As 2024 draws to a close, we want to take this opportunity to reflect on the support people have accessed at Future Pathways, and the difference this has made to people’s lives.
Our latest impact report published this year showed that our support is vitally important to many people registered with us for many reasons. For example, we know that many people we support experience multiple health and social inequalities, such as living in areas where services can be more difficult to access.
Our work focuses on addressing these inequalities so that people with lived experience of in-care abuse and neglect can live full, healthy and independent lives. While each person’s journey at Future Pathways is unique, this snapshot of our work this year shows that our support has, in different ways, helped many people find their own way to a better life.
This data was drawn from January to November 2024.
People continued to register with and access support at Future Pathways. This year:
People continue to give us feedback that our trauma informed approach is effective.
People continued to access a wide range of different types of support through Future Pathways.
People continue to share that our work contributes to a big difference in their lives.
“Future Pathways […] provided all the necessary tools and support for me to make massive changes in my life. Future Pathways supported me in having a voice and I am forever grateful for the support emotionally and practically. This has given me the confidence to speak up for myself and all survivors and to progress forward with a sense of worth and purpose.”
(Person supported by Future Pathways)
The feedback we received has also helped us reflect on how we could improve.
In 2025, we are looking forward to:
- exploring what peer support will look like at Future Pathways
- creating more opportunities for people we support to influence how we develop
- learning more about the impact of our work with existing services, such as statutory and third sector services
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to share their experience with us this year. Your feedback helps us understand the impact we make and to keep learning and improving.
Find out more about the difference we make.
Pathways to Change is our latest impact report. Here, we take an in-depth look at the work of Future Pathways from April 2023 to March 2024. This report helps us to gain a deeper insight into how we make a real difference, and where there is scope for improvement.
We want to hear from you
You can give feedback about Future Pathways at any time by filling in the form on the website: www.future-pathways.co.uk/feedback
If you would like to get a copy of the feedback form by post instead, you can let us know by:
- emailing engagement@future-pathways.co.uk
- phoning us for free on 0808 164 2005 (open Monday-Friday, 10am to 4pm)
- writing to us at Future Pathways, 40 Shandwick Place, Edinburgh EH2 4RT
- speaking to your Support Coordinator
If you fill in a feedback form, the answers you give will be anonymous. This means that you do not have to provide your name or any personal details.
We are pleased to share our latest report The Meanings of Funded Support. This looks at key aspects around our Discretionary Fund (which offers funded support to people working with us).
We see how accessing funded support can help people achieve their goals, work towards their outcomes and create change in their lives. We also look at the complexities around accessing funded support, such as the ways negative self-perception or complicated interactions with money can create barriers and prevent equity.
The report draws together learning from previous evaluations, such as how we manage funded support in an accountable and equitable way, and how funded support can make a difference. It was also prompted by reflections from within the Future Pathways team around the challenges that can arise when supporting someone to access funding. For example, discussions around funding can, in some instances, detrimentally effect the relationship between the person and their Support Coordinator.
The context within which people access material support at Future Pathways is nuanced. A person’s financial circumstances and relationship with funded support can be affected by their previous experience of trauma. We must, therefore, be aware of such barriers and how we might achieve equity for people we support. This is particularly important in the context of working with people who may have experienced multiple inequalities in their life, and who may have conflicting feelings about accessing funded support.
Given that relationships are at the core of our support, it is vital that we acknowledge the complexity, nuance and dynamics involved in accessing funded support. We see that prioritising transparency, self-awareness and active listening can help mitigate potentially negative experiences of associated with accessing funded support.
This is especially significant given that we know that funded support can make a real impact in people’s lives. It can support a person in achieving their goals and reaching their intended outcomes, such as improving overall wellbeing, self-worth, self-esteem and confidence, and gaining increased independence and freedom.
We hope that our Delivery Partners and other services that work with people accessing funded support or financial payments may also benefit from our learning. By looking in-depth at how people access funded support, and acknowledging the multiple complexities involved in this, we can work towards ensuring that people can access the support they need, tailor our support to ensure greater impact and help people make the changes they wish to see in their lives.
