As we move into 2025, I’d like to take a moment to look back on what has been a remarkable year for TONIC. 2024 was a year of growth, learning, and making a real difference. We’ve had the privilege of working with some great clients and partners, delivering projects that genuinely help improve lives. Looking ahead, 2025 promises to be just as exciting as we continue to build on this momentum and take on new challenges.

How Would You Summarise 2024 at TONIC?

2024 has been a standout year for us and a year of significant achievements for TONIC. We grew our team and expertise to take on a diverse range of projects, delivering actionable insights across areas such as mental health, criminal justice, and public consultations. We also built stronger partnerships and explored new approaches, further establishing ourselves as a trusted partner in research and evaluation.

We successfully completed a wide range of projects, working with existing clients and welcoming new ones. It has been rewarding to complete multiple projects in areas such as Warwickshire, Avon & Somerset and Kent & Medway; we’ve enjoyed seeing the support landscapes in these areas develop and grow using the insights gained from our work with local people.

For me, some of the reports that were published stand out as personal highlights, as well as the longer-term evaluations we continue to work on. They are a great representation of the breadth of work we completed across the year:

• Prison Leaver Programme Evaluation: Conducting over 1,000 qualitative engagements to evaluate 17 pilots across three programme strands, providing key insights to improve support for prison leavers.

• Vanguard Evaluation: Evaluating integrated care projects for NHS England, engaging around 200 stakeholders to inform innovative approaches to healthcare.

• Hull and East Yorkshire Devolution Consultation Analysis: Nearly 6,000 residents, businesses and organisations took part in the consultation around a new Mayoral Combined Authority for the area.

• Blended Supervision Model: Exploring a new probation model through extensive surveys, interviews, and administrative data analysis.

Across the 30 projects we worked on last year, we engaged with thousands of people through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and creative workshops. In 2024, we were dedicated to putting the voice of lived experience at the heart of everything we did; a commitment we will be continuing in 2025. 

What Are You Excited About for 2025?

At TONIC, we’re all looking forward to 2025 and the opportunities it brings. Some of the projects that I am particularly excited for the team to be working on include:

• Launching Child Friendly Medway 2, a follow-up survey with young people to build on the success of our earlier work.

• Partnering with the College of Policing to deliver a workforce survey.

• Supporting the Essex Recovery Foundation to improve housing outcomes for people with substance misuse issues.

• Delivering the Employee Opinion Survey for Brett Group.

• Continuing our long-term projects for the Ministry of Justice, including the Prison Leavers Programme evaluation and the Next Generation of Accredited Programmes Design Test Phase/Early Adopter process evaluations.

2025 is already shaping up to be another busy and rewarding year. We’re looking forward to developing our skills in creative research methods, strengthening our commitment to trauma-informed practice and co-production as well as being as inclusive and accessible in our approaches as possible.  

Ultimately, as a team, we’re excited to continue collaborating with our fantastic clients and stakeholders to drive meaningful, impactful change.

If you’re interested in any of the work we’ve done, and feel it could be applicable in your area then please don’t hesitate to get in touch via engage@tonic.org.uk

Written by Matthew Scott, Managing Director.