Education and opportunity
Attendance and educational attainment alongside after-school clubs and meals. Understand barriers to participation rather than label children.
Horizon two · Proposed research programme
Data for Good
Research for good across trusted organisations. A fuller picture of what children and families need without turning people into a data product.
Beyond a single service
Understand the whole child. Support the whole family.
School meals are the first foundation. A future research programme could examine how nutrition and education and housing and community support interact so services can coordinate earlier help.
The supplied discussion note describes an outline research bid submitted through Northumbria University. Submission is not a funding award or permission to share data. Wider links below are proposed research areas.
Housing and family stability
Explore connections with social housing and rented homes and community support where a specific public-benefit purpose is agreed.
Nutrition and food security
Research access to nourishing food and holiday provision alongside malnutrition and food insecurity. Support needs are not medical diagnoses.
Health and wellbeing
Study wellbeing and links with obesity and diabetes and demand on NHS services. Any claimed health improvement or reduced pressure requires robust evidence.
Trusted does not mean unrestricted
Every project needs a defined purpose and lawful basis with independent oversight. Minimise data and use de-identified research environments with controlled access and disclosure checks.
Families need clear information and appropriate rights. No general-purpose pool of identifiable family records and no commercial reuse of personal data.
Holistic support with human judgement
A proposed holistic triage approach could help authorised teams coordinate referrals across services. Practitioners would review context and make decisions rather than rely on an automated risk score.
Research findings should distinguish association from causation and be checked for bias. No cross-organisation sharing or triage service is live today.
Explore the third horizon