What’s involved?

• Identifying the problem/concern within your local community/setting
• Establishing that the problem is not fully addressed by existing services or activities
• Understanding where there are opportunities for intervention
• Understanding the evidence around potential solutions, including existing programmes/services used elsewhere
• Understanding the feasibility of potential models/interventions
• Using expertise, lived experience, evidence from research, and public data to select the most appropriate solutions

Why should time be spent doing this?

We work in communities and settings where the challenges are often complex; solutions need to meet those challenges and there are no ‘silver bullets’. The time we take to understand why we need to act and how, and selecting the right intervention, increases the chances of successful delivery and making real change. Which also means making the best use of the limited resources.

Identifying an existing evidence based intervention which can be adapted to your context, has the potential to save some of the time and effort involved in designing a service from scratch. It also strengthens the case for commissioning. However, evidence for something working in one area does not automatically mean it will work in yours. 

On the other hand, where there are no existing evidence based interventions, there is opportunity to develop something science based, using research evidence and stakeholder input, and create and test something new. 

Overall, the time spent at this stage will reduce time and effort spent later and will mean that people and communities are supported sooner.