CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
1.1 About this project
Budget 2006 announced the Children and Young
People’s (CYP) Review, to be led jointly by HM
Treasury and the Department for Education and
Skills. One strand of this Review was to focus on
the subgroup of families and children identified
in the Social Exclusion Task Force’s ‘Action Plan
on Social Exclusion’ who are at risk of becoming
locked in a cycle of low achievement, high harm
and high cost, the so called High Cost High Harm
Household Units (HCHHHU).
A key question for the strand of the CYP review
looking at HCHHHU was to consider whether we
can better align existing local services to improve
identification of, and effective intervention with,
such families to support them in exiting the cycle
of low achievement. Between June and August
2006 the EPPI-Centre and the Government Social
Research Unit completed the Systematic Rapid
Evidence Assessment (SREA) described in this
report to contribute part of the evidence base in
tackling this question, by undertaking a systematic
synthesis of published international research studies.
The reporting format of the SREA was specified
by the funders in an attempt to provide the
information in a format that was useful to the main
policymaking audience for this report.
1.2 About this document
This document provides a detailed account of the
methods used in the SREA and a detailed summary
of the characteristics of the studies included in
the SREA. The results are contained in a separate
report:-
Newman M, Bangpan M, Brunton J, Tripney J,
Williams T, Thieba A, Lorence T, Fletcher A, Bazan
C (2007) Interventions to improve the co-ordination
of service delivery for High Cost High Harm
Household Units (HCHHHU). A systematic rapid
evidence assessment. London: EPPI-Centre, Social
Science Research Unit, Institute of Education,
University of London.