“It was huge. Future Pathways have been able to help with things I never thought they could help with. A lot of other services I have worked with could only listen. Nobody was able to do something. Future Pathways really did make a tangible difference in my life.”
(John, Person supported by Future Pathways)
“The cinema membership encouraged me to leave the flat and venture into town. When the cinema was quiet, I felt safe, like I didn’t need to scan the place. Then, I started going to other places in the city like the Gallery of Modern Art.”
(Anne, Person supported by Future Pathways)
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In our latest impact report, Pathways to Change, we highlighted how data-driven improvement can help us to see how we can make a difference, map our influence and, crucially, further improve the support we provide.
Here, Louise Hall, our Impact and Evaluation Lead, looks at what we mean by data driven improvement and how we see it in action.
At Future Pathways, one of our service outcomes is to help make sure that people registered with us can access the right support for them. One of the ways we work towards this is by continuing to learn about our support. This includes what works well, how support can be improved, and the impact we have.
Over time, we have designed a bespoke way of assessing the quality and consistency of our support. We call this our Quality Framework. We use this to look at evidence from across the service so we can see:
- What is working well about our support
- The progress we are making
- Any gaps in our practice and processes
- How this impacts people’s experience at Future Pathways
- The steps we can take to improve
- The resources and/or guidance we might need to make changes
Our Quality Framework helps us feel more confident in what we learn through our impact evaluation and, together with our impact evaluation, it helps us make data driven improvements to our service.
Data driven improvement means pulling together different types of data from across the service – such as support plans and Delivery Partner contracts – to find out how we could improve. And it means using our evidence to inform and direct the changes we make at Future Pathways.
When we identify that something needs to be improved, we work together to make changes that will work practically and make a difference to people registered with us. Often, groups comprising team members from across the service pool their expertise to explore options and find the right way forward.
For example, since 2021, we have been working on improving our data system, Carista, to improve the efficiency of our processes. A group of Future Pathways team members have been working together, alongside our partner Rockpool Solutions, on this improvement project. The changes we have made so far have had many positive impacts, such as helping to make it easier for people to register for support, and giving us more confidence in our data.
We also seek input from Voices for a Better Future, our lived experience voice group. For example, last year members of the Voices for a Better Future group worked with us to co-design what peer support could look like at Future Pathways. Now, we are starting put the ideas of the group into action. We will share more about the peer support opportunities we will develop for people registered with us next year.
We have also worked with Voices for a Better Future to improve how we ask people registered with us for feedback and equal opportunities information. With input from people with lived experience and team members across the service, we launched our new approach to feedback and equal opportunities in 2023. Now, people registered with us have more ways to give us anonymous feedback about their experience. And we ask for sensitive equal opportunities information later in support, when people have had the time to build up some trust with their Support Coordinator.
We will continue to leverage our Quality Framework to drive improvement at Future Pathways. For example, our Quality Framework and impact evaluation findings showed that we could improve how we facilitate conversations at the start of support about what matters most to people registered with us. Given that all our support is tailored to each person’s own outcomes, we know that these conversations are important; they help us make sure that people can access the right support for them. So, a group of team members from across the service is working on this now.
It is our hope that by continuing to make positive changes and sharing the improvements we make, people can access the right support for them at Future Pathways and other services.
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In this resource, you can read more about how we embed the principles of trauma informed practice into our approach to quality and improvement at Future Pathways.
At Future Pathways, we aim to take a trauma informed approach to every aspect of our work. Our impact evaluation shows that in doing so, we support people to gain a sense of purpose, freedom and independence; and we help make trauma informed support more accessible to people registered with us.
This guide is ideal for people who are interested in:
- evaluating complex relational and trauma-informed approaches.
- measuring the quality of your work and identifying improvement actions in a trauma-informed way.
- refining your approach to quality measurement so that you are focused on what matters most to your service.
Our first Quality Framework Annual Report was created in collaboration with staff from all areas of Future Pathways.
This overview of the year (2023/24) draws on our quarterly quality checks to give a holistic picture of the quality and consistency of our support. The report highlights the significant work of staff in driving improvement and maintaining quality.
