The Royal College of Speech
and Language Therapists
SLCN Outcome Project
Web-based application
specification
Background
The Business need:

RCSLT members and other children’s services report difficulties in local
data collection around the measurement of outcomes.

lack of analysis/reporting

data not aggregated at a national level

difficulty integrating data from multi-agency sources

prevents effective evaluation and benchmarking of interventions for children and young
people (CYP) with SLCN
The Business Solution:

To develop a web-based application to:

support professionals and services working with CYP with SLCN to improve
integrated data collection, measurement and reporting of outcomes
Background continued
The project will build upon 3 strands of existing work:

The RCSLT Outcomes project


The Council for Disabled Children (CDC) [DfE strategic reform partner]


Working on application of existing core tool: Therapy Outcome Measures (TOMs) to enable the speech
and language therapy profession to aggregate reliable and valid data to demonstrate impact of
intervention at local and national level
Looking at how to support children and families to articulate outcomes. Aim to explore how current
project could add value to this (Christine Lenehan, Director of the CDC supportive of CDC involvement)
Children and Families Outcome Framework (CFOF) and report card (Carol Salt)

Tested and proven effective in Children’s Centres and Primary Schools (Supporting Information Pack Appendices A & B)

Developing tools to measure existing outcomes: Outcome Wheel to capture and measure the journey of
change for children and families using the UCL Children’s centre outcome assessment tool
(Supporting Information Pack - Appendix C)

Theory of change framework (Supporting Information Pack - Appendix D)
Data collection requirements - the big picture
To enable services/organisation who work with SEND SLCN CYP 0-25 Years to:

Make a clear link between activities, outputs, personal outcomes and national level outcomes

Provide a coherent structure for the collation of data

Understand their population needs and where they need to target services and resources

Examine their outputs and be responsive to meeting the needs of their community

Examine and use the national evidence base for ‘what works' to inform and review what services are required to
improve life chances at a local level

Track the impact of the services they provide or that partners provider on their behalf

Track and measure individuals against: developmental milestones , CYP communication, learning and social and
emotional development

Contribute through action research to a growing evidence base for current and future interventions

Evaluate outcomes in relation to their aims and objectives ensuring that services are responsive to local and
national priorities

Self-evaluate against Ofsted Inspection Judgements, and gather a robust evidence base for Inspections , plan their
journey of change to meet Ofsted ‘Good’ criteria (where applicable)

Identify and address gaps/areas of development and areas of innovation related to improved outcomes
(benchmarking)

Engage partners, including governors, advisory boards, and parent forums in evaluation, service design and planning
at a local level

Demonstrate the value they add and their value for money - incorporating social value/ return on investment

Provides a robust evidence base for commissioners
Key barriers to be addressed:

Information governance and security considerations

Costs

Information sharing across agencies and systems
(government level)

Duplication of data with existing systems
System characteristics required by users

Data collection system that:








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Is user friendly and flexible – easy to input data and withdraw/create reports
Is quick
Can stand alone as data input system
Can extract and amalgamate data from existing systems to avoid duplication
(e.g. take population datasets from ONS)
Can extract data from a variety of paper-based and electronic systems
Can aggregate individual (child/parent) datasets into cohort datasets
Is accessible regardless of setting and web connection (inc. schools, children’s
centres, private/voluntary childcare settings, NHS, voluntary and independent
sectors) e.g. webportal
Has system permanence (future proof)
Will be cost-effective long term
Has potential scalability and flexibility
Can produce a web-based report card
Specification of web-based SLCN Report Card Template

Introduction to CFOF including CFOF Theoretical Model

Local Picture – Local key population datasets

Big Picture – National policy context narrative on latest research in the field

Growing our evidence base for what works locally – developing the business case

Social Return on Investment –financial model

Case studies (case study template for settings to populate which showcases
individual Journey of Change)

Summary:


SLCN Dashboard – Linking SLCN Outcome to:

School/centre/service development plan

Local Authority KPI’s

Ofsted Grade Descriptors/Quality Standards

Interventions offered (Local Offer)

Is anyone better off?
Journey of Change for Children and Families (Aggregated
population and performance datasets for reporting period)
Technical specification web-based SLCN Report Card
needs to:
Be able to aggregate anonymous setting level, Cluster/District level, Local
Authority level, regional and national data
 by setting
 by vulnerability factors i.e. Free School Meals, EAL, BME, summer Born,
attendance, living in workless household
 by interventions accessed
 by area of child development:
 communication and language
 social and emotional
 by clinical condition / need
 Have the capacity to amend fields easily for ongoing evolution of dashboard
/report card
 Provide an evidence base which is ‘future proof’ i.e. not transient
or dependent upon political or structural reorganisation
■ Provide a data collection system that will be compatible/adaptable
with data collection by members of wider workforce

Technical Specification Web-based SLCN Report
Card needs to:
Essentials (populating the Report Card):
 Securely store service user information
 Name, D.O.B., address, Unique identifying number
 Profile of vulnerability/risk factors within family
 Profile of interventions accessed
 Child Development Tool – assessments – communication, language and social
and emotional development
 Outcome Tool – Journey of Change for CYP and families
 Populate outcome measures (Supporting Information Pack - Appendix D)
 Aggregate individual datasets from service user information into cohort
datasets to facilitate the population of Journey of Change and calculation of
Social Value created
 Import or facilitate the collation of Population data (Supporting
Information Pack - Appendix D)
Technical Specifications: data reports required (1)
Performance data
Reporting level
Setting
LA
DfE
Individual
Y
Y
Link Family members
Y
Y
Intervention (Single)
Y
Y
Interventions (Group/Theme)
Y
Y
Access to other interventions/settings in their area (tracking children/safeguarding)
Y
Y
Local Super Output Area (LSOA)
Y
Y
Y
Vulnerable Group
Y
Y
Y
Setting
Y
Y
Y
District/Cluster
Y
Y
Local Authority
Y
Y
Region
Y
National
Y
Technical Specifications: data reports required (2)
Population data
Reporting level
Setting
LA
DfE
Local Super Output Area (LSOA)
Y
Y
Y
Vulnerable Group
Y
Y
Y
Setting
Y
Y
Y
District/Cluster
Y
Y
Y
Local Authority
Y
Y
Y
Region
Y
Y
Y
National
Y
Y
Y