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Jo Blundell's avatar

Very thoughtful piece. Also made me wonder (crediting Dr Jo Pearson for the thought) how All Child’s model creates a more sustainable impact on local children after the scaffolding comes down.

Particularly if impact is focused on systems improvements rather than better outcomes for specific children?

John Hitchin's avatar

Thanks, Jo. I was using scaffolding just for the relational networks, because I think what's interesting about these models rather than backbones is that they have the innovation to system shift built in. I'm not saying that's easy, but I wonder if this is less of an issue than a backbone?

Although, I'm also writing something on backbones, and I think the scaffolding challenge is a problem to be worked through for those models, rather than seeing it as a weakness of the model. It's perhaps more of a weakness of the systems?

Jo Blundell's avatar

Yes agree, but I do think there is an inherent tension between driving change at pace through a well resourced BB and building capacity in BAU. Funder expectations around pace and extent of change is a factor.