Last Friday (15 June) saw our experts from the public sector, charities and innovation organisations gather for the second meeting of the targeted ventures Challenge Panel. A month on from their first meeting, this session asked the group to isolate the most pressing challenges that local authorities face regarding Children and Families so that a series of ‘problem statements’ can be posed as we move into our ‘find the solution’ stage, kicking off with our hackathon event on Thursday 21 June.
Building on the panel’s initial feedback at the first meeting, we’ve developed our understanding of the problem so that we are reflecting the cross-cutting challenges facing children’s services such as: how we mobilise the community more effectively; behavioural and social support; how we use data intelligently to focus on early help rather than taking a service-led approach; collaboration across agencies and local authorities; and, family and parental support.
From a long-list of problem statements the panel distilled these into seven of the most pressing challenges and ranked them. Then, delving deeper, the panel discussed areas to target which may yield the most effective and innovative solutions. The panel framed their discussion by considering how the solutions were scalable, replicable, pan-London, and commercially viable.
It was clear that keeping the experiences of any child or family in mind is vital for delivering successful change. Particularly when considering early intervention, the context of the circumstances is key – the challenge for local authorities is how can this be understood and the appropriate action be identified most effectively.
These challenges will be put to those attending our hackathon on Thursday to begin to identify and develop creative and innovative solutions across the range of areas.
