The need

There is very little evidence about what works in child sexual exploitation prevention. Where programmes do exist, they tend to be one-off lessons focusing on awareness rather than seeking to give children the skills to combat exploitation.  SafeSkills  runs within the school curriculum, takes a skills-based approach to prevention and has a clear logic model. However, no data has previously been collected around the delivery of the programme and the intermediary outcomes it may be affecting. 

Our response

We have worked with the Ariel Trust to design and implement a short pre/post questionnaire to collect basic delivery and outcome information about children taking part in the programme. This data is designed to be routinely monitored via easy-to-read data reports that allow the team to course correct if delivery is off course and see early signs of change in children. Crucially, the programme itself can be tweaked whilst collecting the same data, setting-up the programme for rapid cycle testing.

Ariel Trust is the delivery partner and we are the evaluation partner.  The work was commissioned by the Centre for Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse.

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

SafeSkills – A different approach to preventative CSE education 

 The need

By the time they are 19-21 years old, young people with care experience are much less likely than those without to be in a ‘positive destination’ – in other words, education, employment or training. Despite their best efforts, no Local Authorities, including Plymouth and Brent, have been able to close this gap, which in many areas is 30% or more.

Our response

For one year starting in May 2019, the Lab will use systems thinking methods to do two things: first, to chart how young people in Plymouth and Brent interact with support services on their journeys through and out of care; and second, to understand the complex web of factors that drive whether care leavers in these areas reach positive destinations by the age of 19-21.

The work is funded by Barnardo’s. Our partners are Barnardo’s, Plymouth Council and Brent Council.

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

This document outlines Barnardo’s Care Journey Core Priority Programme, which this project sits within. 

 The need

A multi-disciplinary staff team from the London Borough of Sutton and Barnardo’s have worked together to develop three strand areas of activity for the project which is in its initial year. These teams involve mutli-agency insights from health, psychology, and education to develop a broad perspective on the changes being developed. The aims of the project relates to the following areas:

Aim 1: Children and young people parents/carers and professionals will be able to make positive and informed choices about the support that is available in the local area.

Aim 2: To develop a multi-disciplinary model of practice across education, social care, health, and community partners that provides the right services to young people, in the right place at the right time to improve outcomes and help prepare young people for adulthood.

Aim 3: To strengthen confidence and resilience in the local area to improve the lived experience of children and young people/families with SEND.

These aims will be underpinned by a number of engagements with stakeholders, and products developed and tested with professionals, children, young people, and their families.

Our response

Dartington Service Design Lab is commissioned to work with the project from October 2023 to July 2024 to function as both a Learning Partner and Service Design Specialist for London Borough of Sutton.  We will work collaboratively to:

• Help increase collective understanding of the Sutton SEND system of support/pathways designed at a community level as well as multi-agency partnership level.  

• Take a participatory-led approach throughout with Children, Young People & Families (CYPF) and key stakeholders.   

• Guide the co-creation and testing of impactful, equitable and efficient systems of support for children, young people and families with SEND and additional needs (in Sutton.)

• Collate insight learning of what works and identify enablers and barriers to service access and involvement for diverse families within Sutton.

The work was launched in October 2023 and will run until February 2024

 For more information, contact:   Tim Hobbs

The need

The last few years have seen a dramatic rise in the proportion of young people both perpetrating and experiencing violent crime in the UK. The issue is particularly pressing in Lambeth, South London, which has one of the highest rates of serious youth violence in the country, as well as violence more generally. 

Our response

BAM equips adolescent boys with positive assets that support them to engage less with, and be less impacted by, risks in their environment. Two randomised control trials conducted with BAM in Chicago found that the programme significantly reduced total arrests and violent-crime arrests while improving school engagement. Now, BAM has been brought to Lambeth, where it will be delivered in three schools from September 2021. Dartington is supporting the adaptation of the programme and, once delivery begins, will lead a test-and-learn process to better understand whether, how, why and with whom BAM is feasible in its new context.

Resources

BAM Feasibility Study (2023) can be found here.

BAM Pilot Report (2024) can be found here.

BAM was developed in Chicago by Youth Guidance and will be delivered in London by the Mental Health Foundation. Both the delivery and evaluation of BAM are supported by the Youth Endowment Fund, a £200 million investment set up by the Home Office to tackle youth crime and violence through early intervention.  

 For more information, contact:   

Finlay Green  

The need

Salford Council are bringing together four seemingly disparate programmes to form BOND – Better Outcomes for New Delivery. These programmes all work with families at risk of breakdown, triggered by different stressors depending on their context and experience. We were asked to create an evaluation framework for BOND to determine the extent to which this combined approach is able to build family resilience and keep families together.

Our response

We worked with programme leads to define theories of change for each individual programme which then enabled us to identify common outcomes across the programmes. We then worked to explore what was driving these outcomes and use system dynamics and causal loops to how these drivers undermined the current work being done in each programme. We looked at current programme activities, to explore the extent to which family resilience was being supported by current work and then looked to the research and the causal loop diagrams created by programme managers to explore how activities might be bolstered. We were able to create an overarching theory of change for BOND, with shared activities and outcomes across all BOND programmes with a shared ultimate outcome of increasing family resilience to prevent family breakdown. This will enable a clear line of sight from activity to outcome, and the monitoring and evaluation of this.

We have been commissioned and funded to do this work by Salford Council.

For more information, contact:

The need

Big Brothers Big Sisters UK are seeking to work with new local authority partners within a UK context. Supporting this ambition, they are seeking to articulate and refine their core model on theory of change to apply and implement with new local authority partners, with consideration of the need by local authorities to be able to adapt this model whilst retaining the core features.

Our response

To support with this aim, we are conducting a review of Evaluation learning from the Big Brothers Big Sisters UK Oxford pilot, running a series of theory of change workshops and development sessions as well as developing advice and recommendations for learning opportunities whilst implementing the programme in local authority areas. This work will involve a document review, theory of change workshops and development, and a stakeholder workshop.

The lead partner in this project is Big Brothers Big Sisters, with the work being commissioned by YEF.

