What Works – Operation Paramount cohort data analysis
A new longitudinal data analysis undertaken upon multi-agency data associated with a cohort of children and young people affected by parental imprisonment highlights a range of vulnerabilities and risk to their outcomes which has not previously been identified.
Oxfordshire County Council made available anonymised and aggregated data sets on a cohort of young people who had been recognised through the Operation Paramount process as having had a parent imprisoned. This then allowed the VPP’s research team to undertake analysis and identify areas where outcomes had likely been impacted.
The analysis found:
- 66% of the children were in receipt of free school meals at time of parental incarceration. This rises to 86.3% within three academic terms of the parental incarceration
- 31% of the children were receiving SEN support (for special educational needs), compared with 13.6% national rate
- 7% had an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), compared with 3.8% national rate
- Rate of children being suspended from school was 4.3%, this is the same as the average rate of suspension across the UK
- Average attendance in the academic term of parental incarceration was 79.9%, much lower than the national average of 93.5%
- Whilst only 1.3% of the cohort are open to Early Help at the point of imprisonment, this rises to 9.3% within 6 months