There is no standardised ‘evidence-based’ service offered to families with children under 5 in England, and therefore, practitioners often need to use their ‘hands-on’ experience and unspoken understanding of 0-5 concerns to provide the best service.
There are also a number of barriers to offering effective evidence-based practice to families with children under 5. For example:
To help improve this situation, Supporting Early Minds is facilitating free Network events (monthly webinars) and will soon host a resources library (open access papers, podcasts and webinar recordings) to help practitioners, managers, commissioners and policy-makers easily engage with recent evidence.
You can help improve the evidence-base for 0-5 practice by helping your early years setting become research ready, getting involved in existing research projects or helping to co-develop new research projects.