Evaluating our idea…

As a final step in our project, the team completed an evaluation of the ‘Hug in a Mug’ policy.

First of all we went back to Gill’s identified needs and asked how the policy responded to them:

We then discussed the type of transformation that we expected the ‘Hug in a Mug’ policy to achieve at Falkirk Council by using the three horizons tool:

We then worked through the Relationships First design principles and considered how the policy responds to each. In the diagram below, the purple line tracks how the group felt the policy responds to each principle.

Finally we considered the service design outcomes for the workforce and for care leavers. The outcomes are presented as behaviours in the Relationships First vision (think, say, do). We identified which relates to our service design proposal and then explained how the ‘Hug in a Mug’ service design supports and enables these behaviours.

In all instances, the ‘Hug in a Mug’ policy relates to the Relationship First vision behaviours because our service design idea envisions to:

• Provide a nurturing work environment and culture that offers nurturing experiences for staff and enables nurturing work practices for workers. 
• As a consequence, workers will feel more committed to delivering positive outcomes in their roles.
• If the workforce are nurtured, young people who use our services will have more confidence in the services they use.

With ‘Hug in a Mug’ in place at a policy level, the design of specific touchpoints to embed a nurturing culture will be encouraged. As we have specified in our policy document, this will take an evolving course and should be co-designed with workers according to their specific nurture needs.

Having access to the Nurture Champion programme, informal therapeutic supports and being a single point of contact for young people all facilitate the Relationships First vision behaviours.