Our work started in November 2021 and is concluding in March 2022.

For more information, contact:

 The need

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough local authorities are working together to create a strategy for the Early Years, making the most of their combined resource to address challenges faced by young children and their families across the two districts.

Our response

Dartington and Collaborate have been working to co-create an integrated delivery plan to deliver on this strategy. This will involve incorporating local epidemiological data, local professional views, mapping the research evidence of what matters in terms of influencing outcome and mapping public and private service provision across the area. This will identify the opportunities for where, and how the local authortiies of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough might act to address these key outcome areas.

We are working in partnership with Collaborate. This work is funded by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Councils.

 For more information, contact:   

The need

Career Ahead has the potential to help socially disadvantaged young people across the UK gain access to further education, employment, and training. Yet the intervention is a complex, multi-faceted programme that has never been delivered before in its current form. Before it can be scaled up, Career Ahead needs to be further developed and its potential for improving outcomes better understood, as well as the contingency of these outcomes on the contexts surrounding delivery of and participation in the programme.

Our response

Dartington will help Making the Leap and Youth Futures Foundation to develop, test and learn about the Career Ahead programme through a theory-based, participatory pilot study. The evaluation will help Dartington, Making the Leap and Youth Futures Foundation to: 

(i) develop and test the programme theory underpinning Career Ahead, including mechanisms of change and relevant contextual factor;

(ii) design and deliver improvements to the Career Ahead model and;

(iii) consider the most appropriate future evaluation design for Career Ahead. 

Our work started in June 2021 and is concluding in April 2023.

For more information, contact:

Finlay Green

 The need

As COVID-19 hit and lockdown began, the organisations that support families reacted swiftly by adapting their services for remote delivery. Their quick action brought resources and help to many families, but now, months into the crisis and in the face of even more uncertainty, it is clear that some families are still not receiving the support they need.

A lot of work has been done to bring devices into homes, but when there’s one device for the whole family, limited connectivity in a household, a lack of safe and confidential spaces to chat and a host of competing priorities, engaging in services remotely can be difficult. As a result, many families who need help have lost out as services have moved online.

Our response

Dartington Service Design Lab has worked with a number of charities and families to develop and test different ways of supporting early years services to reach digitally excluded families.

We have now developed the ‘9 steps for reaching families remotely’ website, a practical guide to support services and practitioners struggling to reach and engage with digitally excluded people.

Resources

You can download either of our two posters to support your journey through the 9 steps below. You can also read through our Sprint Notes below to see how we worked in the open in order to create these 9 steps.

Building Resilience in early years services in time of uncertainty

You can view all of our notes and learning from across each sprint so far, below. Just click on the buttons below:

Our partners are Catalyst, who commissioned the project, and Shift, who will be supporting with the design and development process.  This project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response.

 For more information, contact:   

Finlay Green

 The need

Blackpool has a persistently high level (10%) of young people who are NEET, and years of attempts to address these through a narrow focus on academic achievement have not been successful. In addition, there has been a sharp rise in the number of Electively Home Educated (EHE) students since the pandemic: the outcomes for this group appears to be poor, but very little is known about their experiences and support. There are many examples of good initiatives supporting young people, but there are many that fall through the cracks. However, the persistent nature of the challenges have catalysed the Blackpool Connected Futures (CF) to form, driven by ambition and belief in the potential of the town and a shared understanding that there is a need for things to be done differently to change the outcomes for young people in a meaningful way.

Our response

Together with Renaisi, we are using Participatory Action Research to co-create a systemic Theory of Change that accurately reflects and addresses Blackpool’s system of support for young people. We’re supporting learning through Rapid Cycle Design Testing approach and developing an options appraisal for evaluation of prioritised activities.

The work was launched November 2023

 For more information, contact:   Charlotte Woodhead

 The need

Research evidence  shows  that mentoring relationships can  positively affect children’s social and emotional behaviours. However, this evidence also reveals great variation in impact. For organisations like  Chance UK, whose  aim to  use mentoring to improve  children’s behavioural and emotional difficulties, there remains a chasm between what interventions are known to work in theory and what services  actually work  well in practice.  

Our response

Our ambition is to bridge this gap by developing practice-based evidence through a  fast, iterative approach. We work closely with Chance UK’s staff and mentors to understand the explicit behavioural needs of the children the service targets,  rapidly  develop new activities and adapt existing ones that can address these needs within the children’s individual environments, and  continuously  collect a range of quantitative and qualitative data about whether and how activities are being implemented and their intermediate and long-term effects.  

My Future started in October 2018 and will conclude in June 2020.  

My Future is funded by Chance UK.

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

Read the final report here. This document is interactive - please use the internal links or the ‘bookmarks’ option to navigate the document.

To see the executive summary, please click here.

 The need

Research finds that mentoring can have a meaningful, positive impact on young people and their life outcomes. The development of positive relationships and role models is key for young people achieving their aims and ambitions. Chance UK has a long history of working in this way and has demonstrated impacts in reducing anti-social behaviours and decreased involvement of young people with the youth justice system. There is a need to ensure that early-help provided to young people, when needs are identified by schools or other professionals, that support is available which is related to areas of challenge being experienced. Chance UK have trained and developed youth work professionals as mentors to deliver their programmes. They are currently in a change process with new leadership and developments of their organisational strategy so wish to review their models, delivery and how they can strengthen the evidence of their impact.

Our response

Dartington Service Design Lab has been commissioned to work in partnership with Chance UK staff to support their organisational change and develop areas of activity which support their new strategic direction. We will be working to support Chance UK in:

1. The design and development of a Chance UK Theory of Change representing the organisation’s key activities, and the mechanisms and outcomes for children and their families.

2. The production of an evaluation framework that captures key metrics and evidence of impact for the organisation to capture change and impact as well as consistency in use.

3. Support Chance UK in their understanding and potential application and use of Goal Attainment Scaling as an evaluation framework which supports individual progression through the mentoring programme.

