Why Systems Change Matters for Girls and Young Women

By Alex Honnan-MacDonald

Head of Programmes - Systems Change

Professionals across different services work incredibly hard to support girls and young women within their own areas of responsibility. However, systems do not always create opportunities to bring those perspectives together. As a result, different services may each see only one part of a young woman’s experiences, without anyone holding the full picture. 

At Abianda, our ecological approach recognises that criminal exploitation and violence do not happen in isolation. The experiences of girls and young women are shaped not only by individual circumstances, but by the systems, environments, relationships, and wider inequalities surrounding them. To be most effective for girls and young women, we believe we must not only support girls and young women, but also work to support and  influence the systems around them.

This year, Abianda is implementing its first ever Systems Change Strategy.  Our strategy will provide a framework for how we endeavour to  influence the wider systems, services, and structures shaping the lives of girls and young women. We recognise that systems change is long-term work and that meaningful change cannot happen across every system at once. We also recognise that we are just one small charity with limited resources and influence. But it's really important to us that we use our voice well and ensure we are amplifying young women's voices as much as we can. Central to our strategy is identifying priority areas arising from practice and lived experience, focusing on specific themes each year, and building learning, evidence, and influence over time.

The first year of this work will help establish priorities, strengthen collaboration, gather evidence, and create a clearer direction for how learning from lived experience can be translated into meaningful action and sector influence.

Central to this work is listening directly to girls and young women about their experiences of systems and services, and using this insight to help make recommendations for change. This includes influencing policy and practice, strengthening cross-sector understanding, supporting contextual safeguarding approaches, and increasing the visibility of girls and young women within systems that may have historically overlooked them.

Alongside this, we also recognise the importance of gathering insight from practitioners, sector partners, and policymakers to better understand where systems are struggling or creating barriers, where harm is being reproduced, and where opportunities for change exist. Bringing these perspectives together will help strengthen recommendations, improve responses, and support more joined-up approaches for girls and young women affected by criminal exploitation and violence.

Over the coming year we will focus on gathering learning and insight through focus groups and engagement with young women, practitioners, and policymakers around a key systems issue identified by Abianda through lived and practice experience. An exciting part of this work is the degree to which our System Change Experts team will lead this work. Abianda Systems Change Experts are young women with lived experience who are embedded within the organisation as team members and who play an active role in shaping our work. They will lead elements of delivery, contribute to the learning we share with the sector, and continue developing their own skills as facilitators, trainers, and systems change leaders.

As this work develops, learning from year one will help shape the focus and direction of our future priorities. Ultimately, the work is grounded in a simple but important belief: meaningful safety for girls and young women cannot be achieved through individual interventions alone. Lasting change also requires the systems around them to listen, adapt, and change, too.