1. What Went Well?
My final week with The School & Family Works was focused on synthesis, delivery, and handover. After several weeks of learning from the organisation’s staff, parents, therapists, governance processes, school partners, internal data systems, and historical evaluations, I worked to bring the different strands of the project together into a set of practical outputs that could be useful beyond my placement.
The main output I completed was a written Longitudinal Outcomes Framework for Family Group. This framework sets out how S&FW might ethically and practically evaluate the long-term impact of Family Group in the future. It focuses on several key areas: prospective consent at graduation, separation between therapeutic and evaluative roles, parent-focused follow-up, non-intrusive question design, alignment with existing data collection, and the importance of tracking broader second-order outcomes such as parenting confidence, school engagement, reduced isolation, and improved ability to navigate institutions.
I also completed and sent over the evidence trawling database, which organised findings and quotations from S&FW’s existing evaluations, case studies, reports, and surveys. This was one of the most practical pieces of work I produced, because it helped turn a large and scattered evidence base into something easier to search, categorise, and use. The database includes evidence across categories such as trust and safety, emotional regulation, parenting capacity, confidence and voice, school impact, child outcomes, relationships, community impact, and economic mobility.
In addition, I prepared draft consent materials for a future longitudinal follow-up process. These materials were shaped by conversations with Clinical Governance and with the Family Insight Group, especially around the importance of clear opt-in consent, voluntary participation, anonymity options, and careful distinction between evaluation and therapy.
A major part of the week was presenting my work. I first presented the framework to the Practice Development Consultants, the senior therapists at S&FW, in order to test the practical and clinical assumptions behind the framework. This was valuable because they could assess not just whether the framework sounded good in theory, but whether it would actually work in the context of Family Group delivery. Their perspective helped reinforce the importance of keeping the framework grounded in the realities of therapeutic practice.
I then presented to the organisation’s board, walking them through the framework, the evidence base, the ethical considerations, and the strategic rationale for building a stronger long-term outcomes system. This felt like an important culmination of the placement: taking everything I had learned and translating it into a clear organisational recommendation.
What went well this week was that the different parts of the project finally came together. The field observations, parent insights, data review, ethical discussions, and evidence trawl no longer felt like separate activities; they became part of one coherent argument about how S&FW can better understand and communicate the lasting value of Family Group.
2. What Could Have Been Done Differently?
Looking back, one thing I could have done differently is begin the synthesis process earlier. Because the project evolved significantly over the six weeks, especially after Clinical Governance concerns reshaped the original plan, much of the final week involved pulling together several moving parts at once. While this was manageable, I would have benefited from creating a clearer structure for the final outputs sooner.
I also think I could have developed the evidence database even further if I had more time. The database is useful, but the evidence base is rich enough that it could become a much larger strategic resource for the organisation. In an ideal version of the project, I would have had more time to build a fuller funder-facing evidence bank, perhaps with separate tabs for key statistics, strongest quotes, case-study summaries, and suggested uses in applications or communications.
Another area I would have approached differently is preparing more formal feedback loops earlier. I had valuable conversations with Mark, Hendrix, Lindsay, FIG members, and the PDCs, but the project might have benefited from more systematic written feedback at intermediate stages. This would have made the final framework even more collaboratively refined.
That said, the evolving nature of the project was also part of its value. I learned that in a small, mission-driven organisation, especially one working in a sensitive therapeutic context, project design cannot be rigid. It has to respond to governance concerns, staff capacity, participant perspectives, and organisational priorities as they emerge.
3. Leadership Reflection (3Cs Model)
Values
The values most visible in my leadership this week were Determination, Good, and Curiosity.
Determination was important because I had to bring a complex, evolving project to completion in a short period of time. The project had changed shape significantly from its original design, and the final week required me to organise everything into a useful and coherent set of outputs.
The value of Good was also central. I wanted to ensure that the work I produced was not simply polished, but genuinely responsible and helpful. This was especially important because the project involved vulnerable families, therapeutic relationships, and sensitive questions about impact.
Curiosity remained important throughout the final week, particularly in the presentations. I was not simply presenting a finished answer; I was still learning from the responses of therapists, board members, and staff.
Character
This week tested my ability to communicate with clarity and humility. Presenting to senior therapists and then to the board required confidence, but it also required me to be careful not to overstate my role or expertise. I was presenting work that had been shaped by many people across the organisation, and I wanted to reflect that properly.
Judgment mattered in how I framed the recommendations. I had to balance ambition with realism: the framework needed to be useful and forward-looking, but also honest about practical constraints, ethical boundaries, and the limits of attribution in long-term impact work.
I also had to show gratitude and humility. The team at S&FW had taken me under their wing, included me in important conversations, and trusted me with meaningful work. Recognising that generosity was an important part of how I approached the final week.
Capacities
The leadership capacities I relied on most this week were process, communication, and synthesis.
Process capacity mattered because I had to bring together evidence, ethical principles, data systems, participant feedback, and implementation recommendations into one framework. Communication capacity mattered because I had to present that framework differently to different audiences: therapists, who were concerned with practice and safeguarding; and board members, who were also thinking strategically about organisational value, funding, and future direction.
Synthesis was perhaps the most important capacity. This project taught me that leadership is often about connecting dots across different kinds of knowledge: lived experience, clinical expertise, operational data, funder priorities, and research design.
4. Ethical Engagement
This final week reinforced that ethical engagement is not only about how a project is designed, but also about how it is handed over.
The framework I completed was shaped by the principle that long-term impact evaluation must never come at the expense of participant wellbeing. This means ensuring prospective consent, maintaining clear therapeutic boundaries, focusing on parents rather than children in the initial design, offering anonymity where appropriate, and avoiding questions that ask families to revisit difficult experiences unnecessarily.
The presentations also reminded me that ethical engagement includes being honest about the limits of evidence. Family Group appears to produce powerful long-term benefits, but those benefits should be communicated carefully. It is important to avoid over-claiming causality while still recognising the real value of participant-reported change, case studies, and existing administrative indicators.
I also became more aware that ethical engagement includes representation. The stories and quotations in the evidence database are powerful, but they belong to real families who have experienced complex challenges. Using them well means preserving dignity, context, and accuracy.
5. Adjustment & Development Moving Forward
The biggest lesson I will take forward is the importance of measuring social impact in a way that respects the people behind the data.
Before this placement, I was interested in social capital and long-term wellbeing mostly through an academic and research lens. S&FW taught me what those ideas look like in practice: a child feeling safer at school, a parent gaining confidence to speak to teachers, a family learning new ways to communicate, or a group of parents building a support network that lasts after the formal programme ends.
This experience also taught me how difficult but necessary it is for social enterprises to measure and communicate their impact. Organisations like S&FW are often doing deeply meaningful work, but if that work cannot be explained to funders, commissioners, and the public, it becomes harder to sustain. Measurement is not just an administrative task; it is part of ensuring that valuable services survive.
I am very grateful to the whole S&FW team for welcoming me so generously and allowing me to learn from them. The experience gave me a much deeper understanding of the relationship between service, evidence, ethics, and leadership. It also strengthened my commitment to working on questions of social capital, wellbeing, and the long-term value of relational interventions.
A concrete next step for me is to carry forward the lessons from this placement into my future research: to keep asking not only whether a programme “works,” but how it changes relationships, trust, confidence, and the social conditions that allow people to flourish.