Evaluation Partner for Small Step Big Changes

Tender description

Small Steps Big Changes (SSBC) is a £45m transformation programme hosted by Nottingham CityCare Partnership, supported by the Big Lottery Fund's A Better Start (ABS) initiative. SSBC is a partnership of parents and professionals working together, through co-production and parent powered change, to drive the delivery of the programme and focus on helping children to live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives. In Nottingham, our programme operates across four communities (Arboretum, Aspley, Bulwell and St Ann's) and seeks to positively impact outcomes for 0-3 year old children in the areas of communication and language, social and emotional development and nutrition. Nottingham was chosen from 152 Local Authority areas initially invited to bid. Small Steps Big Changes is one of five programmes nationally. The programme commenced in April 2015 and is now in a position to start evaluating some of the activities that have been implemented over the last two years. SSBC wants to be a programme rooted in evidence about what works, and, just as importantly, what doesn't work. The reasons why activities and programmes do or don't work can be many and varied and it is vital that SSBC constantly learns from existing service delivery across different areas of the city. It is also vital that we learn constantly from our own implementation as we go along and are able to adapt our activities to any issues, or react to any opportunities that arise as we move through the 10-year life of the programme. SSBC seeks an Evaluation Partner to work with them and take the lead in: • Developing an Evaluation framework / strategy; • Designing and delivering the evaluation activities and mechanisms that will be used; and • Evaluating current and future individual project streams. SSBC will use the output from the evaluation activities to feed back into its project portfolio to inform change and develop new projects that support the delivery of the programme's three stated development outcomes. It is clear from the stated development outcomes that the true / full impact of some of SSBC's projects and activities will not be known in the short-term. SSBC acknowledges this and is seeking an evaluation solution that considers short, medium and long-term impacts. This is a 3 year contract with the option to extend for up to an additional 2 years.