Identifying the positive impact made in a complex system

USING THE RIGHT APPROACHES AND DATA TO IDENTIFY IMPACT IN A HIGHLY COMPLEX SYSTEM

Frontline is the largest social work training institution/organisation in the UK with some 2000 Social Workers having completed Frontline’s programmes. Frontline’s ability and skill to capture data is incredible, yet correlating that data and tying it to impact is difficult with the scale, scope, and complexity of its mission.

Challenges

Frontline had the internal skills to do the work, but wanted an outside perspective. It was important that the perspective also came with a speciality in measuring impact in highly complex systems, in order to improve their ability of evidencing the impact of their social worker alumni.

They specifically wanted help to align their internal impact measures and data capture process to external data sets produced by national and local government, the NHS and large community and health foundations.

Frontline wanted a co-developed process and product of work that included its ambitions for multi-agency working and the delivery of leading social work practise skills.

How we made a difference

We began simultaneously meeting with key staff members, leaders, and partners while producing collated and easy to access data sets that could be used by Frontline’s staff straight away.

Alongside the creation of this data, we ran a number of exploration and training sessions with delivery teams and leadership teams. These sessions drew out the key issues and most promising sites of change for trained social workers members to focus on.

It was essential at this stage to help Frontline staff and alumni members discover for themselves the data they wanted to collect. Using their insight, we helped them to collect the data they knew would be important, rather than just relying on collecting just what funders asked them for.

Results

• Higher confidence that resources are allocated to impact areas with the highest likelihood of impact or regional need.

• More ability to target funders with aligned priorities with clearly defined areas of impact.

• A refreshed, more useful evaluation framework.

As a result of our partnership, Frontline can confidently answer the question; ‘what makes their social workers impactful?’

They are now even better equipped to recruit candidates that are more likely to achieve positive impact for children and families.

Habitus has a track record of supporting non-profits, charities and social enterprises to build measures and approaches that can evidence impact in highly complex systems.

For more information on how Habitus can help your organisation increase your impact and ability to achieve your mission, click on the button below.