This report by Social Finance and Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales shares learning from practical experience of creating systemic change. It focuses on Drive - a partnership across statutory and voluntary agencies responding to perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse to keep victims and survivors safe. Our hope is that by sharing the general lessons they can be applied by other charities, funders and agencies involved in social change on a range of issues.
We sometimes find that responses to social problems are not as effective as they could be, because different initiatives, organisations and funding streams work in disconnected ways. Systems change is about shifting the way a whole system works around a specific social issue in order to ensure long lasting change.
Drive shows systems change in practice as it is influencing the overall response to domestic violence by the police, social services, other parts of local government, and the wider voluntary sector.
This is the first in a series of co-produced reports at Social Finance called Changing Lives, Changing Systems. These reports will capture and disseminate cross-cutting learnings from different case studies showing systems change in practice.