OUR PROJECTS
We learn through doing – you can find out about our current and recent projects and partners here.
OLD KENT ROAD FAMILY ZONE
Developmental Evaluation
This five-year project, with core funding from Impact on Urban Health to the Old Kent Road Family Zone (OKRFZ), aims to strengthen governance arrangements and understanding of local needs to tackle drivers of inequalities and help children thrive. Our developmental evaluation on this aims to bolster learning and support equitable approaches to decision-making to affect change.
Integrated Care Board
Theory of Change
Dartington Service Design Lab, alongside the University of Bristol, has been working with two Locality Partnerships in the Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care System (BNSSG ICS) to develop a theory of change and evaluation framework for their contribution to population health outcomes.
#iwill Fund Impact Evaluation and Learning CONTRACT
Evaluation | Rapid-cycle design and testing
#iwill Fund, YMCA George Williams College, Renaisi and Ipsos
Dartington Service Design Lab are the lead partner in the #iwill Fund Impact Evaluation and Learning Contract.
The #iwill Fund is a collaboration between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), working with match funders to support young people to access high quality social action. Social action involves activities such as campaigning, fundraising, and volunteering, all of which enable young people to make a positive difference in their communities as well as develop their own skills and knowledge.
Barnardo’s SUTTON SEND TRANSFORMATION
Service Design | Learning Partner
Barnardo’s and London Borough of Sutton
Barnardo’s and the London Borough of Sutton have commissioned Dartington Service Design Lab as a Learning Partner to support their work in co-designing and implementing a more consistent and inclusive multi-disciplinary model of support for children and young people with SEND and additional needs to improve their lived experiences within Sutton.
This work is being developed as part of wider systems change in relation to SEND support for councils in England and how provision operates, ensuring accessibility and appropriate support at the right time.
CHANCE UK
Theory of Change and evaluation
Chance UK is solution-focused mentoring and support charity which works with children and families to reduce the impact of trauma on their lives. The charity works to support children aged 8-14 experiencing behavioural and emotional difficulties in a needs-led and strengths-based way to develop skills which can protect them from risks in the future. Chance UK collaborates with others (e.g. education, health, social work) to support children in realising a brighter future. Chance UK work directly with young people with a 1-2-1 mentoring programme at the centre of its delivery model, with other curriculum and skills-based activities to support positive change. The charity also conducts direct work with parents and carers in developing their skills and knowledge to gain a holistic view of the young people they are working with, and to ensure their work is meaningful for families.
CONNECTED FUTURES: ACTION RESEARCH FOR BLACKPOOL PARTNERSHIP
Theory of Change, evaluation and Rapid-cycle design and testing
Youth Futures Foundation Renaisi
Connected Futures is a £16m programme that seeks to change the journey from education to employment for young people facing exclusion and disadvantage. It aims to support the development of local approaches to youth employment that put young people at the heart of the system, from schools and employers to housing, health and care. Blackpool is one of several areas funded by the Youth Futures Foundation to embark on systemic changes to reduce the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
UNIFORMED YOUTH
Co-design and evaluation
Ipsos and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
The Uniformed Youth Fund is part of the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’ to ensure every young person across England will have access to regular out of school activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer. Together with our partners at Ipsos, we are evaluating how successful the Fund has been in its goal of reducing waiting lists, and exploring how young people may benefit from being part of Uniformed Youth Groups.
REIMAGINING SECURE CARE
Systems Thinking and Service Design
Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ)
Reimagining Secure Care is a systemic change programme in Scotland to transform children and young people’s experiences of settings where their liberty is deprived and to find alternatives to being removed from their families and communities to access the additional support they need.
REIMAGINING JUSTICE WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE: BUILDING RIGHTS-RESPECTING SERVICES TOGETHER
Systems Thinking and Service Design
Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ)
Reimagining Justice is a programme of transformational change to help redefine services for children and young people on the cusp of or in conflict with the law in Scotland.
YEF Neighbourhood Fund
Place-based evaluation
Youth Endowment Fund and Renaisi
The Youth Endowment Fund’s ‘Neighbourhood Fund’ is a partnership with select local communities where young people are more vulnerable to experiencing crime and violence across England and Wales. In each locality, the Neighbourhood Fund partners with community members and organisations to understand the problems that their communities are facing, and co-design solutions that are responsive to local needs. The aim of this work is to better understand how empowering people to design solutions for their local neighbourhood needs can build resilience amongst young people who are vulnerable to experiencing crime and violence.
Becoming a man
Programme evaluation and adaptation
Youth Endowment Fund and Youth Guidance
We are evaluating the feasibility and supporting the adaptation of Becoming A Man (BAM), a two-year, group-based intervention delivered in schools with adolescent boys. Developed in Chicago and brought to London for the first time, BAM tries to improve education outcomes and reduce criminal activity by promoting positive youth development.