The work was launched in March 2023 and will run until February 2024

 For more information, contact:   Charlotte Woodhead

 The need

Local authorities have been experiencing increasing need and less resources. Paired with this, they don’t necessarily know what the exact needs of their population are. This particularly hinders decisions on which early intervention and prevention activities should be funded, and how to target these better.

Our response

The ChildrenCount Wellbeing surveys are carefully constructed from standardised and validated measurement tools covering a wide range of child wellbeing aspects, including intrinsic, social, family and community-based risks. Data is census level and is presented back to local authorities in a unique and engaging way to allow them to understand the prevalence of problems within their locality, whether this is likely worse or better than elsewhere, and which risk factors are predictively linked to which outcomes. 

Renfrewshire Council, A Better Start, Perth and Kinross, Dundee, Angus and North Ayrshire Council

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

ChildrenCount

Matching Children’s Needs and Services: A Case of Three Circles

Blog: Are services meeting the needs of children?

 The need

The issue of homelessness  has been in the public  consciousness  for over 50 years. Despite our best-evidenced interventions,  it  has not gone away.  The  issue  is persistent in a large part because of its complexity: the causes and consequences of homelessness are wide-ranging and inter-connected. While individual policies and interventions may be effective, a meaningful and sustained reduction of homelessness requires a whole-system understanding and approach. 

Our response

We convened a series of workshops that brought together  people working across local and central government, the voluntary sector, academia and policy  to gather their views of the complex causes and consequences of homelessness. These were captured in a systems map, developed iteratively with the Centre for Homelessness Impact and other experts in the field. The system map presents the systemic structures that are essential to understand in order to take a sustainable approach to tackling homelessness. 

This work is commissioned by the Centre for Homelessness Impact. 

 For more information, contact:   

Leanne Freeman

Blog

What we talk about when we talk about systems

 The need

Chance UK, the EY Foundation and Leap Confronting Conflict believe that by working collaboratively they can serve children, young people and families better. Their vision is to create systemic change through a collective impact model. They have shortlisted three towns where they could work over the next ten years and want to explore the suitability of the towns.  

Our response

The study will primarily assess the readiness of the towns based on the criteria highlighted in the collective impact literature. The study methods will include desk research, review of any available local data of needs and priorities, key informant interviews, workshops with key stakeholders from the public, private and voluntary sectors, focus groups with young people and town visits.  

The project has been commissioned by the EY Foundation, Chance UK and Leap Confronting Conflict. We will be working in the towns of Blyth, Dudley and Radstock & Keynsham.  

 For more information, contact:   

The need

Parents have the most important impact on the health and development of their children in the early years. While there are many services that can support parents at this time, individuals working as volunteers, social entrepreneurs or community connectors are essential to link parents into this help. COVID-19 raises challenges to the way these community connectors work, and so we need to co-ordinate a sector-wide response.

Our response

A group of charities working in the early years have formed a collaboration to design a product or service to help community connectors to reach and support parents through the COVID-19 pandemic and response. The Lab is contributing analysis of the system dynamics around community connectors to ensure the the final product has a real impact and can affect system change. 

Our partners are Home Start, Shift, Clear Honest Design, Nesta and Catalyst.

For more information, contact:

The need

With access to schools restricted and the provision of youth services severely reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, young people at risk of youth violence have become increasingly “invisible”. At the same time, they have lost much of the help and guidance they rely on. The Youth Endowment Fund announced it would commit up to £6.5m in new grants to find the best ways to reach “increasingly invisible” vulnerable young people during the current COVID-19 restrictions.

Our response

Over the next 12 months, the Learning Partner will work closely with grantees to generate and disseminate learning grounded in evidence. The Learning Partner will also create essential resources to support grantees as they adapt their work with and for young people, and draw out learning, to be disseminated amongst grantees, the Youth Endowment Fund and the wider sector.

What next?

We encourage our grantees to check through our FAQs to find out more about the process, the learning activities and role of the Learning Partner. These will be updated as the project continues to evolve.

Should you not be able to find an answer in the FAQs, please contact

Resources

Insights Brief One: How to engage young people during the pandemic

Insights Brief Two: Learning and adapting to support young people during the COVID-19 pandemic

Core components podcast with Dez Holmes, Bethia McNeil and Mary McKaskill - accompanying material for Insights Brief Two

 The need

In 2016/17 Renfrewshire Council commissioned us to repeat the  Children Count  survey , originally  completed in 2011) The survey captured the well-being of over 85% of children and young people aged 9-16 years in Renfrewshire schools.   The survey highlighted young people’s emotional wellbeing as an area of concern with the data showing an almost two-fold increase in rates of clinically likely diagnosable levels of anxiety and depression between 2011 and 2017. The survey also found that 25% of secondary school age pupils who had been in relationships had experienced worrying levels of emotional control within these relationships. 

Our response

We will understand the system  dynamics and identify leverage points for change and opportunities for investment  by running system and service mapping workshops.  Existing spend  will be mapped  and  we will  identify 1-5% to be reinvested towards early action. Working collaboratively with the voluntary sector to build capacity of young people and families to participate,  we will co-design responses to  the issues. These will then be implemented and rigorously tested using rapid cycle testing techniques to inform adaptations and ongoing improvements.   

The work is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. Our partners are Renfrewshire Council, Engage Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership and the Ariel Trust. 

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

Children Count

Investment in Children’s Services - Fund Map

Coercive Control and Emotional Wellbeing Insight Brief

The need

Due to a changing external environment, and the results of the first randomised controlled trial of FNP in the UK, the FNP National Unit embarked on a brave and ambitious project to adapt the programme. 

Our response

The ADAPT programme designs, tests, and adapts strategic and clinical changes to the programme in over 20 of FNP’s delivery sites in England. We have worked with the National Unit to co-design an approach that is based in scientific evidence and informed by the views of clients, family nurses and programme commissioners. This has been tested using rapid cycle design and testing methods since Spring 2016.

The work is commissioned and funded by the FNP National Unit and part supported by A Better Start, which is a project of the National Lottery Community Fund. 

