Defining intended outcomes

The initial purpose “improve life chances of children and families by improving education outcomes using existing system resources” that partners are aligned on needs further definition once there is interest in progressing.

Defining the outcomes focuses the planning on the desired impact more than on specific tasks, outcomes will take a long-term view while strategies may change over time. Any Community School needs to be able to periodically review that it is having the intended impact and that the investment of resources and effort is justified. 

Developing a theory of change using the evidence base about the key enablers of education success, service collaboration and place-based interventions helps to synthesise the change you and key partners aspire to see and identify outcomes that current and future partners can work towards.

A simple theory of change is invaluable in this stage as an illustration of the concept and a starting point for engaging additional partners as actors in the planning.

The outcomes and strategies can start broad and be refined and honed through this Building foundations phase with key partners to become a framework that is commonly understood and endorsed between early stakeholders.  If/ when there is formal agreement to proceed, the theory of change would be the starting point for Implementation planning.

It is important at this early stage to gain commitment to monitoring impact and measuring progress and develop an understanding of what expectations that places on partners.  While a detailed evaluation plan is unlikely to be developed before there is commitment to proceed, the cost of evaluation, data collection and monitoring should be included in budget and planning for the work.

Our Experience/Learnings

It is important to include reference to the underlying assumptions in the theory of change as well as the outcomes and strategies.  In the Schools as Community Platforms case, reference to the key enablers of infrastructure, collaboration, partnerships and service coordination are as critical as the provision of services or opportunities.

Once implementation is confirmed early attention to evaluation, impact measures and data collection options is warranted.  Data sharing agreements between organisations for evaluation cannot be assumed and takes time to negotiate and navigate. 

Our program logic was developed prior to implementation and based on assumptions of data being available from our partners. Later during implementation, we found that these assumptions were wrong, and we had to revisit the data we could use to inform our evaluation. (FamilyLinQ)

For Our Place, nine high level outcomes across three cohort domains were agreed in the pre implementation phase.  Measure and indicators were developed once implementation was confirmed.

Examples of higher-level theory of change documents are provided in the links.