This month, CEI is pleased to share our new virtual home with you at www.ceiglobal.org, where we’ll continue to showcase our work, our collaborators, and our shared impact as a global organisation.
We are also delighted to announce the dates for the 2023 Evidence and Implementation Summit on 9-11 October 2023 as it returns to an in-person format.
In our June newsletter, read about this and other upcoming events as well as highlights from our learning and partnerships over the past months. This includes a landscape study on early childhood interventions in Southeast Asia, a review on the mental health of looked-after children in the UK, and new work in Australia to develop practice approaches that reduce re-offending.
Evidence and Implementation Summit 2023: Save the date
We are delighted to announce that the next Evidence and Implementation Summit will be held October 9-11, 2023.
The Evidence and Implementation Summit is one of the leading evidence and implementation sector events on the global calendar. The event focuses on the intersection of research, policy and practice, with a focus on the synthesis, generation, translation, and implementation of evidence to improve lives. In 2023, we are planning an event that will bring together a wide network of global participants.
The Summit enables participants to share advances in the fields of evidence synthesis and translation, evaluation, and implementation science, and for these leaders to debate their impact on policies and programs and their capacity to change people’s lives for the better.
Sign up to Summit Updates via www.eisummit.org and follow us on twitter @eisummit2023 #EIS2023
Inaugural CHILD Conference: Abstract submissions open
We are excited to announce the first, biennial conference for the Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning and Development (CHILD) in Singapore on October 26-28, 2022. CHILD is a Singaporean initiative established under the umbrella of the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine with a generous endowment from the Lien Foundation. CHILD's core strategic partners are CEI and A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences.
The theme of the conference is: Emerging Issues & Advances in Early Childhood: Knowledge + Collaboration = Transformation. This hybrid event will bring together researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, educators, and organisational leaders in the field of early child development from Singapore and around the world. The call for abstracts is now open.
Report: A pilot evaluation of 'Our Skills' for What Works for Children's Social Care
It is known that the home literacy environment has powerful effects on literacy and numeracy. CEI and our partners have recently completed an evaluation of a a family literacy programme, Our Skills, in partnership with Bryson Purdon Social Research for What Works for Children's Social Care in the UK. Our Skills aims to help parents and carers to support children's early reading, with the specific aims of improving parent/carer confidence in and enjoyment of reading to children and understanding of phonics, increasing reading time, and improving children's learning attainment. The evaluation found evidence of promise, and parents/carers who participated more fully found the program very acceptable and largely appropriate.
Bolstering protective factors that reduce re-offending in Victoria
Putting Families First (PFF) is an innovative intervention from the Victorian Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety that works with mothers and young people returning to the community after a period of justice custody. CEI is proud to partner with these departments on this important initiative, harnessing research evidence indicating that re-offending risk can also be reduced through interventions that bolster protective factors. We will work with community groups to co-design approaches that will work with families and develop practice modules that aim to enhance how multi-disciplinary teams of frontline staff engage with families. Our team is committed to supporting the effective roll-out of this evidence-based intervention, using implementation science to proactively identify enablers and potential barriers and building team capability to address them. We are excited to understand the potential impact of this collaboration on some of the most vulnerable families in the Victorian community.
Understanding the early years landscape across Southeast Asia with Asia Philanthropy Circle
In partnership with a consortium of donors through the Asia Philanthropy Circle, together with the Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning and Development (CHILD), CEI is conducting a regional landscape study in early childhood in Southeast Asia. This study, the first of its kind in the region, will review the availability of, policies around, and evidence base for parenting and early childhood programs and interventions for children aged 0 – 6 years and their families in China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. The report will give stakeholders an in-depth understanding of the breadth of the early childhood landscape, gaps in policy and programming, and information related to the effectiveness of existing programs, enabling them to target crucial sector interventions and investments with greater insights and confidence.
Synthesising research on mental health services for young people who have been in care for What Works for Children's Social Care
The recent Independent review of children’s social care in the UK includes a mission to increase the life expectancy of care-experienced people, by narrowing health inequalities, including mental health inequalities. CEI is pleased to contribute to greater understanding of how to narrow this gap, through our work with What Works for Children’s Social Care on a rapid review on mental health services for looked-after children in partnership with the UK’s leading fostering charity, The Fostering Network. This review is important because these children are disproportionately affected by mental health difficulties and data available for children currently in care suggests an eight-fold increase in diagnosable mental health problems as compared to the general population.
CEI is hiring an Advisor in Singapore
Are you passionate about evidence-based policy and practice, and looking to launch or establish a career in policy-relevant research and evaluation? If so, please consider joining CEI’s diverse and multidisciplinary team in this new role as an Advisor in Singapore. This role offers the opportunity to manage a portfolio of CEI projects across a range of strategic activities including evaluation, applying evidence in service development and improvement, evidence synthesis, and advancing implementation science. Applications close on 19 June.
Watch recording of EIS2023 virtual series inaugural webinar: Understanding ‘What works for ‘what works’ centres
In May the 2023 Evidence and Implementation Summit kicked off the new EIS Virtual Series, which will lead up to the Summit next year. These sessions will address some of the most important questions in the field, through contributions from leading global experts who bring deep experience across research, policy, and practice. If you missed the first webinar in the series, "What works for 'what works'?", the highlights of the discussion and the webinar are available online to view.
Events, News, and Publications
- The AIFS 2022 Conference is taking place on 15-17 June 2022 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. CEI will be hosting a symposium at the conference on “Using evidence and implementation science to support family-centred innovation and reform”, featuring Director Dr Melinda Polimeni, Senior Advisors Dr Karla Lopez, Marg Stott, and Tamara White, and CEI partners Gabrielle Johnson and Anita Mobourne of the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency. CEI will be live tweeting.
- The next webinar in the Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning and Development (CHILD) 'Evidence to Policy and Practice' series will be held 15 July (Wednesday) between 6-7pm AEST (4- 5pm SGT).
- In April, CEI’s Executive Director Dr Robyn Mildon spoke at the A*STAR Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) seminar series on human potential on: “Advancing the Implementation of Better Evidence in Policy and Practice: Implementation Science 3.0”.
- In May, two CEI teams presented papers at the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference (RPIC), a flagship conference hosted by the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
- “What works for ‘what works’”, presented by CEI Managing Director and Mary Abdo and Advisor Esther Goh.
- “Programme Evaluation of Making Every Preschool Inclusive”, presented by CEI Director Dr Cheryl Seah.