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

FNP Final Report

 The need

All too often, healthcare services encourage ‘fixes’ for problems – people are told what to do, with this advice focusing on the medical aspects of health, rather than being supported to use their own knowledge, agency and purpose to decide what works best for them. ‘Bad Help’ like this can have a particularly profound impact on people with long term conditions like cancer and heart disease.  

Our response

In late 2019, Nesta established a partnership to better understand the evidence base, in behavioural terms, behind their vision for ‘Good Help’ - that which supports people to feel in control of their health and wellbeing. Nesta hope to embed this evidence in practice via a series of real-world experiments in 2020. The Lab has been working on translating this evidence to make it useful and usable to practitioners and service leaders. 

Our partners are Nesta, Macmillan Cancer Support, British Heart Foundation and the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London.

 For more information, contact:   

Finlay Green

 The need

Addressing three critical foundations, Grosvenor will provide high-quality, affordable homes, simultaneously paired with employment and well-being support programmes tailored around the needs of individuals, and designed to empower them to overcome challenges and achieve their potential.

Our response

Dartington is working with Grosvenor Hart Homes to support with the design of the multiple components of their service, bringing together literature and evidence-based reviews as well as co-design methods to create services and supports that will have the greatest impact for Grosvenor tenants.

Our work with Grosvenor began in 2023

For more information, contact:   Tim Hobbs

 Work to date

In 2019, we brought the Harvard Center on the Developing Child IDEAS Impact Framework training to UK for the first time. Across the three-day event, we trained more than 100 attendees on the Center’s science-based innovations and approaches to help accelerate the impact of early years services. The event was followed by a two-day intensive course with smaller teams of service providers and delivery organisations. These workshops focused on applying the Center’s IDEAS Impact Framework to reshape the organisations’ theories of change and rapid cycle evaluation plans. 

 What next?

We continue to work with Harvard and to use their IDEAS Impact Framework to support early years organisations in developing science-based theories of change and evaluation plans. 

 For more information, contact:   

 The need

 Crisis  deliver services for people affected by homelessness in 11 locations, called Skylights, across the UK. While the context around homelessness is dynamic and changing at the national level, there are also important differences and dynamics in local areas. The Skylight model of support,  therefore,  must  constantly  be adapting and learning to ensure it can improve outcomes for communities in different environments.  

Our response

Selected Crisis Skylights have become Hothouses for Innovation  in which  the  Lab is facilitating a service design process that incorporates user-centred  and evidence-informed design.  The process starts with a  full-day workshop bringing Crisis staff and  service users  together with partner organisations to agree on a priority challenge that the Hothouse would address.  Next, we run a  Service Design Sprint in which staff,  service users  and partners rapidly develop  service adaptations  that responded to the priority challenge.  Finally, the Hothouses pilot the most promising adaptation  and  within a framework of rapid cycle testing. 

The Hothouses for Innovation initiative is a partnership between the  Dartington  Service Design Lab and Crisis,  a national charity for homeless people.  Crisis  helps people directly out of homelessness and campaigns for the changes needed to solve it altogether. Crisis’ ultimate aim is to eradicate homelessness

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

Hothouses for Innovation at Crisis Skylight South Yorkshire (not yet published)

Employment Pathways at Crisis Skylight  Oxford: Independent Evaluation Report (not yet published)

Progressing Onwards  at Crisis Skylight  London: Independent Evaluation Report (not yet published)

Crisis Skylight South Yorkshire and South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority partnership: Independent Evaluation Report

Employment Pathways at Crisis Skylight Coventry & Warwickshire: Independent Evaluation Report

Progressing Towards Employment at Crisis Skylight Edinburgh: Independent Evaluation Report

Oxford Challenge Brief

South Yorkshire Challenge Brief

Edinburgh Challenge Brief

Blogs

Evaluation will set you free

Co-production in testing – the art of the possible?

Data-driven co-production: Challenging our preconceptions

Running a marathon as a sprint: service design accelerated

 The need

We know from evidence that there are several risk factors, from domestic violence to bereavement and life transitions, that can increase a young person’s likelihood of coming into contact with the Justice System. In turn, this can negatively impact both their wellbeing and life chances. Whilst there is support and many services which respond to these issues, we identified an opportunity in South Lanarkshire to develop more preventative approaches, that would intervene earlier in a child’s life and improve their chances of thriving.

Our response

We believe that including young people in decisions about what support is best for them is a fundamental right and one which increases the likelihood of the support being needed and wanted. Through this partnership we will be working together to engage with the local community, seek opportunity for systems improvement and to evaluate potential impact. We do this by combining deep participatory co-design work, with systems leadership, relationship building and ongoing learning. We are supported by a dedicated steering group who represent partners from key local sectors and organisations to drive towards sustainable change.

The partners in this project are Action for Children, Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice, South Lanarkshire Council  and Dartington Service Design Lab. The project is funded by and  The National Lottery Community Fund’s Early Action System Change initiative.

Our work started in 2019 and is concluding in 2024.

 For more information, contact:   

Rachel Lily

Resources

Inclusion as Prevention website

National Lottery funded project to change our approach to children at risk of negative outcomes

Whole Systems Approach for Young People Who Offend 

Preventing offending: getting it right for children and young people

 Our response

Our approach to developing theory of change is creative, collaborative and systemic. In this project, we worked together with a university Researcher in Residence, BNSSG Integrated Care Board colleagues and Locality Partnership stakeholders over five workshops to co-develop a shared understanding of the root causes affecting health for the local population, as well as the ways that local services aspire to work together to collectively support health, wellbeing and a reduction of inequality.

The co-developed theories of change for the Woodspring and Weston, Worle and Villages Locality Partnerships reflect their commitment to working in partnership and show the pathway to change from an integrated health and social care perspective.

Resources

“Co-developing a theory of change to evaluate integrated working in two Locality Partnerships” by Dr Natalia Lewis.

North Somerset Partnership Podcast: “How to intrinsically evidence partnership working to know we are on the right path”.

