Child poverty pathfinders - early implementation process: evaluation

22 May 2023 01:48 PM

This report explores the early set-up and implementation of the Child Poverty Pathfinders. The research uses in-depth qualitative findings to understand what has been working well and what has been working less well during the development stage.

Executive Summary

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act of 2017 set new legal targets for child poverty in Scotland, including for less than 18% of children to be living in relative poverty by 2023/24 and for less than 10% to be living in relative poverty by 2030. As part of this overarching target, the Scottish Government created the 2018-2022 Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, and in March 2022 released the second stage of the delivery plan for 2022-2026. This second delivery plan includes a commitment to support the work of two Local Pathfinders – one operating in Glasgow and one in Dundee.

These Pathfinders, designed and implemented at a local level, aim to provide person-centred support to families most at risk of poverty. Critically, the Pathfinders seek to make it easier for families to access services as part of a proactive attempt to improve the system as a whole and move away from a disaggregated service provision. As such, they aim to tackle child poverty both by directly supporting families at risk, and also by driving system change in the way in which families are supported.

This early process evaluation was undertaken to explore the early set-up and implementation of the Child Poverty Pathfinder sites, to understand what had been working well, and what had been working less well, during the development stage. The evaluation team engaged with stakeholders and partners at national, strategic and local service delivery levels to examine the extent to which the Pathfinder activities had begun to create systems change. The team also engaged with families to explore their journey through the system, and how their experiences of receiving support may have differed from previous occasions where support had been sought. The overarching aim of the evaluation was to identify lessons which could be used in future to improve the existing Pathfinder sites and to inform decision making for other future sites.

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