Evaluating Relational Practice
Why we need to rethink evaluation approaches
We often have an intuitive sense that relational practice makes a difference, and there is plenty of evidence that supports this sense (see Relationships Case Maker). But when it comes to evaluating the impact of relational practice, it can be challenging to capture the ways in which relationships make a difference. Participants on our Relational Practice Peer Learning Programme highlighted the importance of finding evaluation approaches that provide meaningful insights into how relationships benefit young people and add value to their lives.
With their focus on quantifiable outcomes, many traditional evaluation methods are inadequate: they measure what’s easy to count rather than what’s significant to care experienced young people. Therefore, relational practice requires evaluation approaches that prioritise relationships, storytelling and deep listening. One such approach is the Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology, which centres on gathering and analysing personal narratives to understand impact.
Most Significant Change: A relational methodology
The Most Significant Change approach is a participatory form of evaluation that collects stories of change, allowing participants to articulate their most meaningful experiences. Most Significant Change has been used across a broad variety of contexts from international development to education, healthcare, and social services in order to provide insights into change outcomes. It is particularly well-suited for work with care experienced young people, as it validates their lived experiences and provides rich first-hand insights into the impact of services and support networks.
One of the strengths of MSC is its ability to bring together different stakeholders for conversations about the kinds of changes that are most significant from their different perspectives. This process enables reflective discussions that can lead to a deeper understanding of how relational practice influences lives – and actions based on these insights. This can help put young people’s voices at the heart of decision-making.
How to use Most Significant Change
To use MSC in your practice, make sure to follow these key steps:
- Collecting Stories – Engage young people and other stakeholders in sharing their personal experiences of change (for instance across the lifetime of your project), ensuring a safe and supportive environment for storytelling. (See resources below for inspiration.)
- Selecting Significant Stories – A diverse group of stakeholders, including young people and professionals, each reviews and discusses the collected stories, identifying the most significant ones from their point of view.
- Facilitating Dialogue – Bring the different stakeholders together to share the selected stories and make sense of them together, so they can collectively understand why certain changes are considered significant.
- Reflecting and Learning – Use the insights gained from these discussions to initiate change, inviting each stakeholder group to set out how these insights will inform their work.
- Communicating Findings – Share the outcomes of the MSC process with wider audiences, including funders, policymakers and other young people to inform broader change and policy development.
Practice examples
For practical applications of MSC in relational practice, consider these resources:
- Esmée Fairbairn Foundation produced this booklet on Using Most Significant Change to Understand Outcomes for Young People Leaving Care
- The Old Fire Station used MSC to develop their Storytelling Evaluation Methodology
- Better Evaluation offers an in-depth guide on Most Significant Change Methodology
Importantly, many storytelling methods can be adapted or complemented with pictures, creative/performing arts or music/sounds to suit young people who may not use verbal communication or for whom English isn’t their first language.
Other approaches to evaluating relational practice
In addition to MSC, several other storytelling and dialogue-based evaluation methods can help capture the depth and nuance of relational practice:
Developing Evidence Enriched Practice (DEEP)
The DEEP project integrates storytelling methods and dialogical learning into practice to ensure it is supported by evidence from everyone involved in social care – the people supported, their family, practitioners, leaders and other stakeholders. It reframes traditional notions of what counts as evidence and whose evidence counts by providing a collaborative way to use qualitative evidence for continuous learning and improvement.
Blue Cabin / tialt Impact Framework
Blue Cabin have pioneered a relational approach to evaluating work with care-experienced young people, developing an Impact Framework with tialt (There is an Alternative). By focusing on stories, relationships, and lived experiences, their framework is better able to capture the depth of outcomes, providing insights that go beyond numbers and statistics.
Conclusion
Evaluating relational practice requires methodologies that foreground relationships, capture stories and provide qualitative insights. Fortunately, there are several that are both rigorous and well-established. The Most Significant Change approach, alongside initiatives like DEEP and Blue Cabin’s impact framework, demonstrates how storytelling and participatory evaluation can transform the way we understand and measure impact. Using creative and story-based approaches in relational practice with care experienced young people is not only about capturing meaningful change though – it also contributes to relationship-building at the same time.
Some ideas for action
- Research a few of the relational evaluation methods shared above and consider which of these might be suitable for your practice context, e.g. specific projects or support you’re providing for care experienced young people. How could these methods complement or replace existing evaluations you’re doing?
- Have a conversation within your team about how you might use storytelling methods like Most Significant Change to capture your project’s impact on young people’s lives and what this means to them.
- Talk to young people about what they think about evaluations and how they would like to capture the difference your work is making in their lives. By involving them from the outset, you can co-design the most meaningful and tailored evaluation approach for your practice context. For ideas on how to do this, please see this example from Brighton & Hove.
Where can you find out more?
Find out more here:
- Better Evaluation: Most Significant Change Methodology
- Esmée Fairbairn Foundation: Using Most Significant Change to Understand Outcomes for Young People Leaving Care
- The Old Fire Station: Storytelling Evaluation Methodology
- Developing Evidence-Enriched Practice: DEEP Handbook
- Blue Cabin / tialt: Impact Framework
- Social Pedagogy Development Network: Using Most Significant Change in social pedagogical practice (recorded training workshop with Nick Andrews from DEEP)
- Brighton & Hove: Relationship-Based Practice evaluation framework and co-production workshop with young people to develop an evaluation framework
This blog is part of a series of resources drawing on the peer learning programme and containing young people’s views, evidence and case studies of why working relationally is important for practice with care experienced young people.
The resources are accompanied by a series of webinars, where you can learn more and discuss how to put them into practice.