Engaging with families living in low-income households through system change, place-based initiatives

6. What lessons have been learned which may help us to engage families living in low-income households?

Key Messages

There are key lessons which can guide those working to engage families living in low-income households across system change, place-based initiatives.

• Taking time. To ensure the long lasting success of initiatives, all stakeholders should be involved in meaningful discussions (including families), and there should be an acceptance that it takes time to build trust and embed change. This needs to be accounted for in grant funding and monitoring outcomes.
• Importance of local input in service design. Local communities should be able to participate in the development of services. This can be done to varying degrees considering the feasibility of the approach and referring to appropriate published guidance.
• Value of staff. The key worker approach was particularly valued. Staff can be crucial to the success of initiatives and it is essential to support staff development, ensure sound understandings of core values and principles and allow time to support personalised and flexible engagement with individuals.
• Challenges of data sharing. There is an array of challenges in data sharing across partnership working. Greater awareness on what is and what is not possible is required. From there, those working across initiatives can make steps to outline the key processes required to make it happen.
• Fairer Futures Partnerships. Initiatives in this report are working to provide flexible, person-centred whole family support in a place-based way that works for local communities. These principles are found in the expansion of fairer futures partnerships which were outlined in the recent Programme for Government and is seen to be instrumental in eradicating child poverty. The report findings highlight the value of this approach when engaging families.

This chapter of the report collates the key learnings from the data gathered from the analysis of published reports and the interviews.

Time for development and delivery

A key learning that emerged across all initiatives was the importance of ensuring adequate time at each stage of design, implementation, delivery and evaluation phases. For the Dundee Pathfinder, there was initial pressure to start delivery of the service versus the need for planning and engagement to shape delivery of service. This feeling of a need to ‘rush to action’ lead to tensions between partners as they had not had the time to build the trusting partnerships required for effective co-working and co-delivery of services. While the challenges had been resolved, it was noted that for future projects, having dedicated time for each stage could be helpful. Further, the evaluation report of the school age childcare early adopter communities highlights the value service staff and local stakeholders placed in taking time to embed change and build trust in the early stages of design. This can be critical for ensuring the longevity and success of initiatives when engaging with families.

Therefore, the time spent on building the foundation blocks of trust, while co-designing services and embedding delivery, needs to be accounted for in grant funding and monitoring outcomes.

Importance of local input in service design

Co-design is fundamental to the development of the services. To varying degrees, all initiatives engaged in co-design.

School Age Childcare has embedded co-design principles in their delivery framework, while other initiatives sought to draw upon experiences of families and staff to inform the design and development of their initiatives. The embedded co-design approach of School Age Childcare highlights the value placed in the principles of person-centred and place-based approaches.

However, this work takes time, can be complex and requires careful planning, resources and commitment to ensure meaningful impact. It may not be a feasible option for all initiatives. There is useful guidance for those seeking to engage and participate with local communities. The Scottish Government Participation Handbook outlines good practice in public engagement, while the National Standards for Community Engagement sets out best practice for public bodies in engaging with communities

Value of staff

Staffing of the initiatives has been covered as both an enabler and barrier (see Chapters Three and Four for further information), but it also emerged as a learning point.

The quality of staff was acknowledged and appreciated by both those who were managing the initiatives and the service users. The staff were valued for their ability and time to actively listen in an empathic and non-judgmental way and for their welcoming approaches and professionalism.

Key workers were fundamental to the majority of initiatives and were frequently seen as key contributors to the success of initiatives. However, the key worker approach is not without its issues with this approach requiring investment in time with families and users of services in order to build up trusting relationships. This enables engagement and can have other positive impacts, such as empowerment and confidence building. However, as highlighted in our baseline report on learnings from system change, place-based initiatives, the time taken to implement initiatives means that it takes time to see impact for families and this can lead to challenges with staff commitment and motivation. Further, there is a risk of initiatives where there is a reliance of particular, strong staff members who are fundamental to the success of initiatives – and this is not a sustainable approach for services.

Additionally, an important learning comes from the Pathfinders early implementation process report which recommends local staff to be recruited into the Pathfinders where possible, with steps taken to share knowledge and intelligence between staff and organisations. This would help to reduce the loss of learning that comes from reliance on key staff members. A proposed mechanism to do this would be to create an ‘information store’, with access for all Pathfinder partners, to capture, share and update information at the local level.

Staff can be crucial to the success of initiatives and it is essential to support staff development, ensure sound understandings of core values and principles and allow time to support personalised and flexible engagement with individuals.

Challenges of data sharing

Data sharing across partners is a key learning point – with much learning and understanding still being developed in this area. There an array of challenges in data sharing across partnership working, with some of these outlined in Chapter Four. This suggests that this is an area which needs to be considered further by those working across system change, place-based initiatives, particularly in terms of maximising reach and engagement for families living in poverty. As outlined in the Pathfinders early implementation report, the development of localized joint case management systems could enable targeting of parents/carers and referral pathways, while providing opportunities to feed into monitoring and evaluation.

The report findings suggest that there is a need to raise awareness of what is and what is not possible with regards to data sharing – and what they key processes may be to make the possible happen..

A ‘fairer futures partnership’ approach

Initiatives in this report are working to provide flexible, person-centred whole family support in a place-based way that works for local communities. This approach is found in the expansion of fairer futures partnerships which was outlined in the recent Programme for Government and is seen to be central in helping to achieve the key priority of eradicating child poverty. By investing in initiatives which innovate, join up-services and support families, we can build an evidence base to share learnings across Scotland and provide a template for future change and improvement. The findings highlighted in this report illustrate the value of this approach when engaging families, and the learnings that have arisen can help to inform future engagement.