We collect information about our work to evaluate our effectiveness and improve our services.

Measuring impact has been central to Place2Be’s model since we were founded in 1994.

What information do we collect?

Our mental health professionals collect a variety of information in schools, including:

• Referral details
• The type of support children receive
• Socio-demographic information about the pupils, parents and carers we support
• Feedback in questionnaires about childrens' behaviour and emotional wellbeing.

Download a full list of the information we collect (PDF 252KB)

What do we do with the information?

We use this information to evaluate our effectiveness to improve and develop our services.

Every year Place2Be reports on the:

• Number of pupils, parents and carers we support
• Needs they have
• Number of sessions we deliver
• Impact of our services on pupils’ wellbeing and learning, and parents and carers’ wellbeing.

Download documents about how we use information (PDF 384KB)

Benchmarking

As a member of the Child Outcomes Research Consortium (CORC), Place2Be receives annual reports benchmarking the outcomes of our services against other organisations (mostly NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health services - CAMHS).

According to the latest report (PDF 6.7MB) in 2019, pupils who receive our one-to-one counselling demonstrate a higher level of improvement (SDQ total difficulties) compared with other services.

Who are our research partners?

We are grateful to the academic and research community for their invaluable advice, guidance and analyses. This gives us external validation of our research and evaluation.

Our Research Chair is Professor Tamsin Ford, Cambridge University and we have ongoing research partnerships with:

• Cambridge University
• Imperial College London
• Exeter University
• Kings College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Trust
• The University of East London
• Edinburgh University
• Stirling University
• University of Sussex
• Roehampton University

Our Research Advisory Group

Members of our Research Advisory Group (RAG) meet quarterly. They provide expert advice and guidance on methodologies, analyses, ethics and dissemination of our findings.

Download biographies of our RAG members (PDF 191KB)

25 years’ learning from practice and evaluation

At Place2Be, we continuously evaluate our services; using evidence to further develop our work in schools. In this report, Place2Be's Chief Executive, Catherine Roche, our Head of Evaluation, Sarah Golden, and Trustee, Liz Greetham, reflect on all we've learned since we were founded in 1994.

Read our 25 years’ learning from practice and evaluation report

Research publications

We are delighted to share a growing catalogue of published, peer-reviewed research, written by our staff, Masters and PhD students who work with us and independent evaluators.

• Longer-term effects of school-based counselling in UK primary schools
• What issues bring primary school children to counselling?
• Systematic client feedback in therapy for children with psychological difficulties: Pilot cluster RCT
• Economic evaluation of Place2Be’s counselling service in Primary Schools (Pro-bono Economics - PDF 1.3MB)
• In the eye OF the ‘perfect storm (Every Child Journal - PDF 1.1MB)
• ‘Mental Health Service Models for Young People’ POSTnote - The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (PDF 571KB)
• The validation of the self-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for use by 6- to 10-year-old children in the UK (PDF 136KB)
• The Place2Be: Measuring the effectiveness of a primary school-based therapeutic intervention in England and Scotland
• The Effects of School Exclusion and Effective Interventions - A joint paper by RAPt and Place2Be (PDF 3.1MB)

Get in touch

Would you like to find out more? You can get in touch with our team by emailing evaluation@place2be.org.uk