The Centre for Early Child Development (CECD) is the research and development hub of the Blackpool Better Start Partnership. We are made up of research, service design, communications and community development teams. CECD’s cutting edge research is grounded in lived experience, and its evidence based approach shows how we can most effectively improve early child development outcomes and the experiences of our local communities. Our place based approach to early child development promotes collaboration and integrated working across the partnership and longstanding relationships with academic institutions and policy makers.