Big Wide Talk is leading the way on the integration of best practice, strategic planning and value for money. This means that each package, project or contract delivers several outcomes at once.

These are the packages Big Wide Talk uses to deliver services and address the issues that challenge us:

People who experience our work are often dazzled by its creativity and the sheer scale of change that it can bring. However some people are puzzled and unable to connect our work with the services that are funded and measured by government. What is clear is that existing ways of doing things are not resolving the urgent issues we face.

Big Wide Talk is different because it addresses the challenges at the heart of this dysfunction. Our work builds on many schools of thought but is founded in a philosophical framework expressed as a set of principles. The systematic and just support of everyday life requires a context that is all-encompassing and inspiring, not just a simple checklist rooted in compartmentalised hierarchies and partial analysis.

The innovative core of Big Wide Talk is the understanding that change relies on recognising and re-aligning the strengths that already exist: the creativity and learning of children, the determination and persistence of parents, the collective power of ordinary people to determine the nature and quality of their lives.

Doing exciting things with children sparks each project, promoting best practice and parental engagement. Fundamentally it starts a local conversation about everyday life, needs and resources. It is this conversation which is built on to provide family support; family learning; a commissioning imperative; the development of local social enterprise and community cohesion, and to reach out to households even in the poorest places.

The resulting empowerment is awesome: children are seen to have wit, imagination and voice; parents recognise the practical power of their responsibilities; practitioners realise that they make a difference; planners and politicians understand that democratic engagement is fundamental.

Click around the map below to see how Big Wide Talk's method delivers services in the following areas and works to address the issues of the day: