Barnardo’s wants to understand the gaps/areas of the system that sit around children and young people and aren't working effectively. We want to work with partners to develop solutions that make a difference.
Creating positive and lasting change within the systems it operates in is far from new to Barnardo’s, even if systems thinking methodologies are relatively new. The organisation has been driving systems change long before the term was even recognised, and it remains a key priority under the current Resurgence plans.
For the last three years, Barnardo’s has been running the three Core Priority Programmes (CPP). These were set out to create transformative change in Children In and Leaving Care, Mental Health and Wellbeing, and Child Sexual Abuse through gathering in depth insight around the workings of these systems and exploring new ways of working in partnership with statutory authorities to bring about changes to the system. Much of Barnardo’s progress is being achieved via strategic partnerships - relationships established between Barnardo’s and commissioners that go beyond the “traditional” commissioner/provider dynamics, working jointly to explore different ways of doing things.
There are other strategic partnerships outside the CPPs within a range of our services in health, social care, with employers and at a national level with the government, where Barnardo’s are working collaboratively with commissioners to create systems change, such as the Leicestershire Innovation Partnership.
Barnardo’s is also working to achieve system change through National Projects for example the work of the FGM Centre, the development of Child Trafficking Guidance, and working with Government Departments to change the system around CYP with specific needs.
We have the Barnardo’s Foundation, which sets out to channel voluntary funds in a more strategic way, with the majority being steered towards systems change. We also have our colleagues in the Innovation Lab who have extensive experience and are relentlessly passionate about working with CYP to co-produce new ways of delivering services which will benefit those same people and their peers.
There are of course, many pockets of activity locally around systems thinking and systems change (for example, the new Innovation Communities, and the organisation in no way wishes to stifle that local energy and creativity through a focus on centralised initiatives. In fact, as a learning organisation, we want to share our insights and learning in a way that can benefit both on smaller and larger scales.