To help to improve the health and well-being of people in North Wales, understanding what matters to them is important. We want to do more of what helps people maintain or improve their health and wellbeing and less of what doesn’t work well.
There are many definitions of well-being, common factors include body and mind and includes factors like health and happiness, psychological and social well-being.
Our well-being is constantly changing, shaped by our life experiences, environment and relationships as well as our physical and mental health.
If we are to understand what makes a difference, we first need to capture what changes for people who receive health and care services.
Imagine taking a photograph of a moving object – often the image is blurry, it is similar when we try to capture a picture of what works to improve a person’s well-being.
If we select the best camera and lens based on the conditions, we are more likely to get a clearer picture.
Selecting the right evaluative approaches (the camera) and methods (the lens) can help us to do this.
The North Wales Regional Innovation Coordination Hub and Regional Partnership Board have been researching and testing latest qualitative approaches and evaluation methods with integrated teams across North Wales. These participatory methods (or lens’) can help;
- get to the heart of what matters and what has changed in the lives of the people we support (storytelling and DEEP methods)
- help to articulate how interventions in complex environments lead to intended and unintended impacts, and map outcomes for people and organisations (Ripple Effects Mapping)
- to keep us experimenting, reflecting and learning along the way when we are trying new things (a live slightly blurry video instead of a photograph) (Human Learning Systems)
All of these ways of evaluating services embrace complexity and there are ways to combine data to support the process. For more information visit our engagement page.
