Using systems change approaches to tackle complex issues in the justice system
‘The starting point is not a goal but a collaboration’ – how Barrow Cadbury Trust has used systems change approaches to tackle complex issues in the justice system.
Young adulthood
How do you explain to people who don’t work in criminal justice about the distinct needs of young adults caught up in that system? Well, we held a mini 18th birthday party in our workshop room with balloons and birthday tunes! We then invited them to think back to when they turned 18 (or when someone they know turned 18).
Their reflections from this exercise were revealing and we identified three main themes:
| Feeling overwhelmed and uncertain
| ‘I didn’t have a bloody clue what I wanted to do!’ ‘It was very overwhelming at 18, I was trying to understand my place.’ ‘Overwhelm and excitement – yoyoing between those emotions.’ ‘I had undiagnosed mental health problems.’ |
| Testing boundaries
| ‘Testing boundaries and not always knowing where the boundary is and the repercussions until you’ve crossed it.’ ‘Experimenting with taking responsibility and consequences – it’s a never-ending journey.’ ‘I had a total lack of fear.’ ‘Learning from role models.’ |
| A social construct
| ‘Are you even really an adult at 18? In Sweden, you’re classed as an adult at 21. Adulthood is a social construct. It varies all over the world.’ ‘Are you really an adult at 18?’ ‘They said – but you’re an adult! I thought, oh great, but I still need help from adults!’ |
One attendee said afterward that they ‘particularly enjoyed the visualisation exercise - I mostly forgot that overwhelming jumble of thoughts and emotions around the age of 18.’
The group in question were attendees at the Systems Innovation Network Global Conference, mainly working in sectors such as health and sustainability, where systems thinking has taken root. Two of Justice Futures co-directors Gemma Buckland and Nina Champion, along with Laurie Hunte from the Transition to Adulthood Alliance at Barrow Cadbury Trust and Nadine Smith, a young justice advisor, were facilitating a workshop exploring how systems thinking can help improve outcomes for young adults in the justice system, and why a systems approach to funding is necessary to tackle complex issues and see transformational shifts.
Nadine explained the distinct needs of young adults in the criminal justice system including the fact that their brains are still developing and that the process of maturity doesn’t end at 18. She described the ‘cliff edge’ of services and support stopping and how young adults are often grouped with adults of all ages, whether in court, in custody or on probation, whereas we have a separate system for under-18s. She discussed her work with the Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A) and Leaders Unlocked, ensuring that young adults with lived experience are empowered to influence systems change by conducting research, designing services, and speaking to policymakers.
She set out that this is a complex issue as there is not one solution; it’s interconnected, multi-dimensional, and involves multiple and conflicting perspectives. In systems speak, this is known as a ‘wicked challenge’
The criminal justice eco-system
We then got attendees thinking about the different actors in the ecosystem that T2A works with and their multiple and conflicting perspectives. Using a Si Network Actor Mapping canvas, attendees were asked to imagine themselves as young adults, policymakers and practitioners to think about what values, power, mental models and incentives these actors have in the system when it comes to meeting young adults’ distinct needs.
When looking at power, attendees highlighted various types of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power dynamics including physical violence, money, the law, the power to ‘say no’, and even the power of an officer’s uniform. Incentives varied from hitting targets to ‘respect’, serving the community, to wanting a quick exit from the system. Mental models included ‘do the time, do the crime’, ‘prison works’, crime being caused by individual choice rather than societal failures and the ‘punishment v. rehabilitation’ dichotomy. Lastly, the values influencing actors in the ecosystem noted by participants were protection, risk reduction, efficiency, the rule of law, empathy, and suspicion.
The purpose of the exercise was to better understand what’s going on ‘under the surface’ with different actors in the system, so we can then work with the systemic patterns identified productively to affect change in the system.
As one workshop participant reflected ‘one of the most powerful exercises you can do is to step into other people’s shoes in the system.’ Another commented that ‘the ambiguities that arise are interesting.’ And one said it was ‘eye-opening. I could connect directly with some of the issues I’ve noticed in our neighbourhood. [It was] very effective in helping us look at these issues from different perspectives.’
These insights are what these systems tools are designed to bring out – helping people see differently, think differently and then do differently … our tagline at Justice Futures!
If we’d had more time, we would have discussed the insights the group had gained from examining the system from different actors’ perspectives and then used these to identify which leverage or intervention points would have the most long-lasting, positive impacts on the system. This is something that T2A, supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, has been navigating for the past two decades, as set out in a recent evaluation report by IVAR.