 The need

The #iwill Fund brings together £40 million in funding from the DCMS and The National Lottery Community Fund. It aims to make social action part of life for as many 10 to 20 year-olds as possible by 2020. Funding is matched and distributed by other funders through programmes that enable more young people, particularly from less affluent communities, to take part in high quality social action that builds a habit for life. 

Our response

We are maximising the leaning created by the #iwill Fund to develop a rich body of knowledge on (i) how to increase the availability and sustainability of youth social action (ii) what outcomes youth social action can promote for young people and communities (iii) how delivery organisations can strengthen and improve their programme design, delivery, and monitoring.

The funder is the #iwill Fund – created by the National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Our consortium partners delivering the Learning Hub are Generation Change, Renaisi, and the Centre for Youth Impact.

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

All #iwill Fund Learning Hub reports and blogs can be found here

 The need

The #iwill Fund aims to make involvement in social action a part of life for young people, by recognising the benefit for both young people and their communities.

 The impact evaluation is looking to answer:

• What is the impact of #iwill Fund projects on young people and their communities?

• What is the impact on match funders and delivery partners from the #iwill Fund’s convening and other support?

• What is the overall value for money of the #iwill Fund?

The learning strand is interested in:

• How can youth social action be accessible to all young people?

• What are the most effective ways for funders and Delivery Organisations to measure the impact of youth social action?

• Are the opportunities provided by the #iwill Fund supporting a journey of youth social action for young people?

• What is the role of youth voice in ensuring the quality of youth social action?

Our response

Together with our partners at YMCA George Williams College, Renaisi and Ipsos we are collecting organisational monitoring information, completing case studies, conducting surveys with young people, and carrying out a cost-effectiveness analysis. We are doing all this alongside a learning strand utilising our rapid-cycle design and testing (RCDT) approach, which will encompass three test and learn cycles with match funders and delivery partners building on our previous work with the #iwill Fund Learning Hub. At the centre of all these strands of work is a Young Evaluators Network (YEN) who will feed into all elements of the #iwill Fund Impact Evaluation and Learning Contract.

The work was launched in April 2023 and will conclude in 2027

 For more information, contact:   Charlotte Woodhead & Julie Harris

 The need

Local authority children’s services are experiencing severe cuts in funding in the face of rising demand and increased placement costs. Such a context is making it harder to provide children at the high and lower ends of need with the right support in and out of the care system. Rising numbers of children in care overall but significant variation at local authority level point to the need for a systems approach which embraces complexity and shines a light on some of the negative system behaviours currently operating.  

Our response

We harness staff system insights to understand the problem behaviours currently operating in Derbyshire, Stockton-on-Tees, North Tyneside, and Blackpool local authority children’s services and use group model building techniques to develop system dynamics simulation models. These aid senior decision-makers in service design and re-design. We combine these systems methods with evidence-informed practice tools and rapid literature reviews to help our partner authorities better manage the flow of children through their social care systems and provide better services for children and their families.

The work is commissioned by  four  local authority partners  in England:  Derbyshire County Council,  Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, North Tyneside Council, and Blackpool Council. We are  supported in the work by  our expert partners in the U.S, the Social System Design Lab, part of  the Brown School at  Washington University in St. Louis, led by Professor Peter  Hovmand. 

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

Lab insight: Using system dynamics in children’s social care

Blog: Pressures on children’s social care - a systems response

 The need

Previous research has highlighted a systemic failure to understand and respond to children’s needs when families are presenting as homeless. In response, Barnardo’s have been designing and delivering Keys to the Future to support children and families impacted by homelessness in North Lanarkshire. Barnardo’s team have been working with key stakeholders from across education, social work, health and housing to help improve homelessness policy and processes. Barnardo’s are building upon existing relationships within North Lanarkshire to help design and deliver an approach that ensures homelessness policy and practice is child-centred and trauma-informed – adhering to principles and commitments of The Promise and UNCRC. 

Our response

The Dartington team will be working alongside Barnardo’s Keys to the Future team to implement a rapid-cycle design testing (RCDT) approach, which will encompass three tests-and-learn cycles. 

These cycles are designed to generate ‘three-tier’ learning for:  

1. Project team level: Providing the structure and tools to help the Keys to the Future team and local partners embed the Rapid-cycle Design and Testing approach in the design, implementation and refinement of homelessness provision and sustainability planning in North Lanarkshire.  

2. Barnardo’s Foundation level: Creating facilitated spaces to surface and aggregate up learning (via themes) about undertaking investments in developmental and summative approaches tackling systemic challenges.   

3. National policy and practice level: Designing from the outset an approach which has impact at scale in mind, and the focus upon producing contextualised, yet generalisable evidence that can be used to shape policy and practice across different areas in Scotland.   

 For more information, contact:   

Annalise Clelland

Resources

Rapid-cycle design and testing approach

The Promise: 2021-2024 Timeline Plan

Update on Keys to the Future: Responding to The Promise Oversight Board

 The need

The proposal responded to perceived weaknesses in community-based support and prevention, and pressures on those services providing high-support interventions.

Our response

Dartington’s core responsibilities included; mapping out the current financial resources to see where the money is being prioritised in the mental health provisions, further systems mapping of current services in place to identify gaps in provisions and collecting qualitative data from service providers and young people to understand the journey one might take to receive help.

Resources

You can read our final report here.

Our partners are Midlothian Council, NHS Lothian, Midlothian Health and Social Care Partnership, Sure Start, Midlothian Third Sector Interface, Midlothian’s Young People Advice Service and Midlothian Youth Platform.

 For more information, contact:   

Rachel Lily

The need

Research finds that the vast majority of violent crime occurs in very specific local areas*. This means that efforts to reduce violence must have a strong awareness of local need and centre energies in hyper-localities to create the biggest impact. Effectively engaging with communities is essential to understanding the specific context and informing interventions that support local resilience. It will also help YEF to achieve its aim to evidence how community engagement and co-design approaches can reduce experiences of violence among young people.

