The Hive Mt Druitt is an early childhood, place-based initiative that facilitates a collective of residents, schools, early childhood education and care services and 30+ other local organisations to:
- Build community trust and identify local priorities
- Collaborate on innovative solutions and 'incubate' new ideas within early childhood and broader systems
- Share learnings to advocate for system-wide change.
The initiative is rich with learnings and insights, yet poses a challenge for any evaluation to tell the full story of impact, especially using quantitative methods. Independent evaluators Ember Advisors assessed The Hive to recommend a quasi-experimental approach for a potential evaluation and conduct an analysis. Using a synthetic control model, they found that due to The Hive’s work:
- The proportion of ECEC services ‘Meeting’ all seven ACECQA quality areas was 19 percentage points higher than without The Hive
- Attendance at child and family health checks for 4-year-olds were 187% higher than without The Hive
- The number of children with NDIS plans is 25% higher than without The Hive.
The evaluation project team joined a webinar to talk through the evaluation experience and share practical tips about using a synthetic control methodology and designing evaluation approaches for place-based work.
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