Scope

Within this stage, a detailed analysis of the key wellbeing and health issues affecting an organisation ,community or audience, and a definition of action required to tackle them, should be undertaken.

This stage provides the opportunity to firstly identify those young people, staff and wider members of the community who are most affected by such issues, and at most risk of making poor health and wellbeing choices. This sets the context to thoroughly explore the environmental factors that influence those choices, such as household income, culture, or peer group behaviour.

Wider factors such as government policy, and legislation that may influence your approach should also be analysed in this stage. This should be allied with the collection and analysis of data relating to the take-up of relevant local services, demographics and geographical variances in identified health issues to form a robust platform for undertaking consultation with a sample of the identified target group and other stakeholders and potential partners.

Scoping should be performed on a multi-layered basis, in order to collect detailed quantitative and qualitative data, resulting in a well rounded insight base. This primary data should then be considered in the context of the existing data.

At this point, a clear detailed picture of the issue for your organisation / audience will emerge. This will provide the basis for the development of robust tailored interventions that really get to the heart of the specific challenges that you face, using channels and methods that will reach and change the behaviour of the target audience.

As with any initiative, the setting of robust and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) objectives will be essential to ensuring that the effectiveness of each intervention can be evaluated effectively, and that everyone involved in delivery is encouraged to remain outcomes-focused throughout.