The Institute of Health Equity was commissioned by 4Children to identify the most important outcomes that Children’s Centres should be striving for in order to give all children positive early-years experiences.

The IHE published both an executive summary (which includes the outcomes framework), and a full evidence review, which called for focus on supporting both good parenting and environments in which parents live and work.

The work built on existing frameworks and drew together; the best available evidence of what is important in early years, the views of practitioners and parents, and the work that government continues to take forward around the early years.

Moving on, the Institute was involved in further work with Children’s Centres to help ensure that the outcomes framework  become a useful tool to identify how best to measures these outcomes.

In March 2014, IHE published 'Measuring What Matters: A Guide for Children's Centres', which provides a suite of indicators to measure children's outcomes, based on this report.