Frequently asked questions

How is my portfolio generated?

PASCAL aims to simplify the commissioning process and provide local authority early years commissioners in England with access to the information and analysis they need to identify suitable and impactful parenting programmes which best meet their specific requirements. It currently focuses on programmes eligible for Best Start Family Hubs grant funding, targeting 3 to 4 year olds and aiming to help local authorities to meet their Good Level of Development targets.

PASCAL provides data-driven insights that aim to help you in the early stages of planning parenting support. It uses complex modelling, local needs data and user preferences to suggest a portfolio of programmes that is both personalised to your local authority’s specific needs and estimated to deliver the highest impact.

In generating its suggestions, PASCAL takes into account a variety of information:

• Your needs and preferences as a local authority (delivery methods, workforce)
• The predicted impact of programmes on each child's likelihood of reaching a Good Level of Development
• Programme evidence rating (the Foundations’ Guidebook rating, or Nesta’s rapid critical appraisal rating)
• Programme costs and LA budgets
• Information on children and families in your local authority (such as the number of children with socioemotional needs and families who speak English as an additional language)

Why might a programme with small GLD impact still appear in my portfolio?

There are several reasons why a programme with ‘small’ impact per child may appear in your portfolio. PASCAL takes into account a variety of information, including your preferences, all of which shape the optimised, custom portfolio that you see.

The algorithm optimises for value for money, meaning that PASCAL will show you the programmes that deliver the highest impact GLD for the budgets set, subject to your preferences and needs.

Why isn’t a certain programme showing up?

On your portfolio page near the bottom, you are able to check why some programmes aren’t being suggested in your portfolio.

We’ve done a comprehensive exercise to understand the market of parenting programmes, and this work has fed into the programmes that are included in PASCAL.

There are a number of reasons why a particular programme may not be showing up in PASCAL. We’ve summarised a few reasons why below:

• We may be missing key information about a programme that makes us unable to assess the value for money, for example cost.
• The intervention may not be able to be modelled to predict impact on GLD (the intervention may be exclusively for an older age group, or not have evaluations that measure relevant outcomes that can be mapped to GLD).

Why aren’t there interventions for younger/older children?

PASCAL is currently designed to help local authorities decide how to spend their Best Start in Life funding, meaning it focuses on parenting interventions targeting children aged 3-4. PASCAL is designed to predict impact on each child’s likelihood of reaching a Good Level of Development at age 5.

We will continue to improve and adapt the tool, including through ongoing user feedback, sensitivity testing, and the inclusion of new or updated data as it becomes available.

Can I save my portfolio?

Yes. In the top right corner there is a button to ‘Download portfolios’. You can do that for each portfolio and compare different features across portfolios.

Can I edit my portfolio?

Yes. There is an option to ‘Remove' each programme that you don’t want to see in the portfolio. Select the programme you wish to remove and then click ‘Update portfolio’. This will create a new portfolio in a new tab, allowing you to compare the old one and the new one with the removed programme(s). PASCAL will recalculate the new portfolio, retaining your preferences and selecting remaining programme(s) for highest value for money/GLD impact.

Where did you find the evidence rating?

Wherever available, we have used the Foundations Guidebook rating. For programmes without pages in the Guidebook, we conducted a rapid critical appraisal exercise to assign an evidence rating using the Foundations Guidebook criteria to ensure consistency in our approach. Where Nesta has assigned a rating, this is noted as (Nesta) in the compare programmes table.

How did you calculate the impact on GLD?

Please see our methodology for more information

How did you calculate the predicted appeal to parents?

Please see our methodology for more information

How did you find out the information on cost?

We’ve used the Foundations Guidebook cost rating and taken the conservative approach of setting the cost at the top of the range provided by Foundations. Foundations assigns a cost rating with programme costs estimated and assigned a rating relative to other interventions. Programme costs include:

• Training fees and time needed to train practitioners
• Requirements for follow-up or booster training
• Costs of initial and ongoing intervention materials
• Practitioner hours required for delivery
• Qualification levels of practitioners and supervisors
• Internal and/or external supervision needs
• Licensing fees
• Typical group size for delivery

For more information on how cost ratings are calculated, we suggest reading the Foundations Guidebook technical guidance.

In some instances, we may have been provided with exact costs per parent by programme developers.

Where did you find the information about my local authority?

We used the National Pupil Database to find local authority level data on the shares of of children not reaching their ELGs (early learning goals) on socioemotional and cognitive development at age 5 as proxies for the shares of children likely to have needs in those areas of development at age 3 (when interventions are delivered). We use this approach because a) developmental needs at age 3 are highly predictive of needs at age 5 and b) because the national shares of children with these developmental needs at ages 3 and 5 are very similar.

Where did you find baseline GLD levels for my area?

We used the National Pupil Database (NPD) to find local authority level data on the shares of children not reaching their early learning goals (ELGs), part of the early years foundation stage (EYFS) profile which assesses whether children are reaching a Good Level of Development (GLD).

Who is meant to use PASCAL?

PASCAL is designed for commissioners and other individuals in local authorities who need to make confident, timely decisions about what programmes supporting parenting and the home learning environment to fund and deliver to reach their Best Start in Life GLD targets. For this reason, PASCAL currently focuses on interventions intended to support parenting and the home learning environment for families with 3-4 year olds.

When should the tool be used?

The PASCAL tool can be used at any point in your intervention commissioning journey. PASCAL can be used to explore and learn more about different parenting programmes, compare programmes, and plan funding allocation and delivery. All of the outputs are personalised to local needs data.

We encourage those commissioning parenting programmes to also consider their broader strategies for outreach and engagement of families, including the role of community partners.

How should I use PASCAL as part of my local decision-making processes?

PASCAL can be used by any and all members of your local decision making team to inform your parenting programme commissioning strategy. PASCAL is designed to bring together complex quantitative data with rich local intelligence.

What PASCAL brings to LAs:

• Consistent quantitative data on a large number of features of a large number of programmes
• The predicted impact of programmes on each child's likelihood of reaching a Good Level of Development
• Programme evidence rating (the Foundations’ Guidebook rating, or Nesta’s rapid critical appraisal rating)
• Programme costs
• Information on children and families in your local authority (such as the number of children with identified needs and families who speak English as an additional language)
• A theory-based approach to synthesising these factors into a value for money assessment

What LAs bring to PASCAL:

• Local intelligence and knowledge of the needs of their population(s)
• Budgets (HLE/parenting) and cost considerations
• Knowledge of delivery and implementation constraints and models
• Experience of delivering interventions in their local areas and qualitative and quantitative data/feedback from parents and practitioners, knowledge of attendance and engagement with programmes

How can I find more information on programmes?

You can find more information on programmes using the Foundations Guidebook and/or on programme developer websites. These are linked in the compare programmes table.

EAL

English as an Additional Language

GLD

Good Level of Development

NPD

National Pupil Database

PASCAL

Parenting Support Commissioning Assistant for Local Areas

The Foundations Guidebook provides information about over 130 interventions with at least preliminary evidence of achieving positive outcomes for children, such as improving mental health, school attainment, or behaviour. The Foundations Guidebook is not an exhaustive list of all effective interventions for children and families. Interventions which do not appear on the Guidebook may be effective but do not appear because they are yet to be evaluated, or have not yet been assessed by Foundations. Conversely, the fact that an intervention appears on the Guidebook does not necessarily mean it will work in a specific local area or in the specific context you wish to implement it in. For more information on using the Guidebook in your local area, see here.