Researchers from the Children’s Health Policy Centre (CHPC) have developed an innovative framework to generate early evidence for a made-in-BC childhood health and prevention program.

Designed for the province’s new Enhanced Family Health Program (EFHP), the monitoring and evaluation framework provides guidance to senior leaders on where to invest resources to have the most positive impact on new mothers and their children.

“With any new child-maternal health initiative, it’s crucial to have a monitoring and evaluation system for looking at outcomes and making sure we’re heading in the right direction,” says Nicole Catherine, Children’s Health Policy Centre Associate Director and lead researcher on the project.

“And it’s even better to generate evidence sooner — while waiting for evidence of impact on longer-term child outcomes. That’s what this rapid framework is designed to do.”

The EFHP will be launched this year as a province-wide health promotion and prevention initiative embedded in the public health system.

The EFHP builds on learnings from BC’s previous investments in early prevention, including the BC Healthy Connections Project and Fraser Health’s Enhanced Family Visiting Program. These nurse-home visiting initiatives provide intensive support from pregnancy through early childhood.

Now, the new EFHP will expand supports to hundreds more underserved BC children and mothers each year.

“We were thrilled to collaborate with our partners in the BC Ministry of Health and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) – Child Health BC and Perinatal Services BC to develop this framework,” says Catherine.

To build the framework, CHPC researchers, along with government and public health leaders, first identified three priority child outcomes for the program: lowered rates of maltreatment, a reduction in mental-health problem behaviour and improved cognitive development by age two years.

“These are crucial early markers of long-term well-being and, as we’ve seen in our research and other published reviews, may respond to interventions like EFHP,” Catherine explains.

Catherine and the CHPC team then identified three early indicators associated with those priority child outcomes. They are now actively partnering with PHSA partners to implement the rapid evaluation framework.

“Our goal was to focus on a few early indicators to generate early evidence, to guide program leaders in adjusting the program as needed and making changes proactively,” she says.

“This approach really suits BC’s EFHP because it makes the most of available resources and will help deliver more effective programs more quickly for children and families.”

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