Enabling Early Childhood Development in Ealing (ECDE)
Enabling Early Childhood Development in Ealing (ECDE) was a sister project to the Living Roots Project. It aimed to provide new evidence to support better-informed services and policies for young children and families in Ealing, Northwest London, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The project explored the existing assets, enablers and barriers to supporting early childhood development in Ealing, in both formal and informal and community and family spaces. This was done by working with diverse parents and carers through a participatory arts process in which they produced 'Rivers of Life' to illustrate their experiences of raising young children up to the age of 5.
A number of key informant interviews with people involved in early years advocacy, management or service provision in the community, Ealing Council and NHS, were also conducted.
Read about our findings in our report and briefings, and check out the professionally developed ‘River of Life’ (pictured above) produced in partnership with artist Sandra Howgate. This piece draws on our research findings to illustrate the journey of an Ealing family from mum's pregnancy to their daughter's first day of school - imagined with all the support and services they need to ensure a healthy start in life!
Project Outputs
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View our main report right here: Learning from Lived Experience: Opportunities to Strengthen Early Child Development in Ealing
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A visual representation of our research findings, the 'River of Life' arts piece can be viewed and downloaded here.
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Check out the following briefing by one of our community researchers: My Experience as a Peer Researcher with the Enabling Early Child Development in Ealing (ECDE) Project
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Learn about our findings from children's focus groups here: Key Themes and Considerations: Enabling Child Development in Ealing (ECDE) - Children’s Focus Groups
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Review the briefing here: Community Research Briefing: Enabling Early Child Development in Ealing (ECDE) Project
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Check out the following blog entry: Learning from lived experience: 10 key considerations for strengthening early child development in the UK
Wondering what made the ECDE Project special?
The ECDE Project took a qualitative research approach, meaning the focus was on gaining a ‘rich picture’ of the lived experiences and perspectives of Ealing families through methods which are more open-ended than traditional surveys. This allowed for unexpected insights, nuances, complexity and connections to emerge. In all, the study engaged 77 diverse parents/carers and 10 children through participatory focus groups, and interviewed 13 key informants from across children’s services, health services, and community and voluntary sector organisations.
Pictured above: This rich artistic output (created by children) is the result of focus groups we facilitated with these children. They were asked to reflect on the experiences of their younger siblings and themselves when they were younger to create a 'guide' for parents.
With Gratitude to Our Partners:
