Our reports

Our Reports

WM2U is a live and dynamic approach, that recognises the complexity of the issues and involves multiple stakeholders in learning. Given our perspective on system change, we view the emergence of more relational and systemic practices amongst parents and carers, practitioners, senior leaders, and funders, as necessary conditions for achieving system change at scale.  

Many of the desired qualities and behaviours that we are seeking are difficult to capture or quantify through conventional approaches to evaluation.  With this in mind, we adopt a participatory and embedded approach that enables us to track our learning, so that we can amplify the practices we find to be effective and adjust our course where needed.  We call this approach ‘Grow as We Go’.  

Our approach blends local largely qualitative and participatory data collection and analysis with System Dynamic modelling, exploring how things are connected and how they change over time because they are connected.  

We have a series of update reports and literature and practice and policy reviews written by the Learning Partner team who have an embedded role alongside the work of WM2U and lead the development of the Learning Framework that shapes and articulates the vision of WM2U.

If you would like to learn more about this approach then please get in touch.
 

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  • Make It Happen Fund

    Community-led grantmaking lessons from our WM2U experience

    February 16, 2026
    The Make It Happen Fund (MIHF) was developed to enable grassroot communities to design and deliver local grantmaking processes that are genuinely led by the community.

    The fund empowers community members to decide how small grants are distributed in their area: supporting local action, strengthening relationships, and building capabilities at the grassroots level.

    In each area, MIHF brings together a local panel of volunteer community members, including parents, carers, and young people (where possible), to design, implement, and make decisions on the community grant fund.
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  • Coordinator Report

    Coordinating community voice Lessons from our WM2U Experience

    February 16, 2026
    The What Matters to You (WM2U) Coordinator role has provided a vital bridge, working alongside communities, practitioners and organisations, and using their influence and networks to draw in resources from across Scotland.
    This report codifies the key conditions, qualities, and elements of the role – not as a job description, but as a practice. It describes how the WM2U Coordinator helped reimagine what ‘working with’ children, families, practitioners, and strategic leaders could mean, and why sustaining these ways of working is important if public services are to transform communities into places where families can thrive.
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  • Cafe Conversations

    Café Conversations Planning and learning with communities

    February 16, 2026
    What Matters to You (WM2U) introduced a Café Conversation approach to provide opportunities for local people, local practitioners and strategic leaders to talk, listen, plan and learn together.

    Their focus is on how to improve the local community and the approach can be embedded into the planning structure. They are deliberately informal, are rooted in what is most important to community members and emphasise that everyone has a role to play in celebrating successes, identifying problems and developing solutions together.
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  • Practice Report

    WM2U Helping the Magic Come Through

    February 16, 2026
    This practice report is written by the WM2U learning partner, who has been embedded within the team since the outset in 2018. It builds on and complements the previous codifying report, which was written from the perspective of the funders and based on learning and evaluation, and the lessons from a literature practice review1. The previous report was published in April 20242.
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  • Codifying Report 2026

    Codifying our learning about what it takes

    February 16, 2026
    This codifying report outlines the essential elements that make up the WM2U approach to system change. It is written by the WM2U learning partner, who has been embedded within the team since the outset in 2018. It builds on and complements the previous codifying report, which was written from the perspective of the funders and based on learning and evaluation, and the lessons from a literature practice review1. The previous report was published in April 2024. This report is based on information gathered from interviews with eighteen strategic leaders and practitioners in Dundee who were asked what it would take to embed and sustain the progress towards early intervention and prevention and what they might advice others going through the same process.
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  • WM2U characters

    Becoming Allies in Change

    January 24, 2025
    What Matters to You?

    A summary of learning about voice-led system change
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    Report 4 - Measures that Matter

    January 24, 2025
    What Matters to You: Evaluation Reports 2024
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  • WM2U characters

    Report 3 - Dundee: Progress and Prospects

    January 24, 2025
    What Matters to You: Evaluation Reports 2024
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  • WM2U characters

    Report 2 - East Ayrshire: Progress and Prospects

    January 24, 2025
    What Matters to You: Evaluation Reports 2024
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