Child poverty pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow: phase two evaluation - report appendices

Appendix F: Summaries of progress against evaluation hypotheses

Dundee: summary of evidence for evaluation hypotheses (impacts for families)

Hypothesis 1: By offering place-based, open-ended, targeted support, the pathfinder is able to engage and form trusting relationships with families in poverty who have not been able to access the support they need in the past

The pathfinder has engaged 1,277 people over two years, including 266 Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with a dependent child. While the numbers engaged through targeted outreach specifically is not recorded, this compares with around 194 households with children and no earned income who were initially targeted through in-person outreach. Qualitative data supports the role of this targeted outreach in engaging families who would not normally engage with support because of stigma, anxiety or other barriers, and of the role and skills of the key workers in building trusting relationships with families who may have had negative previous experiences of support.

Hypothesis 2: By forming trusting relationships with families, key workers are able to help them meet their short- and medium-term needs, which both helps to address some of the drivers of poverty (e.g. cost of living, income from benefits) and to remove barriers to longer-term routes out of poverty (e.g. barriers to employment, training, etc.)

The qualitative evidence from parents was overwhelmingly positive and supports the scope for this approach to help families address their immediate needs and make positive steps towards employability and/or a more financially and emotionally stable situation. The non-judgemental, trusting relationships they formed with key workers were felt by parents and professionals to be critical to these impacts. Around 1 in 10 parents have moved into employment, although this is likely to be under-reported as employment outcomes are not always known by key workers. Although these numbers are fairly small (and without a control group it is not possible to be certain all of these are a result of the pathfinder), there is also qualitative evidence that the pathfinder has helped parents gain confidence and feel that employment is a realistic future prospect for them, even where actual employment outcomes have yet to materialise. The pathfinder has helped around half of the families access ‘non-benefit’ financial assistance worth £630 on average (although again, without a control group, it is not certain if any of this assistance would have been accessed without the pathfinder). However, the quantitative evidence on impacts on benefit income is weaker. Although there were positive qualitative examples of support increasing or maintaining benefits, there was also a belief that the target group for the pathfinder might have been quite ‘benefit maximised’ already.

Hypothesis 3: By addressing families’ short and medium-term needs, the pathfinder sets families on a pathway to longer-term and sustainable routes out of poverty, by increasing employability and empowering families to make change for themselves

Qualitative interviews with parents and professionals provide evidence that the pathfinder approach can help people move towards a more sustainable financial and emotional situation. However, they also highlight the significant ongoing barriers some families face to moving out of poverty on a sustainable basis, including structural barriers, complex health barriers, and the capacity of wider services to respond to these. While there were examples of clients ‘transferring trust’ to other services and learning to navigate support for themselves, the data also raises some questions around how to strike the right balance between an approach based around forging strong, trusting relationships with particular professionals, and avoiding ‘dependency’. Some parents felt they would need longer-term support, and professionals raised questions about ‘exit strategies’.

Dundee: Summary of evidence for evaluation hypotheses (system change impacts)

Hypothesis 4: By investing in a place-based approach, pathfinder partners learn more about how to work effectively with families in poverty, which informs improvement to wider services, joint working and development/strengthening of shared values and processes

Qualitative interviews with professionals provide some evidence that learning from the pathfinder has started to feed into wider services. In particular, there was an expectation that future employability services would adopt a more community-focused approach and build on learning from the pathfinder in their approaches for working with those further from employment. There were felt to have been some improvements to joint working locally and improved understanding between national partners. However, data sharing remained a barrier to more effective joint working, and there was less perceived impact on either ways of working or processes among national partners.

Hypothesis 5: Ultimately, the need for specific pathfinder services is reduced as fully integrated, person-centred, NWD, place-based approaches to supporting people in poverty become embedded across all partners AND families become better equipped to navigate this themselves – so the system is easier to navigate, and families are more confident about doing so.

It is too early to assess whether this will be achieved in Dundee. DCC’s plans for pathfinder extension aim to further embed place-based, person-centred approaches, though interviewees expressed some concerns around resourcing for this (discussed under ‘value for money’). There was also some scepticism across partners over the likelihood of sustainable system change being achieved unless barriers relating to national systems and rules could be overcome. As described under family impacts, there was mixed evidence on whether the pathfinder had helped families become better equipped to navigate the system, and at this stage the evidence that the system itself had become easier to navigate (rather than key workers helping families navigate it) was limited.

Glassgow: Summary of evidence for evaluation hypotheses (families)

Hypothesis 1: By supporting the development and delivery of person-centred, holistic, ‘no wrong door’ approaches to support, the pathfinder is able to engage families in poverty who have not been able to access the support they need in the past

Qualitive evidence from parents supported by Glasgow Helps confirms the potential for this approach to engage families who have struggled to access appropriate support previously. The pathfinder is at an early stage of embedding this approach across all services families might use, but there are some signs from NWD partners that the pathfinder is starting to help join up services in a way that enables them to link families to the right support, more quickly.

Hypothesis 2: By working with a NWD approach, Glasgow Helps and wider organisations are able to effectively help families in poverty meet their short- and medium-term needs, which both helps to address some of the drivers of poverty (e.g. cost of living, income from benefits) and to remove barriers to longer-term routes out of poverty (e.g. barriers to employment, training, etc.)

Qualitative evidence shows that the holistic approach and strong partnership framework for Glasgow Helps has been effective in addressing a very wide range of needs. Parent case studies highlight the ways in which they have been able to move from addressing short-term financial needs to addressing longer-term barriers to sustainable outcomes, including health and wellbeing as well as support around employment and training where relevant. Quantifying the impact of the pathfinder on families is very difficult, however. Glasgow Helps does not focus only on families and other parts of the pathfinder are at an early stage of developing shared case management approaches that could measure outcomes or at an early stage of delivering to families.

Hypothesis 3: By addressing families’ short and medium-term needs, the pathfinder sets families on a pathway to longer-term and sustainable routes out of poverty, by increasing employability and empowering families to make change for themselves

It is too early to assess this outcome; supporting families onto sustainable routes out of poverty is a key focus for the newer DoC projects.

Glasgow: Summary of evidence for evaluation hypotheses (system change)

Hypothesis 4: By investing in a multi-agency team to drive change, the pathfinder is able to be a catalyst for wider systemic change across the city in terms of how agencies and organisations work with families in poverty, engaging wide ranging partners in addressing systematic and cultural barriers to working more effectively for families in poverty.

Interviews with professional stakeholders demonstrate positive early signs of progress on system change, including: improved collaboration and partnership working between GCC, the third sector, the Scottish Government and parts of the wider public sector; promotion of shared culture and values; progress on embedding a NWD approach across wider services; understanding, and starting to fill gaps in services; more effective use of data to target activities; achieving funding flexibilities; and progress towards a city-wide shared performance framework. There was a strong consensus across interviewees that the approach in Glasgow was the right one in terms of the likelihood of achieving long-term reform, and that investing in the MACT to provide capacity to develop and drive this had been critical.

Hypothesis 5: Ultimately, the need for specific pathfinder services is reduced as fully integrated, person-centred, NWD, place-based approaches to supporting people in poverty become embedded across all partners AND families become better equipped to navigate this themselves – so the system is easier to navigate, and families are more confident about doing so.

Whole system change is expected to take at least 10 years to achieve, so evidence on this longer-term outcome is limited at this point. Future evidence on how successful the DoC projects are in supporting families to become more confident and able to navigate services, and the further impact of the NWD network in linking families to services more seamlessly, will be important in this regard. The indicators included in the PMF, such as reduced use of crisis services, will also help assess whether the system has changed sufficiently to achieve this aim in the future.