Find out more about how our quality framework contributes to our overall evaluation, helping to show the difference we make and how we make that difference.
Join us at our latest learning event. We’ve teamed up with Matter of Focus for our latest webinar, ‘Taking a trauma-informed approach to quality and impact.’
Live webinar: Wednesday 13 November, 12.30–1.30pm (GMT)
In this webinar, you can find out more about how we developed a trauma-informed approach to quality and improvement. Members of the Future Pathways team will talk about our integrated approach to impact evaluation, quality measurement and service improvement.
Join Sarah Morton (Director, Matter of Focus) in conversation with Flora Henderson (In Care Survivors Alliance Director), Louise Hall (Impact and Evaluation Lead, Future Pathways), and Carole-Anne Roger (Quality and Improvement Manager, Future Pathways) about our journey and what we’ve learned.
- Gain insights into developing a trauma-informed approach to quality and improvement.
- Discover how the OutNav approach can support data-driven service improvement.
- Hear practical strategies for effectively integrating impact evaluation, quality measurement and service improvement.
Our partnership with Matter of Focus
At key stages in our journey, Matter of Focus helped us build our knowledge and understanding by acting as an independent learning partner. In 2023, Matter of Focus helped us review our evidence and learn more about people’s experience of the service through a series of discussions.
Josie heard about Future Pathways through the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. When Josie registered with Future Pathways, she and her Support Coordinator took the time to get to know each other and build a relationship.
“I didn’t have to hide or hold anything back. They were so understanding. They understood exactly what I had been through. It was as if I had known them for years.”
Together, Josie and her Support Coordinator explored different types of support.
“They would keep in touch. They would offer support. Anything of interest to me, they helped in any way they could.”
Josie had been through many life challenges, and she knew that getting the right help was important for her. Future Pathways supported Josie to access counselling support.
“I looked forward to going to the counsellor every week. They helped me see that, to me, I was not worthless. I talked truthfully about everything for the first time.”
Being completely honest with the counsellor was transformational. Before accessing counselling, Josie had always bottled up her feelings. Counselling helped Josie consider how she thought about herself and to address how her feelings of shame had prevented her from accessing support or opening up to people. Counselling helped Josie see how important it was for her to be truthful with the people in her life.
“Before, I had to hold it in. I never spoke about my past to my kids. I was embarrassed. The stigma of being in care meant people thought you were trouble.”
Future Pathways also supported Josie to complete and publish her book, ‘Finally back to my routes’.
Josie had been writing for years. Through some of the most challenging experiences of her life, writing helped Josie to express herself. Josie never thought anything would come from her writing, but this changed when her daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer. Before passing away, Josie’s daughter encouraged her to finish her book. Josie was determined to finish her book for her children.
Accessing her care records helped Josie stitch together the story of her past. Josie also learned that she had a sibling she had never met before, and she was able to meet her.
“All of the story was in my records. Everything came flooding out.”
Josie would write for hours. Future Pathways supported Josie to finish and publish her book with Book Whisperers, a service that provides writing support.
“I surprised myself. It was a brilliant experience. I could get rid of all my anxiety and stress. I would just focus on writing.”
Josie is now a published author. She celebrated by organising a book signing event with family and friends. Writing ‘Finally back to my routes,’ enabled Josie to be completely truthful about her past with her loved ones. Her friends and family now know her as someone who is always laughing and joking.
“That old life is gone now. I love my life now. I am in a happier place. I’m more ‘me’. And my kids are so proud of me.”
At Future Pathways, we work collaboratively with our Delivery Partners. Our service model’s in-built flexibility allows support – and its accompanying impact – to evolve.
Here, Nell Glen, Partner Relationship Lead, describes our collaborative approach to working with Delivery Partners, and how this enhances support for people who access Future Pathways.
Since Future Pathways began, we have worked with upwards of 130 Delivery Partners, some of which we are still working with today.
Since the start of the service in 2016, we have developed and expanded with more staff and more Delivery Partners. As such, our commissioning processes have changed over time as we’ve learnt more about what facilitates effective support.
