Centre for Research in Early Childhood confirmed to expand the Thriving Lives Toolkit into the early years
Posted in News
The SCiP Alliance is delighted to confirm that we have secured the expertise of the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC) to expand the highly regarded Thriving Lives Toolkit into the early years sector. Over the next 18 months, CREC will be exploring the education experiences of Service children from birth to five years in early years settings across the four nations of the UK, and the perspectives of the families’ and professionals’ supporting them. The researchers will then produce a well-tested, evidence-based toolkit of effective practice in early years based on the research findings, which will be launched as part of the Thriving Lives Toolkit online suite in September 2025.
The work supports the Thriving Through Childhood and Beyond project, a Naval Children’s Charity and SCiP Alliance partnership to expand the Thriving Lives Toolkit across the student life course, from early years through into higher education, covering children aged from 0-25. The project has been funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, through the Transformational Grants programme. A separate contract will deliver the higher education research and toolkit development.
CREC will be closely supported by an advisory group comprising of early years experts, convened to support the research and toolkit development. We are grateful for the support of this group, chaired by Debra Barton, Early Years Specialist for the Ministry of Defence, which includes:
- Navy Family Federation
- Army Family Federation
- RAF Family Federation
- Early Years Alliance
- Department for Education - England
- University of Worcester
- University of Winchester
- MODLAP-EY
- RAFA Kidz
- Childhood Education and Care - Welsh Government.
- Forces Children Scotland
Get involved
Please support us by completing a survey on your experience of working with children (aged 0-5) from Armed Forces Families
If you are an early years/ECEC practitioner, anywhere in the UK, we would be very keen to understand your experience of working with the young children (0-5) of Armed Forces Families – We would be very grateful if you could please spend a few moments to complete a short survey. This survey data is being gathered by CREC on behalf of the SCiP Alliance and will be used to inform the development of a toolkit for ECEC practitioners in the UK to effectively support young children of Armed Forces Families. All responses are completely anonymous. The survey should take about 3 minutes to complete.
Thank you for your time and contribution – please do share this survey with other ECEC settings who may also work with young children Armed Forces Families. The survey will be live until 12th April 2024.
The survey can be found here.
