics of a third generation ABI. This has been led by the local authority's education improvement service in the first instance as part of its narrowing the gap strategy. This has led to new relationships and ways of working being established across education and other services in Newark and Worksop, and to the development of new activities within these towns which can evidence improved educational and social outcomes for targeted children and young people. For instance, new town-wide activities generated through implementing the locality working model relate to transition and provision for children diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum. Educational outcomes monitoring data points to an accelerated narrowing of the gap in educational outcomes in Newark since the introduction of the new model of locality working.
 
Description Developing a model for promise neighborhoods in England
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Organisation Save the Children 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United States
Start  
 
Description Evaluation of Together for Newark and Together for Worksop
Amount £35,000 (GBP)
Organisation Nottinghamshire County Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2013 
End 07/2016
 
Description Exploring the role of public services in relation to 'connected communities' : learning from different conceptualisations of community-school relations
Amount £21,065 (GBP)
Funding ID AH/J500999/1 
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start  
 
Description Schools and area partnerships : new forms of governance to tackle educational disadvantage 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact This seminar formed part of the Social Exclusion seminar series hosted by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics.

The seminar explored the possibilities and problems of localism in public services through the case of schools. The presenters argued that there has long been an assumption that schools should respond to local circumstances, including working in a variety of contextualised ways to combat educational disadvantage. Current government policy suggests a further devolution of responsibility to front-line professionals, although the potential for this kind of 'localism' may be limited in the case of schools both because headteachers are answerable to Ofsted, government targets, and possibly to the non-local owners and sponsors of their schools, and because marketization makes head teachers accountable for the 'success' of their institution. They need only respond to 'the local' insofar as this enhances that success. However, there is a stronger version of localism, exemplified in some of the 'new style' area-based initiatives being run by local authorities and school sponsors, which sees schools as more deeply engaged with 'the local' and may lead them to see themselves as 'place shapers'. The seminar presented evidence from some of these initiatives and explored the possibilities and tensions these reveal.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Schools and their partners approaching the development of locally-tailored community engagement strategies 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Alan Dyson spoke about how schools and their partners might approach the development of locally-tailored community engagement strategies, applying lessons learnt from previous area-based initiatives, and exploring the spaces for innovation that exist in the current policy context.

Copies of the practitioner-oriented report 'Schools and Localism' produced as a series' output were given to participants.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011