At Barnardo's our purpose is clear - Changing Childhoods and Changing Lives, so that children, young people, and families are safe, happy, healthy, and hopeful.
Barnardo’s new three-year Strategy, beginning in April 2024, will help us address the challenges facing the children, young people, and families who need us most.
This has been co-created in partnership with our colleagues, volunteers, young people, and external partners. It’s important we collectively own this Strategy so that whatever your role is, whatever your responsibilities are, we all play a role in delivering for the charity and working towards our purpose.
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Developing our Strategy
The Strategy is the result of months of co-creation with colleagues, volunteers, partners, and children and young people.
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Our Strategy 2024 - 2027
The new three-year Strategy is our focus for the future, putting children, young people, and families at the heart of what we do.
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Theory of Change
The Theory of Change underpins our Strategy, providing greater detail on what we'll do for children and young people, and how we'll do it.
Supporting our Strategy
Download the Strategy slides
An accessible version of our new Strategy is available in PowerPoint format. Download the slides so you have it to hand, can share with colleagues and stakeholders, and so you can refer back to it when planning.
Purpose statement
Our purpose statement is:
Changing childhoods, changing lives.
Working with young people to be safe, happy, healthy, and hopeful.
This purpose statement is at the heart of everything we do – it's our guiding north star and the green thread that flows through our work. This should always be the first answer to questions about what Barnardo’s is here to do – replacing things like ‘better outcomes for more children’; ‘no child turned away’ and ‘believe in children’.
The new Statement has been tested thoroughly. Most importantly, it makes sense to children and young people and they have been able to connect easily and meaningfully with this purpose statement.
Outcomes Framework
The Outcomes Framework is a key foundation of our new Strategy, 2024 - 2027. It will help us to better measure and communicate how we are making a positive difference for children and young people so they are safer, happier, healthier, and more hopeful.
Our brand
Our brand is more than just a logo. Our brand is what makes us memorable to our audiences. It stands for who we are and what we do.
The previous Barnardo's brand was over 10 years old and was no longer doing what we needed to inspire people to support the charity. We needed something new to go alongside our new three-year Strategy to help us to reach new parts of the Barnardo's community, including younger and more diverse audiences. The new brand will give us a fresh, modern and engaging, sound, look, and feel, which children, young people, and families will connect with.
Find out more about the brand, how it's evolved over the years, and how you can use it in your work.
One-year operational plans (2024 - 2025)
To bring the Strategy to life and to make sure every colleague has a shared ownership and sense of purpose, we will be creating one-year operational plans.
We’ll be working closely with teams and managers to develop these annual plans for across the charity, alongside some key measures to help make sure we know we’re making progress against our new Strategy.
This planning is already in motion and will continue until the end of March, ready for us to get started on our plans and visions for the new financial year, starting on 1 April.
We will repeat this each year of the three-year Strategy to ensure we are still delivering the work and support which is most relevant in an ever-changing environment.
Changing Childhoods, Changing Lives report
To support our Strategy, we released our report, Changing Childhoods, Changing Lives to the public.
The report highlights some of the major challenges affecting children and young people across the UK and how Barnardo’s aims to drive a positive societal change by 2027.
We know that today, over 4.2 million children in the UK– one in four - are living in poverty, and we believe in 2024, no child should grow up in poverty.
The report outlines our commitment to invest in direct help for the families we support who are living in poverty, so they can afford the essentials we often take for granted. Read the full report on our website.