Fed up with traditional Theories of Change? Try Dartington’s integrated approach.

Scotland Director

Theories of Change elicit a range of responses across the children’s services sector. Some people love the clarity, precision, and accountability that come with a Theory of Change. Others roll their eyes, viewing it as an exercise in futility.

There are many different approaches to producing a Theory of Change. It can be a tricky balancing act between bold ambition and feasibility. Go too big, and your Theory of Change feels unattainable and fails to become a useful tool. Get too boxed in by practicalities, and it feels uninspiring. 

We’d argue for a Theory of Change to be useful, it must adopt an integrated approach. We talk about the strengths of an integrated approach in our strategy paper launched early last year. We have been attempting to further progress it ever since (with a lot of success, failure, and learning along the way).

Challenges faced when creating Theories of Change

There are two common challenges with Theory of Change work that we feel an integrated approach has the potential to overcome.

• Challenge 1: Theories of Change can fail to take the wider system into account. This means a lot of effort is wasted trying to bring about change in the wrong or least impactful part of the system.

• Challenge 2: Theories of Change can become a tick box exercise. Viewed as an ‘endpoint,’ they end up sitting on a shelf only to be dusted off for the next funding application or annual report.

Using an integrated approach, we blend together systems thinking and service design methods to support the development of systemically-informed, action-orientated Theory of Change.

We adopted this approach in partnership with the Scotland-based early years funder Cattanach to support them to develop their Theory of Change. Kate Tobin, Scotland Director, explains, “It was one of the first times where we've integrated the different approaches from systems thinking, Theory of Change development to service design in a way that is aligned with our strategy within a project, where the different methods speak to and build on one another.”

Our work involved three key phases over a year-long period:

Phase 1. Systems mapping with key stakeholders across the early years sector.

This systems-wide lens allowed us to identify key leverage points for change. It helped us to take a deeper dive - in an evidence-informed way - to identify where Cattanach could achieve the biggest impact. We were able to collate expertise from across early years’ service providers, experts in child development, and funders to produce a map of the early years ecosystem in Scotland. Most importantly, we were able to identify with Cattanach and their partners where it is most meaningful for them to engage and change that wider system.

“By beginning with systems thinking, you start with the bigger picture. You get a lay of the land and the interconnected relationships,” said Kate Tobin.

Phase 2. Co-creating a Theory of Change with Cattanach and their grantees.

Building on workshops with Cattanach and grantees, we were able to pull out a clear understanding of what, how, and why Cattanach does their work. This was then connected with the systems map and leverage points for alignment and refinement. 

Sophie Flemig, CEO at Cattanach said: “We benefited highly from the Theory of Change work with Dartington Service Design Lab. It allowed us to sit alongside our partners - grantees, sector leaders, funding colleagues - and collaborate on solutions. Overall, the Theory of Change process helped us understand where we are and provided a great starting point for our new strategy development this year.”

Phase 3. Identifying feasible and relevant ‘tests of change’ through service design approaches.

We were able to begin developing prototypes grounded in the Theory of Change for Cattanach to test. These were led by those who had been engaged in a co-design process over the course of the year. This was intended to help ensure the Theory of Change was action orientated.

Katie Potter, Senior Service Designer at Dartington Service Design Lab said: “I think it's interesting how each element helped and contributed to the design.  Service designers use a “double diamond” method to visualise the process of starting off, expanding on the problem, coming back together, and expanding again on the response. This helps to think about ways in which you can solve a problem. The Theory of Change was really bolstered and supported by having done a systems analysis which allowed Cattanach to see where they were now and also where they could be in the future. Without the systems work, it would have been a much narrower conversation. Looking at it from different perspectives is quite an interesting way of seeing how each discipline can complement another and support with different outputs from a different lens.”

Building a systemic and action-oriented Theory of Change

We think a Theory of Change needs to include a strong and evidence-based, understanding of context. For Darington, this understanding is developed using systems dynamics tools like causal maps to help explain the leverage points for change. This analysis takes us beyond the more typical ‘barriers and enablers’ discussion that is common in a Theory of Change process to building a picture of how change actually happens in the system. This enables services, funders, and organisations to align their work with the existing patterns, relationships, and structures that drive change in their context.  

Building a Theory of Change is fundamentally a process for articulating ‘how’ we think change happens, why that change is important and what we think our own role should be in driving forward that change. In order to make sure theories of change are pragmatic and actionable - that they do more than ‘sit on a shelf’ - we need design tools like prototyping to help translate ideas into actions.

This project was intentionally designed so that each element built upon strengthened the other - so that an evaluation tool, like Theory of Change, is improved by systems dynamics and made actionable through design prototyping. In Theory of Change development, doing the system mapping first helps an organisation to position themselves and their activities in a way that will be most impactful. The service design component helps ensure the approach is action-oriented with the Theory of Change functioning as a decision-making tool (not an ‘end point’ where nothing changes as a result).

Catherine-Rose Stocks-Rankin, Director for Learning and Impact at Dartington Service Design Lab offers a final reflection on the value of this approach:

“I’ve been building theories of change for the last dozen years, and this bridging of approaches - from evaluation tools, to systems dynamics, to design - is the most rigorous and the most practical approach I’ve seen to building an organisational understanding of how change happens, and one’s own role in creating that change. It’s been wonderful to see Cattanach embrace this learning for their own strategy - and particularly good that we were able to bring grantees, other funders, and experts in the early years into the process together. The diversity of those perspectives really helps ensure Cattanach has a solid theory and foundation to build from in their work.”

In the coming weeks, we will share part two, where we will explore further our learning about applying the integrated approach into this work with Cattanach. In the meantime, if you’d like to find out more about how our integrated approach has been applied in Scotland, and lessons learned from our Theory of Change work, please contact Kate Tobin, Scotland Director.