Introducing Systems Changers 2018

The third Systems Changers programme launches this week and I feel particularly fortunate to be involved in it. The Systems Changers 2018 group is made up of practitioners who work specifically with vulnerable young people and the systems they come into contact with.

Children and young people are close to my heart – I’m a trustee of a family support charity, I worked in early intervention for many years and I’m also a mother. I’m wholeheartedly behind any approach that is seeking to improve the outcomes for children and young people and I believe that the Systems Changers programme for the youth sector could be one of those approaches.

It’s been a genuinely collaborative effort to launch Systems Changers 2018. The delivery team is made up of The Children’s Society, the Point People and Lankelly Chase.

I’ve been hugely impressed with The Children’s Society.  As an organisation, they are curious, experimental and genuinely looking for new and interesting ways to bring about change. They have engaged with the Systems Changers programme from a deliberate and strategic viewpoint. The belief is that by listening to the voices of experience, actively encouraging challenge and redistributing authority to employees, the organisation, and the sector more broadly, would encourage shifts in the system – shifts which could ultimately lead to positive change across children’s services and in outcomes for young people.  There is wonderful synergy with The Children’s Society and their ambitions for creating systemic change. It feels like we are walking alongside fellow travellers and ones who acknowledge the complexity of the systems we are working in.

The Point People have been steadfast partners with Lankelly Chase in the Systems Changers journey – from the original conception in 2014 through to the delivery of this third programme in 2018.  Having designed and delivered the first two iterations of the programme, The Point People are now working with Lankelly Chase to think about how to make the programme more accessible, replicable, deliverable in different contexts and how it could be scaled to reach a wider audience.

These a but a few of the thoughts that will be occupying us in the longer term but for the moment, you can expect more from us on what we are learning individually and collectively along the way and hopefully we will be able to share how this is creating shifts both small or large in the system too.

We’re looking forward to the journey that we’ll all be going on as Systems Changers 2018 gets underway. You can follow the conversation via @lankellychase or @childrensociety or via the hashtag #systemschangers18