Across the region, public and third sector organisations are rethinking public services to improve the lives of children and young people. These organisations are helping young people and families with the greatest need get the services and support they need, not just what’s available.
At Capacity, we see these challenges every day. We also see the potential of public services to break these cycles and give children, young people and their families the future they deserve. That’s why the next stage of our work will focus more on making things better for children, young people and their families.
For the last nine years, Capacity has built a deep understanding of local communities, public services, and social issues, creating real change that people can see and feel. We’ve worked with local authorities across the North West to transform the way children’s social care and mental health services are delivered. But despite many brilliant people and organisations working across the region, too many of our children and young people are in crisis, suffering from a broken system.
Insight into action
In 2023, we launched our first venture, Juno – a network of not-for-profit children’s residential homes across the Liverpool City Region. It’s a sustainable alternative to profit-driven models that dominate the children’s residential landscape. At the heart of Juno’s way of working is a commitment to creating local homes where young people feel safe, loved and supported. Care-experienced young people in the Liverpool City Region have told us about their experiences and what needs to change in order for residential care homes to be great places to grow up.
Branch, a multi-year project with Wirral Council and Cheshire, Merseyside ICB, Open Door, Koala and an alliance of organisations, is transforming the emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people in Wirral, ensuring they know how and when to get support. Our work in Greater Manchester with the Regional Care Co-operative to help looked after children living in complex situations is supporting organisations to find long-term solutions, not short-term fixes.
We believe public services – whether that’s residential care, working with complex families or supporting young people with their mental health — shouldn’t just be a safety net, but a trampoline to realise their potential and make life everything it can be. Our collaborative approach is helping children and young people – sometimes growing up in poverty, facing neglect, struggling with mental health or poor education – to set a different trajectory, not a lifetime of disadvantage.
Sometimes the most important thing is how we work with children, young people and families. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a young person during Juno’s early co-production work. He told me: ‘Everything I’ve done wrong in life is written down on a piece of paper, everything I’ve done right isn’t’.
Juno’s homes are designed by young people, for young people.
Better together
The next phase of Capacity’s growth will be different. Different because it represents Capacity becoming more focused on work and ventures that have the biggest impact on the lives of children and young people across the region.
Having the right partners around Capacity is crucial for this next stage of our development. Whether they’re providing us with opportunities to reform public services, supporting us with funding to deliver public service reform or providing expertise.
Earlier this month, we hosted a group of national funders interested in learning about Capacity’s work with children and young people. What were they most interested in? Our belief that genuine, long-term co-production can build people’s capacity to live the life they want and a way of working that builds trust and relationships with children, young people and their families.
Across the Liverpool City Region and the UK, organisations are starting to do things differently and radically rethinking public services – redesigning public services around children, young people and their lives. Services that put them first, respond to their circumstances and empower teams working in our communities to use their experience and creativity to do what’s needed, not just what’s available or complies with ‘how we’ve always done it’.
Breaking the cycle
We know that innovative, early intervention services prevent crisis and give children and young people the best possible start in life. The evidence is clear: when public services are innovative, children and young people thrive.
It was a recurring theme of the recent People’s Powerhouse event in Liverpool. I took part in a panel debate, ‘Are Northern Leaders innovative enough?’ Yes, we are. Our track record of starting new projects and enterprises is excellent. But we’re not good enough at making them stick and enabling promising innovations to become normalised.
Through our work with local authorities across the region, we see smart, energetic people, who really care. But our ways of working together aren’t quite working. Bravery levels are gradually eclipsed by demand pressures and regulatory requirements. It means that sometimes public sector ‘immune systems’ can react badly to innovation or anything that strays from compliance and regulation.
The good news is our partners in local authorities, NHS, charities and community organisations aren’t asking us to tackle the old system but build a new one, too – to create fundamentally different public services for children, young people and families.
The Office of Public Service Innovation (OPSI) offers a glimpse into the future. A future where people and communities are at the centre of shaping public services. Like us, the LCR Combined Authority and local authorities believe young people are the real experts in their own lives. The critical role of public services is not to save or fix people. It’s to give the support and opportunities they need to realise their potential when they’re going through a tough time.
So, what’s next?
Every day more people, more communities, more organisations are seeing the potential for something better. A new way to make a difference to the lives of children, young people and families who rely on public services in the Liverpool City Region.
Our work is grounded in the reality of how tough life can be for some children and young people. Poverty doesn’t just mean empty cupboards. It means poorer health, lower educational attainment and fewer employment opportunities.
Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are, on average, 11 months behind their peers in school by age 16. We have to move beyond short-term fixes and commit to long-term, systemic change. By bringing local people and communities together to solve problems, building partnerships to deliver a relational model of change, we can put new thinking into action, not just talk about it.
Change is possible when innovation, investment and political will align. Across Liverpool City Region and Cheshire, brilliant people and organisations are redesigning public services with care, imagination and sensitivity. It’s a new vision for public services in the Liverpool City Region. One we’re committed to being part of.
If you’d like to talk more about Capacity’s work with children, young people and families, please feel free to get in touch chris.catterall@thisiscapacity.co.uk
