John Oates, a senior lecturer in development psychology in the Centre for Childhood Development at the OU, was a member of the team that set up the first 40 Sure Start Children Centres in Hungary and he arranged the adoption of the English Early Years Foundation Stage as the framework for the Hungarian programme.
John recently presented a paper on his research at a Budapest conference on early intervention where Katalin Langerné Victor, Deputy State Secretary for Social Inclusion in Hungary, announced that the government will legislate for the continued expansion of the number of Sure Start Children Centres in Hungary, to improve the lives of children in poorer areas of the country.
Research at the OU influences policy and enriches lives. John has spent his whole career at the OU working on new ways to chart children's development. He began with an Economic and Social Research Council-funded laboratory-based study of children with and without Down syndrome through which he assessed developmental progress. He is currently leading a project in the Early Support national scheme, contributing to the design of an app to allow parents and carers to chart children's development on mobile devices.
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