Systems Thinking: training, coaching and learning journeys
Chief Executive Officer
If you are working to improve outcomes for children and young people, how often do you feel that you are just putting a sticking plaster on the issues experienced?
I suspect the answer is ‘quite a lot of time’ – irrespective of whether you are a Head of Service within a Children’s Services team, leading an Integrated Health and Social Care System, or managing or delivering services for children and families.
Too often we are stuck in a vicious cycle of reacting to crises, acute needs or serving those that shout the loudest. Our well-intentioned responses may be a necessary short-term fix but can often inadvertently exacerbate issues longer-term and widen inequalities.
It takes a different mindset and toolbox to think and act differently. Systems Thinking is one such way – a liberating and expansive approach that can help unlock new ways of exploring challenges and seeing opportunities for systemic change.
I vividly recall my first experiences in systems thinking. I’d been trained to think in relatively linear terms: trajectories of child development; the cause and effect of different services or interventions; care pathways through different systems of support.
But a decade ago my colleagues and I connected with the Social Systems Design Lab in St Louis. I was introduced to systems thinking, and my way of viewing the world changed – no exaggeration!
I began to see that the experiences of children and young people are the product of interacting influences, and that underlying dynamics drive different experiences and inequalities over time. The same is true for how different systems of support operate (manifested in various ways such as escalating caseloads, short-term fixes that cause longer-term problems, or shifting the problem to elsewhere in the system).
But crucially, once understood, these underlying dynamics can be influenced to bring about deeper systemic change – particularly when bringing different partners from across a system or community together.
This introduction to systems thinking was pivotal to Dartington Service Design Lab. For the last decade, it has shaped our focus on systemic change across areas such as children’s social care, mental health, early years and youth justice. It is now driving further our focus on inequalities.
Our new Systems Thinking training and Learning Journey offer
We are now delighted to bring these tools and ways of thinking to a wider audience via a new suite of training and learning opportunities. This includes an engaging, online introductory system thinking course; a bespoke, in-person training for teams or partnerships; and an applied, cohort-based learning journey programme where folks can bring a systemic challenge to be worked through in practice (in cohorts or teams, with training inputs, peer-to-peer learning, coaching, and learning resources).
Who is it for?
These training and learning opportunities are for anyone working to improve outcomes and tackle inequalities for children, young people, and families. This includes:
System leaders and senior managers (in local government, integrated care systems or health and social care partnerships)
Practitioners and service managers working with children and families – across a range of statutory and voluntary services and community settings.
Funders and commissioners – from public systems, trusts, foundations, or social research funders.
The training, concepts and tools can be applied across a range of systemic challenge areas, including but not limited to:
Early years
Children’s mental health and wellbeing
Child Protection and Children’s Social Care
Early Help and Early Intervention
Youth violence prevention
Education, employment and training
Alleviation of poverty and inequality
Interested in booking onto one of our Systems Thinking training packages? Or want to find out more? Take a look here for further information and to sign up.
Our next available online introduction is coming up fast (Dec 4th and 5th) and rolls monthly thereafter.
We hope you’ll join us and begin to see the world differently too!
