Practice advice

Safeguarding can sometimes be seen as a barrier to systems change. Of course, doing something new can never be risk free, as there’s always an element of the unknown. What we can do though is minimise that risk by starting small, for example, with a pilot, and proactively looking out for any safeguarding issues. 

The Service Design Team have created some child-centred resources, which may be useful to reference when engaging with children and young people with this kind of work.

When you’ve got a clear understanding of your problem, it’s really helpful to write down a problem statement - a short sentence of two to describe the problem you are setting out to tackle. It’s also good practice to come up with a vision for what you’re doing. Creating the vision jointly with the people you are trying to help and other people that are a part of the system can be invaluable. It can create a sense of shared ownership and encourage people to work together going forwards. Having a vision frames things in a positive way and gives something clear to work towards. 

A useful document to frame your work is a Project Canvas. 

It’s really important to keep coming back to your problem statement and your vision throughout your work, to continually check that what you’re doing is working towards what you set out to do. They are also great tools to keep stakeholders on board with what you’re doing by reminding them of the shared purpose around the work. The most important of those stakeholders are always the people who are living with the problem day to day. They will be your best guide on whether you are on the right track or not, and the more frequently you can engage with them throughout the whole process the better.

When thinking about how to engage with children and young people in systems thinking, it’s good practice to think about whether or not you are likely to be working with people who are representative of the wider group who you are trying to help. It can be difficult to encourage some individuals to engage, but often the “least heard” can provide a unique perspective on the problem. You can speak to the Voice and Influence Team if you would like advice around this.

Being aware and prepared for different people using different language when talking about a subject is important. For example social care and health colleagues referring to service users or patients. Encouraging people to use common language as much as possible can avoid misunderstandings and help people get behind the objectives of the work. Using plain English where possible is also good practice, especially if you are working with people who won’t be familiar with some of the technical language which exists in the industry.

Effective systems thinking is underpinned by an understanding that it may not always be within our gift to alter the things in a system that will have the most potential impact. These levers may exist beyond our reach in another part of the system, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t facilitate change. Through recognising the relational nature of systems change and being proactive in leading work to understand difficult problems, we can use collaborative leadership to take others on the journey and jointly work towards changing systems. This is where an ability to manage differing views and perspectives around the system is crucial.

The more that you can ‘work in the open’ and socialise what you’re doing, the better. This includes within our management structures and with colleagues across the organisation. One of Barnardo’s biggest strengths is its scale and breadth of activity. There is such opportunity within the organisation to capture and share learning amongst colleagues. The Systems Change workplace group is a great place to share your learning and we encourage all those undertaking systems thinking and systems change activity to share what you are doing in the group and to share the insights and learning that you are gathering.

Systems are in constant flux, and when thinking about how to solve a problem that exists now, it’s good to consider how that problem might change over time, so that you can aim to create solutions that meet future needs. Identifying trends so that you can have insight into which way things are shifting will help with this.

It may be that when you are exploring a problem, you already have some potential solutions in mind. This is great, but it is really important to focus on understanding the problem in detail before focussing on solutions. Moving forward with solutions too soon risks missing out on alternative approaches and may also mean that you miss out on understanding important dynamics within your system. Jot down any ideas and park them while you are focussed on gathering understanding, then come back to them when you’re ready.

If the pilot of your new approach has gone well, and you want to explore how it could be rolled out more widely, be that locally, regionally or nationally, a strong evidence base will be extremely helpful. Thinking about how you can evaluate your pilot is best done early on, so you can think about baseline data to compare your findings to. You can speak to the Strategic Impact Team about how to approach evaluating your work.

Using systems thinking can bring benefits to many aspects of work. Things are often very much interconnected, and it’s helpful to see them as such. If you want to use systems thinking to tackle a specific problem, you may want to approach it as a project. 

Barnardo’s has a project toolkit which may be a useful reference for you.