I’m so pleased to share our new Strategy for 2024-27.
As you know, this is the culmination of a huge amount of work, right across the charity, and sets the direction for how we will drive change for children and young people over the next three years.
I am so grateful to all our colleagues, including our volunteers, who have taken the time to attend roadshows, join online Q&A sessions, and engage in detailed discussions about where we want to go next.
We’ve spent most of 2023 listening and talking to you, gathering your thoughts, and co-creating a Strategy that will make sure we are fit for the future. Your input has been invaluable, as has the feedback and engagement we’ve had with children, young people, parents and carers, external partners, supporters and decision makers.
The final Strategy absolutely reflects the ideas and insight from across the Barnardo’s community and is focused on driving change and delivering excellence for the children, young people and families we support.
It must be something we all feel we own, meaning no matter where you work or what your role is in the charity, everyone is instrumental in making it a success for those who need us most.
What’s in our new Strategy?
Please do take the time to read our new Strategy carefully.
We hope it will feel exciting and inspiring and give a sense of the future we are aiming for together.
As many of you will know, our new Strategy begins with a new Purpose statement, a North Star that brings us all together:
Changing Childhoods. Changing Lives.
Working with children and young people to be safe, happy, healthy and hopeful.
This is a strong statement of intent about the difference we want to make and should live with us for many years to come.
The Strategy itself contains some themes that will feel familiar, and some others that may feel less so, reflecting changes to ensure that Barnardo’s remains relevant and focussed on the future. I wanted to highlight some of the key themes that I feel most passionate about, and I hope you will too:
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The first theme is about striving for excellent and inclusive services. Our direct work with children, young people and families will always be at the very heart of what we do at Barnardo’s. Everything we do must be as good as it possibly can be, and we must reach those who need our help the most – including those from communities who face discrimination.
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The second theme is the importance of evidence and measuring, demonstrating and communicating the positive difference we make. It is so important to me that we can explain, right across the UK and throughout all our services, how we are helping children and young people to be safer, happier, healthier and more hopeful.
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The third theme is about our role in driving change for a whole generation of children. Alongside our services we will be even more focused than ever on influencing policy, transforming systems and challenging attitudes so that we can make sure children’s voices and experiences are heard, and so we can make some real progress in improving childhoods in the UK now and in the years to come.
Alongside the Strategy, we will shortly be sharing an overarching theory of change which sets out in more detail how we will be driving change for the children, young people and families who need us most across the UK.
Updating our brand
You will also notice that the Strategy is presented in our new brand. Much like the Strategy itself, the brand has been co-created with young people and colleagues, and offers us a new way to look, sound and feel, which better reflects the charity we want to be in 2027, while speaking more effectively to younger and more diverse audiences.
The Strategy is our first publication to be designed in our new brand, and we’ll be working closely with teams to roll it out internally and externally over the next few months. We’ll be doing this in a way that uses our resources carefully and is also respectful to the environment.
What comes next?
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From now through to March 2024: we’ll be working to develop some measures of success and one-year operational plans for 2024-25. These will be developed collaboratively with teams across the charity to look at how we can make most impact for children, young people and families.
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March 2024: we’ll be launching the brand externally – reintroducing Barnardo’s to our external partners, friends, and stakeholders and inspiring many others to join our community.
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April 2024: our new Strategy period will start! And we’ll start to work on our one-year plans for 2024-25.
It’s taken a lot of work to get us to this point, and I want to thank everyone again for your energy and enthusiasm in taking part.
This is just the very start of our new journey, and I feel so privileged to be working alongside you as we move forward with this new Strategy together.