Interview - Professor Kathy Sylva

What will the evaluation cover?

We started work on the study before the election, looking at support for all parents, but the coalition Government wanted us to put more emphasis on the most vulnerable families, evidence-based practice and a clearer focus on school readiness. The study will investigate the impact of services on children and families. For example, has a child's vocabulary improved as a result of centre services? It's not just about asking whether services have got better, but if measured outcomes for children and parents got better.

What will children's centres taking part need to do?

We are writing this summer to 850 phase 1 and 2 centres to ask them to participate through a web-based survey or by phone. We ask about the services on offer and the families that use them. We know how hard pressed centres are and we want to make it as easy as possible for them to take part, so will fit in with them. It is an opportunity for children's centres to contribute their good practice to policy development and show us how they do it.

What happens next?

In January, we will visit 120 centres and hold focus groups with families. We will also ask centres about leadership, how they work with families and professionals, use evidence-based practice, and how they work with health. We will have a follow-up visit two years later.

How will you involve families?

The third phase involves home visits to 6,000 families to find out what services they use, what works for them and why. We will make a developmental profile of their children between 9 and 15 months. At 36 months, we will visit them again and assess children's language, cognitive development and social and emotional development. The final report, to be published in 2015, will examine the impact of children's centres for children of 36 months and their families, with a cost-benefit analysis. There will be interim reports on how centres are changing.

How does the evaluation differ from National Evaluation of Sure Start?

Children's centres are now more focused on needy families. We will investigate the relationship between services and outcomes for vulnerable children and families. With reduced budgets, can you target services and still be universal?

Research team: Pam Sammons, Maria Evangelou, Teresa Smith from the University of Oxford; Ruth Smith and Emily Tanner, NatCen, and Mathew Bell, Frontier Economics