We’ve learnt that a collaborative and relational approach to commissioning brings trust, choice and flexibility to our outcomes-focused support. It also creates a network of support, knowledge and learning with Delivery Partners which, in turn, helps us navigate complexity and offer holistic support to people accessing Future Pathways.
We’ve also learnt that a collaborative approach to commissioning can, at times, be challenging to navigate for Delivery Partners and staff alike. For example, our collaborative report into impactful partnership working found that:
“Working in this way can be complex as it takes an investment of time to build trust, and most importantly a genuine commitment to collaborate and share power.”
Our approach has evolved, and we’ve had to adapt our approach over time so that it works in practice for everyone. One of Future Pathways’ aims is to take a trauma informed approach to all that we do, including our work with Delivery Partners. The changes we have made are underpinned by the 6 key principles of trauma informed practice: choice, trustworthiness, safety, empowerment, collaboration and cultural consideration.
Here you can read some examples of how we apply trauma informed principles to our work with Delivery Partners.
CHOICE
At Future Pathways we give the people we support a choice about who they work with, supporting them to select services that align with their desired outcomes. We support potential Delivery Partners to make informed choices about collaborating with us by sharing a new resource we have created about what working with Future Pathways involves.
TRUSTWORTHINESS
We have created more transparency around our commissioning approach and the way we set up support, through the development of our Delivery Partner welcome pack. The information in the welcome pack aligns with our internal guidance, so everyone is working from the same roadmap, promoting consistency.
SAFETY
The safety of our commissioning approach has been reinforced through clearer, more structured contracts and better-defined timelines for reviewing support. This provides more opportunities for the people we support, Delivery Partners, and Support Coordinators to understand progress towards goals, check whether support should be adapted, and to nurture a collaborative, safe relationship.
EMPOWERMENT
Future Pathways strives to empower people we support by helping them identify supports which will help them to progress their own desired outcomes. This is made possible through the flexible, trusting and collaborative nature of the relationships between Future Pathways and our Delivery Partners.
We also empower Delivery Partners to help us shape our collective support by inviting them to participate in focus groups, evaluations and other collaborative projects, such as a recent project to refresh our complaints and resolutions policy.
COLLABORATION
We recognise the value and expertise of our Delivery Partners, and we want to work closely with them to best support people to achieve their goals. For example, our new approach improves the quality of reporting and creates a feedback loop directly with Delivery Partners. It also clarifies how we communicate with Delivery Partners, ensuring that we collaborate closely with our Delivery Partners throughout a person’s support.
CULTURAL CONSIDERATION
When we work with people, we must take into consideration the specific needs of people who have experienced abuse or neglect in Scottish care settings. We have designed our commissioning approach so that it balances structured support with the flexibility people need to engage with services.
As the changes we’ve made to our commissioning approach continue to embed we expect to see support continue to evolve, along with its accompanying impact.
We want to hear from you
We are always keen to hear from people we support, our Delivery Partners and our providers. You can give us feedback at any time during the year through our Feedback Form.
See the difference we make together
Our latest impact report, Pathways to Change, gives us greater insight into how we make a real difference, and where there is scope for improvement. View and download our full report, summary report and mini report.
Our latest Quarterly Report is now available to view. It covers our work from April to June 2024. It shows what we’ve learnt, and includes key stats and feedback from those who access Future Pathways.
What happened in Q4
58 people registered with Future Pathways.
8 people started working with a Support Coordinator
102 people accessed support from 39 Delivery Partners.
Who we worked with
The average age of people who registered with us was 48.
72% of people registered with us live in Scotland’s most populated areas.
How people felt
We received positive feedback from people we support, and we also received suggestions for how we could improve.
People shared that they felt Future Pathwyas understood and cared about them. Many people also shared that they felt able to trust Future Pathways.
“They listened – they cared – they supported me.” (Person supported by Future Pathways)
What people gained
People accessed a mix of different types of support in Q1. Many people told us that they feel able to access the support that is right for them.
