During the partnership, we were able to design and test solutions with communities, with the potential to scale successful interventions throughout the Greater Manchester city region. Projects Interventions ranged from analysing speech and language data to designing an integrated enhanced maternity pathway with health visitors and midwives.

Stockport is one of the most polarised local authorities in the country by income. While parts of the borough experience prosperity, the area has pockets of significant disadvantage. In the ward of Brinnington, where much of our work has focussed, more than four in ten children live in poverty.

Despite a high level of engagement in services for families, the outcome gap between children eligible for free school meals and their peers remains stubbornly higher than the national average.

Through this partnership, we wanted to untangle the reasons why the existing Greater Manchester early years delivery model was struggling to achieve higher outcomes for children growing up in disadvantage in Stockport. Were there challenges to it being delivered in the way it was designed? Was the existing model in line with the best evidence? Or were we not using the right metrics to measure the desired outcomes for children?

Our findings fed into the regional early years delivery model, with the potential to improve outcomes for children across the Greater Manchester city region.