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Professor Edward Melhuish

Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues
Executive Director, National Evaluation of Sure Start
Direct, Impact Evaluation Module

Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues,
Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street
London
WC1E 7HX

Tel: +44 (0)20 7079 0834
Email: e.melhuish@bbk.ac.uk

Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at Birkbeck, University of London and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London. Professor Melhuish is an internationally recognised expert in the study of child development and childcare and has extensive experience with longitudinal studies. He was a Principal Investigator of studies of day care and family life in the 1980s, which had considerable influence on sections of the 1989 Children Act. He has also conducted research on child development, parenting and childcare in several European countries, on behalf of the European Commission.

 For several years Professor Melhuish has been a Principal Investigator on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) and Effective Pre-school Provision in Northern Ireland (EPPNI) projects based in England and Northern Ireland, which are following 4,000 children from 3-7 years of age. These studies are investigating the effects of family, community, and pre-school experiences (and their interaction) on child development. These studies are multi-site investigations, with a large research team, and requiring liaison with many Local Authorities. Directing such studies has led to considerable skills in the development, use and interpretation of a wide range of instruments for measuring young children's environments in home, child care, pre-school and school settings. These studies have had considerable influence on government policy, e.g. the universal provision of a pre-school place for all children from 3 years of age; the establishment of 500 Children's Centres.

 In addition, Professor Melhuish is Executive Director of the National Evaluation of Sure Start and his work undertaken to date has addressed many issues relevant to Sure Start including cognitive, language and behavioural development of young children and the role of family factors, home environment, childcare and pre-school experience upon children's development. Professor Melhuish has written reports on such studies for government departments, policy makers, practitioners and academic researchers. He has over 150 scientific papers, chapters and books, some of which have been translated in up to 8 languages. In the National Evaluation of Sure Start, Professor Melhuish is also is responsible for directing the impact evaluation. This involves devising impact evaluation strategy and working with others to link the impact evaluation to other components such as the implementation study and local context analysis. Additionally he will be involved with other team members in writing up the research for dissemination to policy makers, practitioners and academic researchers.

Professor Melhuish has acted as a consultant for design for children, children's organizations (e.g. UNESCO), government departments (e.g. DfES, DoH, EU Commission, European Parliament) and film, television and radio companies. In addition he has frequently contributed to the media on children's issues, including newspaper, radio and television programmes.

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