Our response

Dartington will act as a Learning Partner supporting community researchers and local people to build capacity for understanding and supporting change in context. In collaboration with local organisations Dartington Service Design Lab and Renaisi will support the delivery of:

(i) Theories of Change that will work to inform locally-owned action plans

(ii) Local capacity development through guidance and workshops.

(iii) Tools to track and understand the iterative development of activities over time.

We will also work with YEF to share learning across localities to inform understanding how empowering communities to design change impacts resilience among young people most impacted by violence and crime.

Renaisi is the lead partner in this project. The work is being commissioned by the YEF Neighbourhood Fund.

Our work started in September 2021 and is concluding in 2024.

 For more information, contact:   Megan Keenan

* Measured at the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) level.

 The need

The OKRFZ – established in Surrey Square Primary School – seeks to create the conditions and infrastructures for children and young people to thrive in the Old Kent Road area in London. It aims to develop approaches to understand local needs and context through community engagement, and design partnerships, services, social infrastructure and tests of change to tackle drivers of inequalities and help children thrive. There is a focus on shifting power and building local confidence, capacity and capabilities for the local OKRFZ partnership to ‘own’ this learning and development.

Our response

We have been commissioned to carry out a developmental evaluation primarily to support the ongoing development of the OKRFZ during this important formative period, alongside generating learning to inform Impact on Urban Health’s wider children’s mental health programme. The developmental evaluation aims to: 

1.  Take stock of learning to inform the continued development of OKRFZ’s vision, model development and strategies for change.

2. Understand opportunities, routes, and mechanisms for affecting change (in particular, the best role that OKRFZ and schools might play within the local system, and Impact on Urban Health as a funder.)

3. Inform a shared understanding of the conditions required to bring about such change, including how power is shared and redistributed and how the voice of young people, families and communities is elevated and influences decision-making.

4. Inform the development of the necessary partnerships, infrastructures and cases for further investment and support to inform the next steps for the OKRFZ.

The work was launched in March 2024

For more information, contact:   Charlotte Woodhead

The need

Face-to-face interventions like Murray and Cooper’s Shared Picture Book Programme can help to improve parent-child interactions and children’s language development. The inclusiveness of such interventions may be improved by online delivery and including families who historically are less likely to participate in them. Adaptations to mode and target population are big changes for any intervention that need to be well designed and carefully tested in an adaptive learning environment first.

Our response

Rapid-cycle design and testing is ideal for this early-stage formative testing. With Dartington’s support, the PEDAL team will use the 5 steps of rapid-cycle design and testing to quickly:

(1) adapt the book sharing activities/materials to online and the new population;

(2) monitor implementation as it’s happening and respond to events in real-time;

(3) analyse data and draw insights; and

(4) jointly reflect, interpret, and decide whether to adapt, keep going or discontinue.

The lead partner in this project is Cambridge PEDAL, with the work being commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation in partnership with EIF, the University of Reading, and the University of Bangor.

Our work started in September 2021 and concluded in October 2022.

For more information, contact:

Resources

Pedal Rapid-cycle design and testing learning report: Moving the “Playtime with Books” intervention online.

Journey map of a Rapid-cycle design and testing cycle in the “Playtime with Books” study.

 The need

Over recent years, Scotland has been working towards systemic change to help improve services and support for children and young people – for example, through The Promise and by incorporating the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law.

Our response

In recognition of the significant changes organisations will have to make in the coming years to develop and further align with rights-based approaches to support children and young people, CYCJ is guiding organisations and local authorities through implementing a service design approach (based on the Scottish Approach to Service Design). Dartington is closely supporting CYCJ to help ensure that children, families, and carers are at the heart of designing meaningful change and to facilitate developing and sharing skills in collaborative design within the sector.

The work with CYCJ was launched 2023

 For more information, contact: Katie Upsdale

Resources

The need

The Independent Care Review (2020) and the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government (2022) both stated that there should be no under-18s held within a Young Offenders Institution by 2024. The intention is not just that no child should be deprived of their liberty, but that development is needed to ensure that the ‘purpose, delivery and infrastructure’ that supports ‘secure care’ is therapeutic, and trauma-informed (The Promise, 2020)

Our response

Dartington is supporting the lead partner, Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), through the design process to help engage children, young people, families, carers, and a range of professional stakeholders that come in contact with people experiencing or are on the edge of secure care, to create a set of principles and options for the Scottish Government to support the implementation of meaningful and sustainable change.

Our work with CYCJ began in 2023

For more information, contact:   Katie Upsdale

 The need

Lack of access to mental health services is a systems issue. Many presenting are typically manifestations of underlying patterns, structures and dynamics of the systems and communities within which adolescents develop. The populations most at risk of poor mental health receive disproportionately lower investments and engagement in supports and services. This is particularly true for young people living in economically disadvantaged urban communities and those living in rural and remote communities.

 Our response

Working in collaboration with community groups in one urban and one rural location that have indicated high levels of poorer mental health and/or wellbeing, we propose to analyse existing datasets and evidence to understand how the known determinants of poor mental health manifest in these areas and how they impact upon the community and individuals. We will then take a collaborative systems dynamics approach to identifying gaps in services, building on existing evidence around the wider determinants of poor mental health in these local areas and co-design an ambitious approach to achieving good mental health and wellbeing, that is contextually relevant to each area but that also has the potential to scale nationwide.

What next?

Our first priority is to identify and work youth organisations and community groups tackling mental health in specific areas across London and Devon to help us understand the problem in greater detail through a systems thinking approach. We have set up a £10k partnership fund to help develop and support the partnership further.

The applications for this have now closed.

 For more information, contact:   Tim Hobbs

 The need

The early years are a critical period for children, yet those growing up in poverty are much less likely than their more affluent peers to benefit from experiences that support positive development. Local communities and partnerships can help create systems and conditions to support early learning, but often lack the  tools and approaches to design  evidence-informed and locally relevant system change efforts.  

Our response

We will undertake a comprehensive review of the evidence about ‘what matters’ in promoting early learning outcomes and ‘what works’ to improve these outcomes. This evidence, alongside reconnaissance and co-design with communities in Feltham, Margate, Newport and Sheffield, will inform the design of an engaging, practical Toolkit to help inform the design, implementation and ongoing refinement of local system change activities in those communities that Save the Children are working with.  

