IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v4y2018i1d10.1057_s41599-018-0139-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Developing theories of change for social programmes: co-producing evidence-supported quality improvement

Author

Listed:
  • Deborah Ghate

    (The Colebrooke Centre for Evidence and Implementation)

Abstract

For much of the past two decades, expensive and often imported evidence-based programmes (EBPs) developed by clinician-researchers have been much in vogue in the family and parenting support field, as in many other areas of social provision. With their elaborate infrastructures, voluminous research bases and strict licensing criteria, they have seemed to offer certainty of success over less packaged, less well-evidenced locally developed approaches. Yet recently, evaluation research is showing that success is not assured. EBPs can and regularly do fail, at substantial cost to the public purse. In times of severe resource pressure, a pressing question is, therefore, whether lower cost, home-grown, practitioner-developed programmes—the sort often overlooked by policy-makers —can deliver socially significant and scientifically convincing outcomes at lower cost and at least on a par with their better resourced cousins. This paper shows how the application of techniques increasingly used in implementation science (the science of effective delivery) could help level the playing field. Processes for doing this including co-produced theory of change development and validation are illustrated with reference to the Family Links Ten Week Nurturing Programme (FLNP-10), a popular manualised group-based parenting support programme, designed and disseminated since the 1990s by a UK-based purveyor organisation. The paper draws out general principles for formulating and structuring strong theories of change for practice improvement projects. The work shows that novel application of implementation science-informed techniques can help home-grown programmes to compete scientifically by strengthening their design and delivery, and preparing the ground for better and fairer evaluation.

Suggested Citation

  • Deborah Ghate, 2018. "Developing theories of change for social programmes: co-producing evidence-supported quality improvement," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-13, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0139-z
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0139-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-018-0139-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-018-0139-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaplan, Sue A. & Garrett, Katherine E., 2005. "The use of logic models by community-based initiatives," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 167-172, May.
    2. Forrester, Donald & Westlake, David & Killian, Mike & Antonopoulou, Vivi & McCann, Michelle & Thurnham, Angela & Thomas, Roma & Waits, Charlotte & Whittaker, Charlotte & Hutchison, Dougal, 2018. "A randomized controlled trial of training in Motivational Interviewing for child protection," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 180-190.
    3. Renger, Ralph & Hurley, Carolyn, 2006. "From theory to practice: Lessons learned in the application of the ATM approach to developing logic models," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 106-119, May.
    4. Campbell, Donald T., 1979. "Assessing the impact of planned social change," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 67-90, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lam, Steven & Dodd, Warren & Wyngaarden, Sara & Skinner, Kelly & Papadopoulos, Andrew & Harper, Sherilee L., 2021. "How and why are Theory of Change and Realist Evaluation used in food security contexts? A scoping review," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    2. Dawid, Philip & Humphreys, Macartan & Musio, Monica, 2022. "Bounding Causes of Effects With Mediators," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue OnlineFir, pages 1-1.
    3. Devaney, Carmel & Mac Donald, Mandi & Holzer, Julia, 2024. "A social justice perspective on the delivery of family support," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    4. Robert Wilby & Xianfu Lu, 2022. "Tailoring climate information and services for adaptation actors with diverse capabilities," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1-13, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel O. Gilligan & Naureen Karachiwalla & Ibrahim Kasirye & Adrienne M. Lucas & Derek Neal, 2022. "Educator Incentives and Educational Triage in Rural Primary Schools," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(1), pages 79-111.
    2. Brian Gill, 2022. "What Should The Future Of Educational Accountability Look Like?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 1232-1239, September.
    3. Yue-Yi Hwa & Clare Leaver, 2021. "Management in education systems," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 367-391.
    4. Wasserman, Deborah L., 2010. "Using a systems orientation and foundational theory to enhance theory-driven human service program evaluations," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 67-80, May.
    5. Vlachos, Jonas, 2018. "Trust based evaluation in a market oriented school system," Research Papers in Economics 2018:1, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    6. Peyton, David J. & Scicchitano, Michael, 2017. "Devil is in the details: Using logic models to investigate program process," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 156-162.
    7. Trinidad, Jose Eos, 2022. "Meaning-Making, Negotiation, and Change: Reviewing the Organization and Ecology of School Accountability," SocArXiv ywm8b, Center for Open Science.
    8. Nasir, Muhammad Ali & Morgan, Jamie, 2023. "Paradox of stationarity? A policy target dilemma for policymakers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 142-145.
    9. Manheim, David, 2018. "Building Less Flawed Metrics," MPRA Paper 90649, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gazi Islam, 2022. "Business Ethics and Quantification: Towards an Ethics of Numbers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 195-211, March.
    11. Vinícius P. Rodrigues & Daniela C. A. Pigosso & Jakob W. Andersen & Tim C. McAloone, 2018. "Evaluating the Potential Business Benefits of Ecodesign Implementation: A Logic Model Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-26, June.
    12. Oded Rozenbaum, 2019. "EBITDA and Managers' Investment and Leverage Choices," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(1), pages 513-546, March.
    13. Apostolos Filippas & John J. Horton & Joseph M. Golden, 2022. "Reputation Inflation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(4), pages 733-745, July.
    14. Delahais, Thomas & Ottaviani, Fiona & Berthaud, Annabelle & Clot, Hélène, 2023. "Bridging the gap between wellbeing and evaluation: Lessons from IBEST, a French experience," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    15. Picciotto, Robert, 2021. "Evaluation as a social practice: Disenchantment, rationalities and ethics," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    16. Jesse Rothstein, 2015. "Teacher Quality Policy When Supply Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 100-130, January.
    17. Apurv Jain, 2017. "Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 52(2), pages 123-125, April.
    18. Cilliers, Jacobus & Kasirye, Ibrahim & Leaver, Clare & Serneels, Pieter & Zeitlin, Andrew, 2018. "Pay for locally monitored performance? A welfare analysis for teacher attendance in Ugandan primary schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 69-90.
    19. Wagemakers, Annemarie & Vaandrager, Lenneke & Koelen, Maria A. & Saan, Hans & Leeuwis, Cees, 2010. "Community health promotion: A framework to facilitate and evaluate supportive social environments for health," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 428-435, November.
    20. Vyacheslav V. VOLCHIK & Maxim A. KORYTSEV & Elena V. MASLYUKOVA, 2018. "Institutional traps and New Public Management in education and science," Upravlenets, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 9(6), pages 17-29, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0139-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.