Using systems maps in practice

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The Child Health System Map could be used as:

1. A tool for strategic service and intervention planners

2. A teaching aid

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The following guidance on using the Child Health Systems maps has been developed through collaboration between researchers; children; young people; parents and carers; and senior decision makers with responsibility for child health (from local government, former clinical commissioning groups, the NHS, community and voluntary sector organisations, police and fire service, schools, and elected officials).

 

These stakeholders, totalling more than 100 people, influenced the development of the Child Health System Map from the start of the project.

 

After the Child Health System Map had been built, we interviewed a further 25 people working in the field of child health (across 3 local government sites in the north and south) showing them the map and asking how they might use it in practice. 

 

We asked them:

 

• Who might use this map?

  • What sort of people, in what sort of roles - policy makers/practitioners/the public?

  • In what sorts of settings might it be useful?

• Could you make use of this map in your own work?

  • If so, how?

  • If not, why not?

• What might the map help you to communicate?

  • E.g. communicating the complexities of the child health system?

  • E.g. demonstrating underestimated factors associated with addressing child health inequality?

• Do you anticipate any problems using the map to communicate with partners?

  • If so, what could make it easier to use the map for this purpose?

 

It is through these interviews that stakeholders suggested that the Child Health System Map could be used as 1) a tool for strategic service and intervention planners and 2) a teaching aid.

 

The following two case studies describe where we have supported trials of using the Child Health System Map.