Impact Centre Listening Tour: What’s it all about?
Posted in News
What is the Impact Centre Listening Tour?
The Listening Tour is one strand of a wider discovery programme being delivered through the Impact Centre. Its purpose is to hear directly from professionals who support Service children as part of their roles
We want to understand:
- What is working well?
- How is impact being measured?
- How can success be communicated more effectively?
Each Listening Tour event is designed to create space for practitioners to share their experiences and insights. Participants will take part in a structured activity to help us capture as much learning as possible from frontline practice.
Sessions will last between one and two hours and are designed to maximise opportunities for open discussion and meaningful feedback.
What prompted the Impact Centre Listening Tour?
Since launching the Impact Centre, we have engaged with many professionals supporting Service children across education, youth services, local authorities, health services and other sectors.
Through these conversations, it became clear there is a wealth of practical expertise across the UK - particularly around what works, how impact is evidenced, and how research can better support practice.
We wanted to create a dedicated opportunity for these voices to be heard and to ensure learning is captured directly from those delivering support on the ground.
It has also been important to take these conversations into communities, rather than expecting people to travel to us. Additional locations will be announced soon.
Why is now the right time for these conversations?
There are a number of policy developments and practical changes taking place across the sector, making this an important moment to hear from those supporting children from Armed Forces families.
We have a valuable opportunity to ensure practitioner experience and insight helps inform future decision-making.
Why is it important for the SCiP Alliance Impact Centre to hear directly from professionals across sectors?
There are two key reasons.
1. Understanding the current landscape
There is currently no regular, large-scale mechanism for gathering insight from professionals supporting Service children in practice.
We want to better understand their experiences, highlight effective approaches, and identify successes and lessons that can be shared more widely.
2. Shaping future support
A core part of our work is identifying the best ways to support professionals through future engagement, training and evidence-sharing activity.
To do that effectively, we need to hear directly from those delivering services about what would be most useful and accessible.
What evidence gaps are these events designed to address?
If the Impact Centre is to deliver meaningful support, we need a clear understanding of practitioner needs and priorities.
There have been limited opportunities within this sector to gather large-scale insight from those directly involved in supporting Service children.
We chose a Listening Tour model because other approaches were less effective. Surveys can struggle to generate meaningful engagement, while large centralised events can limit participation.
By going directly into communities, we hope to make participation easier and hear from a broader range of voices.
How will the findings be turned into useful resources or guidance?
The Listening Tour, alongside our wider discovery work, will generate several practical outputs
First, we will publish a summary report capturing learning from professionals across the four nations, multiple sectors, and across the Services.
In addition, findings will inform practical resources and guidance focused on:
- More effective communication of evidence
- Better designed training and evaluation support
- Research that is more closely aligned to practice needs
We expect to learn a great deal through the Listening Tour and will use these insights to strengthen our work across the SCiP Alliance and support the wider community working with Service children.
Sign up to one of our listening events here.
