Nature is an important and well-evidenced mechanism for supporting mental health for both children and for adults (WHO, 2014). We’ve explored this in our work on potential interventions for enhancing the mental health and wellbeing of children and young adults in the Midlothian area of Scotland.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that we have been drawn to the concept of the Learning Partner and all the term suggests; that is, working with organisations to enable learning and improvement, and doing so collaboratively. Having carried out several roles badged in this way, we wanted to reflect, as a team and with peers, on what the role can look like, what skills it requires, and what it can contribute to organisations, and to the sector more broadly.

During the Connecting Families project - Funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse, and supported by Design agency Shift - we’ll be following a specific Design Process. This is broken into five key phases. These sprint notes will reflect on our learning from each phase. This blog is all about the sprint 'Wrap-Up' phase.

This year, youth services faced new challenges in engaging young people, particularly young people at risk of becoming involved in violence. As the Learning Partner for the Youth Endowment Fund’s special COVID-19 Grant round, we’ve had the opportunity to understand more about how organisations – ranging from grassroots charities to Britain’s largest local authorities – have managed to adapt programmes to continue to engage young people during the pandemic. In this blog, we look at how working with parents, carers and siblings can help organisations to maintain positive relationships with young people through the rest of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 emergency is demanding radical changes in how public systems, communities and civil society organisations support those in need across the UK. Funders, Government and Civil Society are rallying in support. With so much activity taking place at an unprecedented pace, it is imperative we learn from elsewhere and each other. We’ll be working with the Collaborative to bring learning from the outside in, and learning from the inside, out. Here we provide a brief overview of how we expect this will look and evolve.

In 2015, the Lab joined forces with the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) National Unit to collaborate on the ‘ADAPT’ programme, the second generation of the FNP service aimed at improving outcomes for children and young parents and reducing inequalities. We set out to enhance the flexibility of the existing service and improve the efficiency of the programme. Five years after beginning the project, we are pleased to join FNP in launching the final report with all our many learnings and recommendations from the experience.

Fusing a science-based approached to service design and system reform with an inclusive approach that involves the people who use and deliver services.