THINKFORWARD
Rapid-cycle design and testing
The ThinkForward: FutureMe programme works with young people to support their continuation in education, employment, and training and to prevent them from being identified as “Neet.” They use a blended approach of one-to-one and group coaching sessions delivered by trained coaches who support the young people to work through the seven work “work readiness capabilities” of being; self-aware, driven, resilient, self-assured, organised, and a good communicator. These qualities have been identified as being desirable by employers. The programme also offers business mentoring, CV writing and interview skills workshops, work experience placements, and parental engagement.
GROSVENOR HART HOMES
Research and service design
Grosvenor Hart Homes is a new social enterprise on a mission to improve the life chances of vulnerable children, young people, and their families.
Keys to the Future: Family homelessness, the forgotten needs of children
Learning partnership and service design
Keys to the Future is a joint learning partnership between Barnardo’s and Dartington that seeks to embed the Rapid-cycle design and testing approach to the design, implementation, and refinement of homelessness provision and sustainability planning in North Lanarkshire for families.
UK YOUTH THRIVING MINDS FUND: LEARNING AND EVALUATION PARTNERSHIP
Research and learning partnership
We are working in partnership with leading youth work charity UK Youth to support the youth work sector to develop their capacity, knowledge, and sustainability of their services in addressing young people’s mental health needs. Together we’re using learning and insight to guide the strategic development of the Thriving Minds Fund over a three and a half year period.
YOUNG LIVES VS CANCER
Systems thinking and service design
Young Lives vs Cancer, Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG), Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and Teenage Cancer Trust
We are working in partnership with leading cancer charities, Young Lives vs Cancer, Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG), Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and Teenage Cancer Trust to build a new evidence base looking at the needs of young cancer patients and how the current system supports them. The research will identify gaps and what needs to happen in order to build a better future for children and young people diagnosed with cancer.
Career ahead
Evaluation: feasibility and pilot study
Making the Leap and Youth Futures Foundation
We are carrying out a participatory pilot study to determine whether Career Ahead can be delivered as intended and contribute to improvements in skills, cultural capital, education and employment outcomes.
LAMBETH EARLY ACTION PARTNERSHIP (LEAP) Evaluation
Service evaluation
Lambeth Early Action Partnership (LEAP)
Using a community participatory approach, we are working with a team of community researchers from Lambeth to undertake a mixed method developmental and summative evaluation of LEAP which is A Better Start Project in Lambeth.
YOUTH ENDOWMENT FUND,
multi-project
Service development, learning and evaluation
We are working as an evaluator and Learning Partner for the Youth Endowment Fund, supporting their work with those at risk of youth violence.
The projects we are currently working on are: Becoming a Man, Pause For Thought, COVID-19 Learning Partnership, Big Brothers Little Sisters and Neighbourhood Fund.
PEDAL BOOK TO BASICS RAPID-CYCLE PROJECT
Evaluation: rapid-cycle design and testing
University of Cambridge PEDAL Centre
We have joined forces with PEDAL to apply our rapid-cycle design and testing approach in a new and exciting way. For us, it’s learning how our approach works when driven by others, with us riding along and coaching in the backseat. For our partners, it’s learning whether they can use our approach to quickly adapt for online delivery of an evidence-based face-to-face book sharing intervention.
INCLUSION AS PREVENTION
Public system reform
Action for Children, Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice, South Lanarkshire Council and The National Lottery Scotland Community Fund
Inclusion as Prevention is a system change initiative seeking to collaboratively re-shape the design and delivery of preventative services for young people who are at risk of involvement in offending. The aim is to shift practice from reactive and crisis driven approaches, to instead identify and intervene at an earlier in young peoples’ lives.
MIDLOTHIAN EARLY ACTION PARTNERSHIP (MEAP)
Public system reform
Midlothian Council and National Lottery Community Fund Scotland
We have been selected to support MEAP, a programme dedicated to effect system change so that children, young people and young adults are able to get timely and appropriate mental health support.
Connected from the start
System dynamics analysis
Home Start, Shift, Clear Honest Design, Nesta and Catalyst
Connected from the Start is a design collaboration between early years charities that aims to develop a product or service which will help volunteers, community connectors and social entrepreneurs to help parents with children in the early years during the COVID-19 response and beyond.
Harvard Frontiers of Innovation
Service development and evaluation
Harvard Center on the Developing Child
Over the last few years, both the Dartington Service Design Lab and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University have been working on approaches to help accelerate the impact of early years services. In 2019, we collaborated with the Harvard Center, to run three days of training on the IDEAS Impact Framework: a new approach to service development and evaluation, created by the Center.
EARLY LEARNING COMMUNITIES TOOLKIT
Strategy development and evidence review
We have worked with Save the Children UK and partners to create an evidence-informed Toolkit to support local system change activities aimed at improving children’s early learning outcomes. This is underpinned by an evidence review and extensive co-design with local partners.
