The evaluation is being commissoned jointly by Tower Hamlets borough council and the local primary care trust, which is the accountable body for local Sure Start programmes.
Maria Finch, planning and information manager for Tower Hamlets early years, said, 'We put out the tender for the evaluation towards the end of last month and by the beginning of next year we will have an idea of what family support will look like. We hope to gain some steering in how best to progress the family support work in children's centres.'
Initially the seven Sure Start programmes were going to carry out their own evaluation of services to identify best practice, as there has been considerable variation in family support services across the east London borough.
Ms Finch said, 'Then the family support element of children's centres began to gather momentum and we realised we needed a wider evaluation that covered some of the family support happening in the voluntary sector and some of the proposed children's centre sites that were not in Sure Start areas.
'We have got to the stage now where we have commissioned a large piece of work on evaluating family support for the nought to fives age group. We want to come up with a working definition of family support.'
The existing family support covers a wide range of services, including many of those provided by the local Sure Start local programmes, the 'stay and play' sessions which help parents to understand their child's development, the links between parents and job advisory services, and toy libraries.
With all its wards in the 20 per cent most disadvantaged, Tower Hamlets is scheduled to have 15 children's centres, but Ms Finch said that whether all 15 are created will depend on levels of funding.
She said a training programme for those providing family support was also being considered, as it 'would help recruit into areas, such as health visiting and nursing, where there are vacancies.'
Jo Fisher, programme manager at the Weavers and Spitalfields Sure Start, said, 'All of the Sure Starts had set up quite different family support services, taking into account local people's needs and what local organisations said should happen. Some areas have quite a rich voluntary sector involvement and others don't. We want to find what works, especially as we approach the children's centre agenda.'