What we're reading
Data
We’ve been hugely enjoying the sessions at this week’s Data4Good Festival, covering a wide range of themes and issues across the three days of the event. If you weren’t able to attend, the festival’s Fringe events continue for a few weeks still - you can sign up to events here. For more on these topics, we’d also recommend visiting the Data Collective blog, which explores various topics such as moving from reactive to proactive data work and why do we know so little about the charity sector’s data?
These gaps in the sector’s data is also the topic of this article and report from The Law Family Commission on Civil Society, created and led by Pro Bono Economics, which includes a summary of findings from a workshop held with organisations with data expertise from across the social sector, as well as representatives from government and the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Attendees at the workshop discussed what the data gaps are, their implications, and why these are challenging to address.
Developmental relationships, SEL, and equity
We’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between social and emotional learning (SEL) and equity recently. This recorded session from the American Institutes for Research looks at how, when implemented in a culturally responsive manner, SEL can help support equity and help students thrive (particularly during this particularly challenging time), including a review of the latest evidence and effective practices.
Building on this theme, this article from the Science of Learning and Development Alliance looks at five elements - each grounded in a substantial body of research from across fields - for designing learning settings that can enable all students to thrive, and that can expose and upend inequities across the learning and development ecosystem. Although the elements will feel familiar to many, the article notes that it can be hard to implement them; in response, the Alliance is in the process of bringing together a suite of resources for implementation and evidence about what these practices accomplish when implemented with high fidelity and integration in both school and community-based settings. The resources have been designed by practitioners, scientists and community stakeholders, and will be available before the summer. In the meantime, you can read about the five elements and essential guiding principles for ‘Equitable Whole-Child Design’ here.
One of the elements included in the framework above is positive developmental relationships that include emotional caring and attachment that create trust and support learning and growth for young people. The Search Institute defines “social capital” as the resources that arise from a web of relationships that people can access and mobilise to help them improve their lives and achieve their goals (which inevitably shift over time.) In this article they explore how developmental relationships sit at the heart of this definition, and introduce a helpful framework for the measurement and improvement of social capital (presented in a handy infographic). The framework is based on an extensive and rigorous literature review, which can be found here.
Learning and evaluation
We hold a few ‘Learning Partner’ roles at the Centre, and really love this exploration of how the role differs from that of an evaluator along with a reflection on the context that has enabled “the unstoppable rise of the Learning Partner.” This piece is the first of a series of blogs by Keira Lowther at Dartington Service Design Lab, and we’re looking forward to the next one which will look at conditions for success when taking a learning partner approach.
Finally, this short article from the American Evaluation’s Association’s ‘Tip-a-day by and for evaluators’ blog explores how we can make the most of virtual spaces for evaluation, with some helpful advice that could work for both virtual evaluation and other facilitated spaces.
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