Early Action
Public system reform and service design
Renfrewshire Council, Engage Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership and the Ariel Trust
We are working in partnership to undertake a three-year system change initiative to promote young people’s emotional wellbeing and to address emotional coercive control in adolescent relationships. It forms part of the National Lottery Community Fund’s Early Action System Change Fund tackling the root causes of inequality.
FNP ADAPT
Rapid-cycle design and testing
The Family Nurse Partnership is adapting its home visiting parenting programme to enable their highly trained Family Nurses to deliver a more personalised programme to their clients, who are first time young mothers. FNP site have also designed some changes to the clinical content that they deliver that is also being tested.
Keeping more children safely at home
Public system reform
Derbyshire County Council, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, North Tyneside Council, and Blackpool Council
Using system dynamics we are helping local authorities to understand system behaviours operating within their children’s social care services, to help improve policy, process, and practice and ultimately to keep more children safely at home with their families.
Positive Destinations for Care Leavers
Public system reform and service design
Barnardo’s, Plymouth Council and Brent Council
We are working in collaboration with Barnardo’s and local authorities in Plymouth and Brent to support more care-experienced young people to be in employment, education or training by the age of 19-21.
ThE #iwill Fund Learning Hub
Strategy development and evidence review
Dartington Service Design Lab are the lead partners in the #iwill Fund Learning Hub. We’re working with Match Funders, delivery organisations and evaluators to maximise learning and develop knowledge about how to fund, deliver, and sustain high-quality youth social action that can benefit young people and their communities.
My Future
Rapid-cycle design and testing
A project aimed at improving a child mentoring service using rapid cycle design and testing. We have partnered with Chance UK to improve the design, implementation and continuous monitoring of the My Future project: a 9-month child mentoring service delivered to 50 children in Camden and Southwark, London.
Creating the Best Start in Life in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Strategy development
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Councils
Dartington Service Design Lab are partnering with Collaborate to build and operationalise a strategy for the Early Years with the local authorities in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire. We are bringing local data, research evidence and professionals and service user views together to create a solution that responds pragmatically to local need.
Service Mapping in Southend
Public system reform and data analysis and visualisation
Southend A Better Start and Public Health at Southend Borough Council
We are currently working with Southend A Better Start and Public Health at Southend Borough Council to map the services currently available to families with children from conception to age 19. This is to understand the current service landscape in Southend and aid future system reform.
Your Voice, Your Way
Service design
Renfrewshire Children’s Social Care and Snook
We are working in partnership with Renfrewshire Children’s Social Care and Snook to transform the way young people’s experiences are heard and acted upon within the care system. Key to the project is the co-design of a feedback tool that can be mapped against a new young person-centred quality assurance framework.
ChildrenCount
Data analysis and visualisation
Renfrewshire Council, A Better Start, Perth and Kinross, Dundee, Angus and North Ayrshire Council
The ChildrenCount Wellbeing surveys have been designed to capture data from children, young people and parents about a range of Key Developmental Outcomes and Risk Factors as they current experience them. Data has been collected from across England and Scotland to help inform strategy in local authorities.
Making SafeSkills evaluation ready
Data analysis and visualisation
We have partnered with the Ariel Trust for almost 7 years in various forms. This latest work sought to standardise data collection from children participating in the SafeSkills Child Sexual Exploitation education programme so that Ariel could monitor and evaluate the delivery, and possible effect, of the programme internally.
DESIGNING THE RIGHT CARE TOGETHER
Public system reform and service design
Surrey County Council and the six associated Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)
We are working with Surrey County Council and the six associated Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to inform the redesign of the emotional wellbeing and mental health services for children and young people in Surrey.
Hothouses for Innovation
Service design
The Hothouses for Innovation initiative is a partnership with Crisis, the national homelessness charity. It is a service design initiative aimed at improving services and outcomes for those who might benefit from Crisis support, employing design thinking and rapid cycle testing methods.
BETTER OUTCOMES NEW DELIVERY
Service development
Salford are championing a new way of supporting families in crisis, on the brink of the care system. By incorporating a family resilience lens to their work, they hope to reduce the incidence of family breakdown, keeping families together whenever possible.
System Mapping Homelessness
Public system reform and data analysis and visualisation
Center for Homelessness Impact
We are working with the Centre for Homelessness Impact to make sense of the complexity of homelessness. With experts in the field we are building a system map that charts the inter-related causes and consequences of homelessness to guide action in a complex world.
Collective Impact Study
Public system reform
EY Foundation, Chance UK and Leap Confronting Conflit
The is a feasibility study in three towns in England, exploring the readiness and suitability for long-term investment under a collective impact framework. We will conduct interviews and workshops with stakeholders from the public, private and voluntary sectors, focus groups with young people and town visits.
Reimagining Help
Evidence translation
In partnership with Nesta, Macmillan Cancer Support, British Heart Foundation and the Centre for Behaviour Change at UCL, we are designing the specification for a service that will offer ‘Good Help’ to those with lived experience of cancer or cardiovascular disease.
