Working Together for Children First in the Community

In the "Children First!" project, the Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI) works together with Norwegian municipalities and local communities to strengthen efforts for children across professions and sectors locally.

The overall objective is that all adults around children in a community work well and effectively together to create safety and opportunities for every child.

“This way we can identify early those who need extra support, and find out how best they can receive the help they need in their own community,” says Arild Bjørndal, Director of CEI Nordic.

Children First! was developed by and is led by Arild Bjørndal and Senior Advisor at CEI Nordic, Lise Corwin. Together they lead CEI’s Nordic division, which is part of an international, non-profit knowledge organization.

On Thursday, November 9, Bjørndal will present the project at the Nordic Foundations Conference during the parallel session called “Partnerships for Innovation.”

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– Innovative and forward-looking

Kavli Trust is a financial supporter of the Children First! pilot project with the three municipalities Hå, Gjesdal and Gausdal as participants.

"Children First! is an innovative and forward-looking project that we are pleased to support,” says Inger Elise Iversen.

“Kavli Trust’s grants are intended to address the major societal challenges of our time. Supporting Children First! is part of our work to help ensure a good everyday life for as many children and young people as possible where they live,” Iversen continues.

“We Must Dare to Be Ambitious”

“It is the first time the foundation supports a project whose main goal is to strengthen the organization and operation of key welfare services with a holistic, systemic approach,” says Iversen.

“With more and more young people reporting mental health challenges, we must dare to be ambitious and willing to think in new ways in search of the best solutions. We are proud that Kavli Trust can help enable this evidence-based and exciting pilot project, led by a strong professional organization like CEI in collaboration with three committed and forward-looking participating municipalities,” she adds.

Research, Mapping and Evaluation

The work in Children First! is grounded in both national and international research on what has worked previously.

CEI works closely with the three pilot municipalities. Together they map needs and evaluate all existing work for children in each municipality. The three pilot municipalities also examine what the local business sector and voluntary sector are doing, and what they need to strengthen their efforts for children.

"They also assess how all actors can interact better to avoid duplication and ensure consistent choices of evidence-based interventions that improve services for children and young people", says Bjørndal.

Aiming to Reduce Referrals to Specialist Health Services

If they succeed in equipping Norwegian local communities with tools to detect and address challenges among children and youth early, it may prevent unnecessary referrals to specialist health care services.

“A concrete goal is to reduce the number of referrals to specialist health care services from the participating municipalities,” says Bjørndal.

Skilled and Committed Local Teams

He is impressed by the collaborating municipalities Hå, Gausdal, and Gjesdal so far in the process.

“It is incredibly inspiring to meet these dedicated, skilled, and engaged people. In each municipality they already achieve much, and in every local community there is a project or initiative that is particularly important. But each also has something that could yield even better results if strengthened, improved, or renewed,” says Bjørndal, and continues:

“We have had numerous discussions about strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, and we have conducted several interviews with department heads and development officers, and group interviews with children themselves, parents, voluntary organizations, businesses, politicians and those working directly with children.”

Driving Local Improvements

Based on the mapping work, the children’s needs, and seeing the whole community as a resource, CEI will assist the municipalities in prioritizing and establishing local improvement projects.

These might include strengthening multidisciplinary teams in schools, enhancing work with parents, improving cooperation with specialist services, systematically collecting children’s experiences and advice, or strengthening collaboration with the business sector.

The results from the pilot project will be subject to research, aiming to find how municipalities and other local actors can collaborate most effectively for children.

“The ambition is to find good, long-term, scalable solutions that can be extended to more municipalities over time,” says Arild Bjørndal.

System-Level Change for the Better

Inger Elise Iversen shares Bjørndal’s belief that Children First! can foster positive change at the system level.

“Everyone agrees that good preventive work through early intervention is important. The challenge for many municipalities is finding effective ways to organise and manage their efforts within the frameworks they have. We believe that CEI, with its expertise and systemic approach in Children First!, can contribute to that,” she says.

Facts: "Children First!"

• CEI is a non-profit, global knowledge organization that runs a wide range of social improvement projects, with a particular focus on creating better living conditions for children.
• Children First! is a pilot project being implemented in collaboration between CEI Nordic and the three municipalities of Gausdal, Gjesdal, and Hå, with support from Kavli Trust.
• CEI assists the municipalities in mapping and evaluating the comprehensive local efforts for children and youth, with the overarching goal of systematically and sustainably improving the community’s support.
• The project results will be researched with the aim of identifying how all local stakeholders can best collaborate to prevent children’s and young people’s challenges from escalating to the point where specialist health services are required.
• Through close cooperation with other non-profit organizations, NGOs, and authorities, CEI works to generate, find, translate, use, and implement knowledge that can help improve lives.