This work  is  commissioned by Save the Children UK.  The Toolkit was developed by the Lab, and the supporting Evidence Review was led by  Dr  Nick  Axford  at the University of Plymouth.  Collaborators  included Professor Kathy Sylva at the University of Oxford; Professor Jonathan Sharples from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and Bianca Albers from the Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI).

 For more information, contact:   

Tim Hobbs 

Resources

You can access the Early Learning Communities Toolkit by clicking on the link below and providing a little information.

Early Learning Communities Toolkit

You can also access the Rapid Evidence Review we conducted to inform the Toolkit development by clicking on the link below.

Improving  the early learning outcomes of children growing up in poverty: a rapid review of the evidence 

Blogs

Can Communities, Professionals and Research truly form evidence for systematic change?

‘Designers are everything… and nothing’: Remaking the place of Design in research

 The need

Before considering system reform, leaders need a clear map of the system to fully understand services available to 0-19-year olds and the typical pathways available to them. We cannot know where the system is working well, or where it requires bolstering, without this understanding. This is where Southend  currently  find themselves – needing to know what their current configuration of services are providing and where there may be gaps in provision.  

Our response

We are  creating  an interactive  map of services, covering a range of factors from who the service is targeted at  to what kind of child or family outcomes they deal with. Once complete the interactive map will be available to all partners and stakeholders to increase  the  shared understanding of services in Southend and where pathways can be strengthened. 

This work has been commissioned jointly by Southend A Better Start and Public Health  at  Southend Borough Council.

 For more information, contact:   

Resources

Blog: What next for evidence?

 The need

In recent times, Surrey has faced critique  of  long waiting times and inadequate support for children and young people who need it in Surrey. At the same time, mental health was identified as the top priority for change in Surrey in a survey of 18000 young people.  Surrey County Council are committed  to transformation by 2020  to ensure that the new services meet the needs of children and young people. 

Our response

We have learned from the experiences of children and young people, and their parents and carers who have accessed mental health support and services: what was helpful, not helpful, and could have been helpful. We have explored what parents who have not accessed services know about the system, and what support they would find helpful.  Through a series of engagement workshops we have understand the challenges of the professionals providing supports and services, and what the drivers of the challenges are, with a particular focus on system structures and behaviours. 

The work is commissioned by Surrey County Council, in partnership with the six Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in the region.

 For more information, contact:  

 The need

ThinkForward would like to optimise the FutureMe programme to support its ability to offer it to more schools across the country. They aim to understand ways the programme works and to identify improvements that can be made for future delivery.

Our response

Dartington Service Design Lab is working with ThinkForward to provide an evidence base for the effective delivery of the FutureMe programme. We are analysing the existing data to understand what works, when and for whom. The next stage will be to improve the data infrastructure to enable Rapid Cycle Design and Testing of a modularised delivery approach.

Our work with ThinkForward began in 2023 and will run until August 2024

For more information, contact:   Sean Manzi

 The need

It is estimated that 1 in 6 young people have a diagnosable mental illness - a statistic that has grown from 1 in 10 in recent years. The Centre for Mental Health argues that young people’s mental health is “underfunded”, which is contributing to “sporadic and limited provision”. As a result, there are significant concerns over the decline in young people’s mental health and wellbeing in the UK - and a need for a swift response to address its wider determinants and how these can be effectively tackled. This is particularly poignant and needed following the pandemic. We know that youth workers are often best placed to support young people with their mental health needs, and this work with UK Youth aims to explore how the Thriving Minds Fund can offer a platform to allow youth workers across the sector to comfortably and safely start mental health conversations with the young people they work with.

Our response

Our Partnership with UK Youth commenced in May 2022 with a focus on the work of grantees, the activities they engage in and the support they need to deliver services. Thriving Minds Fund facilitates a “grants plus” learning and support offer and we aim to understand how grantees engage and use it to strengthen provision for young people in their own youth settings.

Within the first year our intention is to better understand the needs and demands of grantees and the young people they work with, alongside the wider system. In year two and three we will build upon the learning from the first year and strengthen, focus, learn from and adapt the grant-making and accompanying support offer over time.

Our role as a learning partner will enable us to understand learning within the grantee community and how this learning develops across focus areas of activity and between regional contexts.

This learning will support UK Youth to:

1. Help to focus grant support for greatest impact.

2. Strengthen youth sector infrastructure in relation to mental health provision.

3. Widen and deepen cross-sector partnerships.  

We will then support UK Youth to make evidence-based decisions to programme development within the three years. We will also develop collective insight into how organisations have been supported to develop their capacity and capabilities around mental health, their understanding of a youth-work relevant active-ingredients framework, and to deepen their relationships with others in the sector and within the wider mental health space to promote sustainability.

Our work with UK Youth began in May 2022

For more information contact:   Ediane Santana De Lima

 The need

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is providing funding to Uniformed Youth Organisations to establish new groups/units in deprived areas in England, currently underserved by Uniformed Youth Organisations.

Our response

Dartington has formed the Uniformed Youth Advisory Board (YAB), a group of 16-25-year-old members from a range of Uniformed Youth Groups. We are working with the YAB to review the design of data collection tools, and other materials used in the evaluation which are aimed at young people, to ensure the evaluation is informed by and accessible to young people.

The work was launched July 2023

 For more information contact:   Leanne Freeman

We are hosting a series of clinics based around four topic areas, designed in response to the grantee preference survey results. The goal of these clinics is to further develop your knowledge and skills in creating a robust Theory of Change and logical, consistent plans for your programme’s monitoring, evaluation, learning and refinement.

We encourage you to click on the sections below to find resources that may support this goal.

Topic 2 resources are all about translating a Theory of Change into a practical Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) framework

Topic 3 resources are all about collecting and analysis data to verify a MEL framework

Topic 4 resources are all about practising evidence-drive learning and refinement

RESOURCES FOR TOPIC 1: APPRAISING THE QUALITY OF A THEORY OF CHANGE

Here is a list of useful resources we believe will help you.

