Dartington Service Design Lab, alongside the University of Bristol, has been working with two Locality Partnerships in the Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care System (BNSSG ICS) to develop a theory of change and evaluation framework for their contribution to population health outcomes.

Chance UK is solution-focused mentoring and support charity which works with children and families to reduce the impact of trauma on their lives. The charity works to support children aged 8-14 experiencing behavioural and emotional difficulties in a needs-led and strengths-based way to develop skills which can protect them from risks in the future. Chance UK collaborates with others (e.g. education, health, social work) to support children in realising a brighter future. Chance UK work directly with young people with a 1-2-1 mentoring programme at the centre of its delivery model, with other curriculum and skills-based activities to support positive change. The charity also conducts direct work with parents and carers in developing their skills and knowledge to gain a holistic view of the young people they are working with, and to ensure their work is meaningful for families.

The ThinkForward: FutureMe programme works with young people to support their continuation in education, employment, and training and to prevent them from being identified as “Neet.” They use a blended approach of one-to-one and group coaching sessions delivered by trained coaches who support the young people to work through the seven work “work readiness capabilities” of being; self-aware, driven, resilient, self-assured, organised, and a good communicator. These qualities have been identified as being desirable by employers. The programme also offers business mentoring, CV writing and interview skills workshops, work experience placements, and parental engagement.

Grosvenor Hart Homes is a new social enterprise on a mission to improve the life chances of vulnerable children, young people, and their families.

Keys to the Future is a joint learning partnership between Barnardo’s and Dartington that seeks to embed the Rapid-cycle design and testing approach to the design, implementation, and refinement of homelessness provision and sustainability planning in North Lanarkshire for families

We are working in partnership with leading youth work charity UK Youth to support the youth work sector to develop their capacity, knowledge, and sustainability of their services in addressing young people’s mental health needs. Together we’re using learning and insight to guide the strategic development of the Thriving Minds Fund over a three and a half year period.

We are carrying out a participatory pilot study to determine whether Career Ahead can be delivered as intended and contribute to improvements in skills, cultural capital, education and employment outcomes.

We are working as an evaluator and Learning Partner for the Youth Endowment Fund, supporting their work with those at risk of youth violence.

The projects we are currently working on are: Becoming a Man, Pause For Thought, COVID-19 Learning Partnership, Big Brothers Little Sisters and Neighbourhood Fund.

We have joined forces with PEDAL to apply our rapid-cycle design and testing approach in a new and exciting way. For us, it’s learning how our approach works when driven by others, with us riding along and coaching in the backseat. For our partners, it’s learning whether they can use our approach to quickly adapt for online delivery of an evidence-based face-to-face book sharing intervention

Inclusion as Prevention is a system change initiative seeking to collaboratively re-shape the design and delivery of preventative services for young people who are at risk of involvement in offending. The aim is to shift practice from reactive and crisis driven approaches, to instead identify and intervene at an earlier in young peoples’ lives.

Connected from the Start is a design collaboration between early years charities that aims to develop a product or service which will help volunteers, community connectors and social entrepreneurs to help parents with children in the early years during the COVID-19 response and beyond.

Over the last few years, both the Dartington Service Design Lab and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University have been working on approaches to help accelerate the impact of early years services. In 2019, we collaborated with the Harvard Center, to run three days of training on the IDEAS Impact Framework: a new approach to service development and evaluation, created by the Center.