Early Years Transformation Academy

The Early Years Transformation Academy (EYTA) was an intensive guided learning programme, run by EIF in partnership with The Staff College, Born in Bradford and Better Start Bradford.

Through the EYTA, multi-disciplinary leadership teams from selected local areas participated in a 12-month programme to prepare a local system transformation plan for maternity and early years services. In 2019/20, EIF worked with five local areas: Barking & Dagenham, Dudley, Norfolk, Sandwell and Westminster / Kensington & Chelsea.

The EYTA supported local areas to bring together the people who are responsible for maternity and early years services, with a clear mandate to collaborate on system improvements. Working with teams of six to eight local system and service leaders, the Academy enabled participants to use existing skills and expertise to build on system strengths and find solutions to local challenges.

The learning programme had four core modules, focusing on:

Preparing for change
Identifying vulnerable populations
System planning
Measuring impact.

Learning took place via online learning materials, a series of design workshops, and practical local application exercises.

In partnership with

Stories from participants

For participating areas, the EYTA provided an opportunity to explore new approaches and innovate, consolidate local planning, access independent support and challenge, and invest in leadership development.

Blog
November 2019
EIF

Developing a focus on local need: Norfolk and the EYTA

"We are working together to identify both gaps and duplication in the system. Most importantly, it is getting us thinking about what the key determinants are that influence outcomes for families, and whether or not the interventions we are using are the right ones in terms of their evidence base and impact."

Blog
November 2019
EIF

Redesigning the pre-birth to 5 system: Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster and the EYTA

"Being part of the EYTA as a cohort of five local authorities also provides us with a vehicle to review, scrutinise and challenge how other 0–5 services operate, in rural, urban, coastal and inner cities – all with different challenges and service delivery models."

Blog
November 2019
EIF

Bringing together maternity and early years: Sandwell and the EYTA

"Our maternity services transformation work was already underway and we didn’t want to miss this opportunity to ensure that maternity and early years commissioning plans were aligned."

Blog
November 2019
EIF

Building partnerships and effectively engaging stakeholders: Barking & Dagenham and the EYTA

"Our main progress has been in building support for change among our stakeholders, understanding our population, and laying the foundations for delivering the academy vision after graduation."

Running the Academy

For EIF, running the EYTA allowed us to support areas to put strategic planning, information gathering and evidence at the heart of service transformation, and to test which tools and resources were most useful in this process.

Blog
February 2020
EIF

Into the dragon's den: testing the plans of our Early Years Transformation Academy areas

Our 'Dragon's Den' session allowed EYTA teams to celebrate their progress but also to be honest about what was needed next.

Blog
April 2019
EIF

Class is in: Launching the Early Years Transformation Academy

EIF chief executive Dr Jo Casebourne reflects on the significance of the Early Years Transformation Academy, "generating and sharing important learning on what works to deliver positive change for families".

Blog
April 2019
EIF

Introducing the fantastic five: with our local partners in place, the EYTA is ready to launch

EIF assistant director Ben Lewing charts the rapid evolution of the Early Years Transformation Academy up to the selection of participating areas.

Prospectus
January 2019
EIF

Prospectus 2019/20

Find out more about the Early Years Transformation Academy, including course structure, module content, participation requirements and schedule.

EIF's work on the early years

Childhood is a period of rapid physical, cognitive, social and emotional development, which lays the foundations for a happy, healthy and productive life. This means it is an especially important period for early intervention to prevent or reduce the negative impacts of problems experienced by a child or family.

In a local place, maternity and early years services are a vital means both of providing support to children and families who need it, and of identifying those who may need additional support from other local services. During a period when local authorities and other services are under funding pressure, it is particularly important that early years support is known to be effective and well suited to the local families’ needs, and that the local system and early years workforce are set up to work successfully to improve the lives of children in their area.

You can find all of our work on the early years on the EIF website.