Many people accessed support from our Delivery Partners, such as record search and psychological support.
Many people accessed support from our Discretionary Fund, such as support to make their home feel safe and comfortable, and to explore their interests.
People also accessed support to link up with existing services, such as social work and healthcare.
What changed for people
People shared what changed in their life after accessing support from Future Pathways.
“They helped to make my day to day living easier.” (Person supported by Future Pathways)
What difference we made
People shared the impact of their work with Future Pathways. Some people gave us feedback that, now, they feel more hopeful about their future.
“You have a way of showing that there is a way forward. [The support] is giving me my life back.” (Person supported by Future Pathways)
Our full report features further infographics, feedback and a breakdown of our financial spend.
Marie Fagan has been working in specialist cleaning since 2007. She is the Managing Director and founder of MD Cleaning. Based in Shotts, the company has 13 staff.
How did your partnership with Future Pathways start?
About five years ago, Future Pathways reached out to me. We helped them with a flat in Edinburgh. It gradually grew from there and eventually we started cleaning properties in Glasgow, which we still do. We now do about five per week for Future Pathways.
What happens when you start with a new client? Is there a process?
We always like to meet the clients first, to build a rapport up with them: to make sure that they’re not feeling uncomfortable, and that they know we’re not there to judge, things like that. Then we try and involve the clients as much as we can. In that first consultation, we’ll make a plan for where they want to start first.
Then we normally don’t work any more than four hours per session, or six hours at the most, because it starts getting a bit too much for the clients. But we’re very good at judging that. We’ll know that they’ve had enough for today, and we’ll go, and then we go back the next week. We usually clean each property once a week.
Depending on the client, we might give them a wee task to do for us before we come back the next week. Or we just tell them just to just leave it and we’ll pick up where we left off the next week. It just depends on the person: everyone’s different, so you judge what’s best with each person.
So your service is a lot more than the actual cleaning?
Absolutely. It’s really about understanding. Empathising with the client, and understanding when they want you to stay and when they want you to go.
But in other ways we treat clients just as we would treat any other person. We chat away to them while we’re working. We try and involve them. Or some people prefer to just sit and chat to us, so we let them do that. Because for some people, sometimes the company is just as helpful as the cleaning.
“It’s really about understanding. Empathising with the client.”
They’re always, always, always delighted with the service. Some of them are in awe, because it had just got so much that they just thought there was no way to fix it. Then we work for four hours, and we do loads and loads of stuff, and it just gives them a great spur on.
And we feel great when we finish too, because we can see a difference in the clients and their mood.
How long do you work with each client?
Usually, there’s a contract made first. At that first consultation, we can assess the property and we put a plan in place on how long we think it’s going to take for us to get the house done. It could be one four-hour session, it could be weekly sessions for several months. Again, it all just depends on the individual in the house.
For example, if someone doesn’t really have organisations skills, we can go in a couple of hours a week and teach them how to clean. We can teach someone how to look after their house, which is great.
How do you apply the principles of trauma-informed practice in the work that you do?
They key thing for us is to empathise with people, really. Their frame of mind is a priority over the cleaning, no matter what day we go. We do get a lot where we can go to the door and they don’t let us in, or they cancel just before we go, or they cancel the night before. We don’t push the fact because obviously, they don’t want us in that day, so that’s fine.
It’s really just treating the person as a human being, and as an individual who has particular needs and limitations, like all of us do.
“I find that with all the Future Pathways Support Coordinators that we speak with, they feel the same way we do. It’s not just a job to them.”
You’ve been quite close partner with Future Pathways for a couple of years now. Does the relationship work for you?
They’re brilliant. They’re great. We work with the Support Coordinators, and bounce off them as well.
So we’re very grateful that we’re able to help people registered with Future Pathways, and we’re always happy to.
It seems that MD Cleaning and Future Pathways are very closely aligned in your approach and your values?
I find that with all the Future Pathways Support Coordinators that we speak with, they feel the same way we do. It’s not just a job to them. They do genuinely care for people and want to help. Same as us.
Yes, it’s a job, but we genuinely like to support people.