Practice is at the heart of how SHiFT thinks about, and influences, system change.
By working from within and alongside existing services, SHiFT Practices influence one conversation at a time, infiltrating existing systems and modelling a different way of working alongside children and families. We work with our partners to deliver progress against shared strategic and local system change objectives.
By scaling Practices across the UK, SHiFT is building a national community of practice that delivers and demonstrates outstanding outcomes for children and young people. In so doing, SHiFT amasses learning and capability and builds local and regional partnerships with organisations that share our vision and values. With these insights and partnerships we seek to influence policy and practice change, changing perceptions and contributing to new public conversation at both national and local levels.
SHIFT’s system change work is growing. Highlights include:
SHiFTing Perceptions
In June 2022, SHiFT partnered with The Liminal Space to host an interactive exhibition on the Southbank called Shifting Perceptions. The Shifting Perceptions exhibition shared the experiences of some of the children we support and the difference SHiFT makes to lives, systems and outcomes.
Commission on Young Lives
In November 2022, former Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, published the Commission on Young Lives’ final report, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’. SHiFT was highlighted as an example of excellent practice as part of this national plan of action to support vulnerable teenagers to succeed and to protect them from adversity, exploitation, and harm.
‘I took mad risks at 13, selling weed to heroin dealers’
How does a middle-class teenager, raised on piano and judo lessons, end up transporting drugs worth thousands of pounds in his schoolbag and hanging around in crack dens? Rachel Sylvester interviewed a child supported by SHiFT for The Times.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-took-mad-risks-at-13-selling-weed-to-heroin-dealers-6cj5srjhw