Welcome to November’s edition of the CordisPulse – a monthly digest of key research and policy developments across the sectors in which Cordis Bright provides research and consultancy services, i.e. adult social care and health, children and young people's services, and criminal justice.

At Cordis Bright we specialise in working with clients from across health, care and criminal justice who are trying to resolve complex challenges with deeply embedded roots. Our, and other research, demonstrates that there are multiple drivers of poor outcomes, whether its health and wellbeing, attainment in schools and employment, or access to the right services.

Public services, recognising this reality, are increasingly taking steps to work differently to address these complex and embedded challenges, including employing systems thinking in their approaches. Cordis Bright has recently worked with the Health Foundation and LGA to capture learning from their Shaping Places for Healthier Lives programme, which has taken a complex systems approach to tackling a range of public challenges in five very different parts of England.

It was great to see how each of the sites involved were thinking differently about how they could intervene in their local areas to produce better outcomes for their citizens. Their focus included forging stronger cross-sector partnerships, working on problems from multiple perspectives, and leveraging the different capabilities of people across their communities to develop new solutions. It also involved being responsive and reacting to the ever-changing system that they were working in, and seizing opportunities as they presented themselves.

In this month’s Pulse we highlight that the LGA has published seven key lessons from the Shaping Places for Healthier Lives Programme developed alongside the five sites. What stood out to us are some of the lessons that could easily be taken for granted, such as “relationship-building is the real work” and the importance of “communicating in a way that inspires”. When faced with seemingly intractable problems, the importance of building a coalition of support and developing hopeful messages about how positive change can be achieved, is vital. It is also a lesson that can be applied in many different areas of our work.

Evaluating such complicated and complex interventions is always a challenge. Working with the Shaping Places for Healthier Lives teams – and other clients around the UK – Cordis Bright is expert at using different approaches to capture learning and evidence of the difference made by systems change approaches, including systems mapping, contribution analysis and more.

We look forward to sharing the final report with you all in next month’s Pulse.