• Theory of Change Webinar Series - Part 1

• Insight Brief 2: Learning and Adapting to Support Young People During the COVID-19 Pandemic: How a Core Components Approach Can Help

• Inspiring Impact’s Jargon Buster

• Appraisal Checklist: Theory of Change

• A glossary of Theory of Change terms

  We will continue to update this section.

RESOURCES FOR TOPIC 3: COLLECTING AND ANALYSING DATA TO VERIFY A MEL FRAMEWORK

Here is a list of useful resources we believe will help you.

• Insights Brief 1: Engaging young people during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Inspiring Impact’s jargon buster

Understanding what counts as data and evidence:

• What does ‘rigour’ mean? Lessons from the Iraq war

What you need to do before collecting and analysing data:

• Inspiring Impact’s guidance on developing a measurement framework:

  • A tool for mental health and wellbeing charities

  • A tool for education charities

• Inspiring Impact’s Choosing a Data Management System: Frontline Perspective

• Education Endowment Fund’s SPECTRUM database of assessment tools for child and adolescent outcomes

• Youth Endowment Fund’s guidance on the use and analysis of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (a widely used assessment tool for behaviours, emotions and relationships in 4-17-year olds

• Youth Endowment Fund’s guidance on the use and analysis of the Self Report Delinquency Scale (SRDS) (an assessment tool for antisocial and offending behaviours)

• Guidance on the use and analysis of Therapeutic Alliance Scale for Children-revised (TASC-r), an assessment tool for quality of the therapeutic relationship between practitioners and young people

How to support high quality data collection and analysis on an ongoing basis:

• CAST are a digital skills charity that help others in the third sector to develop the skills and tools to make the most out of technology.

  • CAST can provide advice on where to apply for technological resources like laptops and tablets for staff (contact information here)

  • CAST offer free skills training for staff via their “Design Hops” (more information here)

 The need

Social Work services always work for the best interest of the children and young people they support. However, with so many people in each young person’s life and so many important life decisions happening, it can be hard to ensure that young people’s voices are truly heard and acted upon. Young people shared with us that they don’t want new tools or feedback forms, but simply to have more meaningful conversations with those who support them. These approaches will be vital for Local Authorities in Scotland implementing the Independent Care Review’s ‘Promise’, which stipulates young people’s views must form a pivotal part of care plans.

Our response

In response, we have engaged with over forty young people, thirty practitioners and multiple parents, carers and subject experts to co-create the ‘Meaningful Conversations Framework’, supporting training and tools. Over three phases, we undertook deep research into current communication in Renfrewshire Children’s Social Care, looking at technical options and the feasibility of implementing new approaches. We prioritised these insights with young people and Social Work managers, before using them to develop the first ‘Meaningful Conversations Framework’ which we refined with a co-design group of Social Work staff, who also supported us in creating the online training, a suite of physical tools and posters. The aim is for these resources to support consistent high quality conversations with young people across care settings, and enable staff to continuously reflect upon and adapt their practice based on what young people tell them is important. We’d love to share the findings of this work with anyone else who is interested in implementing meaningful conversations into service delivery, get in touch to find out more.

This partners in this project are Renfrewshire Council and We Are Snook Design Agency.
This project is funded by the Life Changes Trust.  

Our work started in 2019 and concluded in 2021.

For more information, contact:   

 The need

Today, 12 more children and young people in the UK will hear the devastating news that they have cancer. Treatment normally starts immediately, is often given many miles from home and can last for up to three years. Although survival rates are over 80%, cancer remains the single largest cause of death from disease in children and young people in the UK. Many of the psychosocial needs of children and young people with cancer may not be met due to the increasing pressure being placed on the health and care sector. This needs exploring, with and for children and young people with cancer experience to ensure their voices are heard.

Our response

We are launching experience-led research with Edge Hill University, co-designed by children and young people with cancer experience, their parents and guardians and key stakeholders. The aim of the research is to improve policies and practice around cancer support. It also hopes to model equitable research practices when working with young people, particularly those with experience of cancer.

Research will be taking place throughout the first half of 2023 with initial findings expected in the autumn. Young Lives vs Cancer, Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG), the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, and Teenage Cancer Trust will be using the research findings to shape their future strategic thinking.

The work was launched January 2023 and ended in April 2024.

 For more information, contact:   Leanne Freeman

Resources

This document contains the press release for this project. Should you wish for an exclusive quote, please contact Communications Manager, Rachel Lily. 

The final report can be read here.

FAQs about the survey - Updated September 2023

Survey privacy notice - Updated September 2023

Polish / język polski - CZĘSTO ZADAWANE PYTANIA

Polish / język polski -INFORMACJA O OCHRONIE PRYWATNOŚCI

Punjabi / پنجابی - ਅਕਸਰ ਪੁੱਛੇ ਜਾਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਸਵਾਲ

Punjabi / پنجابی - ਪਰਦੇਦਾਰੀ ਨੋਟਿਸ

Romanian / limba română - ÎNTREBĂRI FRECVENTE

Romanian / limba română - NOTIFICARE PRIVIND CONFIDENȚIALITATEA

Russian / русский - ЧАСТО ЗАДАВАЕМЫЕ ВОПРОСЫ

Russian / русский - УВЕДОМЛЕНИЕ О ПОРЯДКЕ ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЯ ЛИЧНОЙ ИНФОРМАЦИИ

Ukrainian / Українська мова - ЧАСТІ ПИТАННЯ

Ukrainian / Українська мова - ПОВІДОМЛЕННЯ ПРО КОНФІДЕНЦІЙНІСТЬ

Urdu / اردو اکثر پوچھے گئے سوالات

Urdu / اردو - پرائیویسی نوٹس

Welsh / Cymraeg - CWESTIYNAU CYFFREDIN

Welsh / Cymraeg - HYSBYSIAD PREIFATRWYDD

Arabic / العربية - الأسئلة الشائعة

Arabic / العربية -  إشعار الخصوصية