Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-26: Evaluation approach to system change

Aims and objectives

The aim of the evaluation on system change initiatives is to understand the effectiveness of the broad approach in Best Start, Bright Futures of tackling child poverty through a place-based and system-change approach.

Drawing on evidence and learning from across individual evaluations, it aims to build our understanding of how the system-change and place-based approach is being interpreted and implemented in practice, and whether, and how it makes a difference to child poverty and its drivers.

Specifically, the objectives are to:

• identify and understand the range of approaches taken to system change and person-centred support in local child poverty systems through the initiatives committed to in Best Start, Bright Futures
• provide an understanding of the process experienced in the implementation of system-change initiatives and distil key lessons which can be applied to other areas and to wider policy development
• understand how initiatives have impacted on system change, what the facilitators and barriers have been, and what the impacts are for delivery organisations, service users and wider partners and stakeholders
• understand which types of system change approach are effective to support child poverty reduction, for whom specifically, in what contexts, and why
• assess the extent to which the approaches examined can (and, where measured, do) contribute towards local child poverty reduction and the mechanisms by which this may occur