Last week, we launched Collective Change: A Practice Framework for Place-Based Early Childhood and Beyond, bringing together around 40 practitioners, funders, policymakers and community members to explore what it takes to make place-based change happen.

The framework has been developed over two years with seven backbone organisations: Better Start Blackpool, Bradford Birth to 19, Nottingham Trent University, Right to Succeed, Reach Foundation, Save the Children and Thrive at Five. It brings together their experience of the work, including what they do, what makes it possible and the challenges along the way. Dartington Service Design Labs also supported the work with a rapid realist review of national and international evidence.

The launch was a chance to take the learning beyond the framework and think about what it means for the people who fund, commission and enable this work.

We began with parents and community members sharing their experiences of early childhood support. They spoke about fear of judgement, not belonging and the difference a trusted relationship can make. Their contributions grounded the day in the experiences of families, and reminded us that their knowledge is essential to understanding what works and why.  One of the parents described the backbone as the scaffolding: it holds things up and makes room for everyone else to do their best work, and if it’s doing its job well, you barely notice it’s there. That set the tone for a day of honest conversation between families, practitioners, funders and policymakers about what it takes to do this well. 

We explored the work of backbone organisations. Much of this work happens behind the scenes: bringing people together, connecting organisations that might otherwise work in parallel, and creating the conditions for collaboration. Family Hub leads were refreshingly honest that they had worried about losing control to a backbone organisation, and then found they could achieve far more together than apart. The discussion also surfaced some of the other challenges, particularly around how this work is funded and sustained. Change how the system works  takes years. One practitioner described how it took five years for a service started by one organisation to be adopted by the local Family Hub, and the team expected embedding it further to take another five to ten. There was a clear recognition that coordination and relationships need time and ongoing investment, and cannot always be absorbed into existing structures and budgets. Some backbone organisations are building this into their sustainability models, treating coordination as a core function to be resourced over the long term rather than a temporary project cost. 

Dartington Service Design Lab shared how the framework was built: a review of the evidence alongside the practice of the seven backbone organisations in our Community of Practice, with the aim of understanding not just what works but how and why. Part of the discussion turned to the role of context, and how far outcomes depend on it. There was real interest in the room in this question, and it is something we intend to explore further in the next phase of the work.

We closed by talking about what we can do better, together. One question that came up was where the backbones are, and who is doing this work. We know there are examples across the country, from small grassroots organisations to those more established and mature in their practice. Many don’t use the language of ‘backbone’ to describe what they do. Through our Roadtrip around the UK, we’re starting to find and learn from them. There was also real interest in creating more opportunities for emerging backbones to learn from those with experience, through mentoring, coaching and peer support. Funders were keen to explore how they might better align their monitoring, learning and evaluation requirements. The Department for Education also reflected on how the discussion could continue to support the Collective Impact Match Fund as it is rolled out.

The framework is a starting point we intend to build on, collectively. We hope it is useful to people working in, or interested in, place-based approaches, and that it helps make some of the practice behind the work more visible and better understood.

Read Collective Change
Explore the seven case studies

Thank you to Henry Smith Foundation for supporting the work, the seven organisations who shared their practice so openly, and to everyone who contributed to the roundtable. We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation and learning together.