Changing the funding paradigm
We also used the actor mapping canvas to explore the values, power, incentives and mental models typically found in philanthropic funders, acknowledging that this is shifting (as we explore further below). For example, traditionally philanthropic funders might value learned expertise over lived expertise, favour funding short-term ‘sticking plaster’ solutions by looking for quick fixes, lack diversity, and might use models that promote competition rather than collaboration. They also often exercise some form of power, not only in the resources they hold, but in setting the criteria, timescales, decision-making and monitoring processes of their grants and project proposals.
Barrow Cadbury Trust is an unusual funder by taking a long-term, systemic approach to shifting paradigms. One example is their longstanding support of the Transition to Adulthood Alliance. IVAR recently evaluated this approach to systems change, and we highlighted some of the important key themes and learning from that report:
| Collaboration and relationship-building | ‘The starting point for T2A is not a goal but a collaboration.’
‘The best agendas for systems change work are built from diverse perspectives – no one knows “the right answer” |
| Power dynamics
| ‘Funders need to make a conscious and sustained effort to shift the paradigm in their interactions with others – from oversight to partnership.’
‘Systems change efforts have too often neglected the expertise of people with lived experience of these systems. Supporting their leadership and agency is increasingly recognised as crucial to achieving meaningful change.’ |
| Long-term commitment
| ‘A long-term view can absorb the ups and downs and the capacity to build relationships.’
‘We’re not governed by performance indicators – things taking a long time doesn’t deter us.’ |
| Working with emergence and unpredictability
| ‘Complexity theory captures the reality that over time you will encounter both the expected and unexpected.’
‘Working in and with complexity requires a different mindset and a different approach: dynamic, adaptive, emergent.’ |
IVAR’s findings mirror Catalyst 2030’s open letter for NGOs to sign, calling for funders to take a more systemic approach to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. One of these goals, SDG 16, relates to peaceful and inclusive societies and justice for all.
IVAR drew attention to Barrow Cadbury’s mindset shift, seeing themselves primarily as a systems change partner, rather than a funder. The report found the distinction between ‘being a player, rather than just an enabler’ has been deliberate and intentional, as Barrow Cadbury Trust are proud to both ‘drive and serve.’ This activism is done in collaboration with alliance members and with a vital awareness of the need to ‘out the power dynamic by relational means; listening carefully, responding to challenge, showing respect, being flexible, deferring to greater expertise and building partnershiprelationships not administrative ones.’
We also discussed a report and system map by New Philanthropy Capital showing that advocacy activities aimed at influencing political systems get less than 2% of all money going to criminal justice-focused NGOs and system coordination activities get less than 1%. We also highlighted the findings of two other reports (by Harm 2 Healing and Rosa) which show that grassroots, ‘by and for’ organisations promoting racial and gender justice often miss out on funding due to bureaucracy, a lack of unrestricted funding to support capacity building and the instability and uncertainty of short-term funding.
Laurie highlighted an example of partnership working between funders, where Barrow Cadbury convened a group of philanthropic funders to collaboratively help tackle racial disparities in the criminal justice system and address important issues of capacity building and leadership development for ‘by and for’ organisations.
We used the Berkana Institute’s Two Loops model to demonstrate the transition from the current dominant paradigm (in this case, funders as funders) to the new emergent paradigm (in this case, funders as systems change partners). We wanted to identify some of the ‘seeds of change’ happening globally and to start connecting and illuminating them.
Attendees gave examples of where they had started to see shifts from the current dominant paradigm of ‘funder’ towards ‘systems change partner’. Some interesting examples from around the world were shared, including:
- Children’s Investment Fund Foundation—a global funder which takes a systems change approach by investing in the long term, focusing on root causes, having a high appetite for risk, being flexible, and investing in building a thriving ecosystem and emerging leaders.
- Viable Cities – a challenge-driven, strategic innovation programme in Sweden where people submit ideas as individual organisations and then collaborate with other applicants to design projects to create climate-neutral cities by 2030.
- NCVO – a voluntary sector infrastructure body in the UK which is exploring the use of collaborative funding applications.
It was clear that attendees wanted to see more of these shifts in the future. As the IVAR report found, trusts and foundations are uniquely placed to support systems change as ‘they have the money, the time, and the patience. They can afford to take risks, to shift power, to disrupt, to play a leading role, like Barrow Cadbury Trust, or to be a patient cheerleader. All of these choices are in their gift.’
We hope the workshop gave a small taste of how systems approaches and systemic funding can help tackle complex issues, including in the criminal justice sector. As one attendee concluded, working in these ways helps bring people from ‘systems blindness to systems sight’.
Nina Champion, Gemma Buckland, Nadine Smith and Laurie Hunte
