Are you a leader within a not-for-profit, independent, or statutory social care organisation who would like to be able to tell a better story of the difference your work makes to improving outcomes for the people you support?
You might need to:
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Report to funders, commissioners, regulators, or the Government.
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Assure the quality of the support you provide and make the case for why your organisation can be trusted to improve outcomes for people.
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Evaluate the effectiveness of innovative approaches to providing care and support.
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Deepen a focus on personal outcomes across your organisation.
We offer a practical and meaningful approach that will help you
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Report to multiple funders and commissioners in a streamlined way.
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Show stakeholders why your work matters and how it makes a difference.
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Improve and manage your data and information.
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Integrate quality assurance and impact reporting.
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Deepen a focus on personal outcomes in practice.
Developed and led by social care expert Dr Ailsa Cook
Ailsa is the Co-founder and Director of Matter of Focus and a Fellow of Practice at the University of Oxford Government Outcomes Lab. She is a leader in the field of outcomes and is a co-originator of the Talking Points: Personal Outcomes Approach (available here).
Ailsa’s work has shaped the practice of 1000s of health and social care organisations and informed policy development in Scotland and Wales.
Our work with social care organisations is supported by our expert consultancy team who between them bring many years of experience of working with and for pioneering social care organisations in leadership, evaluation and operational roles.
Our approach is underpinned by a deep understanding of the strengths and challenges faced by the social care sector and the key policy and practice developments.
How we help
Expert consultancy
Our experts will work with you to understand your outcome, data, governance and reporting challenges and to devise and implement an achievable and impactful programme of work tailored to the budget available.
Co-productive approach
We are renowned for facilitating engaging, supportive and safe spaces for diverse stakeholders to develop shared understandings of how their work improves outcomes for people. We have extensive experience of engaging experts with lived experience in these processes.
Our software OutNav
OutNav addresses a key gap in social care information systems. It provides one place for organisations to bring together qualitative and quantitative data and information captured through routine practice, support and supervision, quality assurance and feedback.
Our intuitive system supports your teams and services to reflect on and evaluate the difference their work makes and identify areas for improvement. This information is captured in a streamlined way creating an organisational view of progress and impact.
Our free evaluation framework for personal outcome focused services
We have developed a template framework that can support you to think through how your organisation might better evidence its contribution to improving outcomes for the people you support.
Some of our work with social care organisations
Penumbra
Penumbra is a pioneering mental health charity providing services and support to people across Scotland. They champion the power of lived experience in helping people create meaningful change in their lives.
Penumbra has made extensive use of OutNav and the Matter of Focus approach in developing their approach to impact evaluation and quality improvement. After piloting the Matter of Focus approach and OutNav for use to evaluate a number of service areas, the organisation made the decision to invest in embedding evaluation across all work areas, using OutNav. They have recruited Impact and Evaluation Leads who oversee this process for both externally funded programmes and mainstream services.
In 2023 Penumbra piloted the use of OutNav to support quality assurance and Care Inspectorate reporting. Following very favourable feedback from both service managers and the Care Inspectorate they have now rolled out use of OutNav for quality assurance to all services.
We are delighted to provide ongoing, light touch support to Penumbra through this process in the form of training and mentoring to key staff.
St Joseph’s Services
St Joseph’s Services in Midlothian has been providing care and support services for adults with a learning disability for over 95 years. They are committed to supporting people with a learning disability to lead independent, happy and fulfilling lives as active members of their local community.
We supported St Joseph’s to embed an outcome focused approach in how they collect data and learning about their work and streamline how they report on the difference they make to the Health & Social Care Partnership and other stakeholders, including the Care Commission.
Thistle Foundation
Our work with the Thistle Foundation has helped them to map how the work of the whole organisation contributes to improving outcomes for the people and communities they work. They are using OutNav to help them systematically evidence key aspects of their work including training and funded projects.
Future Pathways
Future Pathways is a pioneering service providing support to people who experienced abuse or neglect as children In Care in Scotland.
We worked with Future Pathways from an early stage of their development to map out how their service delivery model makes a difference to the people they support in the form of an outcome map. Future pathways used this outcome map as a framework to review the information they recorded through their support work and to ensure that their quality assurance framework was capturing what was most important.
Over the past 5 years Future Pathways has continued to evaluate and improve their service using their outcome maps and OutNav as a framework for this work. This has been vital in enabling them to adapt their service offer in an evidence informed way to respond to the needs of the growing numbers of people coming forward for support.
Children 1st
Children 1st is a leading provider of support to children, young people and families across Scotland.
Our work with Children 1st has helped to map how their diverse service offers make a difference to children and families, as well as shaping the wider policy and practice.
Children 1st has used their outcome map to underpin the development of a new data and information system for the organisation, including a refreshed approach to recording and reviewing outcomes. This is meeting their ambition to have their relational and asset based approach to care and support running through all aspects of their work.
