Equipping the community to take evidence-led action
The SCiP Alliance Impact Centre is the community’s central support hub for identifying what works and helping professionals turn it into sustained impact for Service children. The Impact Centre is focused on working with those supporting children enhancing the rigour and coordination of evaluation of programmes. Through training, consultancy and advice, the Impact Centre helps practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and funders access better evidence and mobilise it through their services, policy and investments.
Launched in July 2025, the Impact Centre brings enhanced capacity and expertise to the SCiP Alliance’s UK-wide community, building on the existing diverse and inclusive collaboration that is the hallmark of all the Alliance’s work. Through a UK-wide series of sector engagement events in 2026, and in close partnership with the Ministry of Defence, we will support the following groups:
For practitioners, charities, and those directly working with Service children - the Impact Centre provides guidance on how to evaluate. This includes process, approach, identification of scientific tools and analysis to make best use of evaluative data.
Further, the Impact Centre works with end-users to champion the identified needs for research to further develop the evidence base. This includes:
- Effective evaluation training and consultancy
- Facilitating embedded evaluators to address organisational needs
- Leading a tri-Service, four nation needs analysis based on existing and new materials
- Briefings on research ready to be translated into practice
For policy makers, the Impact Centre supports the effective use of data and evaluation in the sector. This involves working collaboratively with policy makers to identify existing evidence and supporting researchers to deliver new evaluation to address policy agendas. This includes:
- Evidence quality evaluation training and consultancy.
- Working with policy makers to identify the knowledge gaps as part of a wider sector needs analysis
- Access to Impact-relevant briefings which summarise the research-into-practice evidence.
For funders, the Impact Centre provides resource and advice on how best to encourage rigorous evaluation and reporting of activities. Through the provision of evaluation tools, training on evidence quality, and support with understanding analyses, the Impact Centre enables better coordination and interpretation of end of project reporting. This includes:
- Training and consultancy in evaluation quality and encouraging effective evaluation from project starts
- Working with funders to identify what the evidencing gaps are in projects they might support
- Access to Impact-relevant briefings which support advanced evidencing practices.
For researchers, the Impact Centre is focused on enhancing the connections to practice, such as activities which promote embedded researchers and aligning sector-research interests. This includes:
- Training related to engaging with policy makers and practitioners
- Development of ‘Impact Fellows’ and embedded researcher programmes which place researchers into practice.
- Opportunities to communicate research to practice and present research to Experts by Experience panels.
The Impact Centre team
The Impact Centre is Directed by Dr Liam Satchell. Liam has a background in psychology, and complex data analysis, and has significant experience in helping those in practice deliver rigorous evaluation. His work as Director is to provide oversight and deliver the core Impact Centre activities by delivering training and consultancy to the sector.
The Director reports to two Co-Chairs of the Impact Centre who are both experts in the sector.
Professor Nicola Fear (Research Co-Chair) is a Chair in Epidemiology in the Academic Department of Military Mental Health at King’s College London and provides research expertise to the leadership of the Impact Centre. Nicola has significant experience and knowledge of the military families sector and serves as Director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) at King’s College London, and Co-Director of the Centre for Evidence for the Armed Forces Community.
Phil Dent (Sector Co-Chair) is the Director of the SCiP Alliance, in which the Impact Centre sits and provides strategic, whole-system and research mobilisation expertise to the leadership of the Impact Centre. As founder of the SCiP Alliance, Philip has led its growth in scale and impact over from inception to the national professional community and UK-wide hub network that it now comprises. He brings many years of strategic leadership, programme innovation, and national policy and research advisory experience to the Impact Centre.
The Impact Centre Co-Chairs are informed by an advisory group (in development), comprising sector experts supporting the Impact Centre’s long-term sustainability and impact through a strategy for enhancing evidence-led practice.
The Impact Centre has been funded by the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT), a £35 million funding scheme run by the FiMT using an endowment awarded by The National Lottery Community Fund.
