Sarah Walker and Larry Norman This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Codesigning youth diversion programmes with community-led organisations: a case study’. The equitable use of social science is a persistent governance challenge, particularly in applied social science and psychosocial treatment research. A common approach in applied social science is testing learning tools such as checklists, guides, manuals and trainings. These tools are developed to support behavior change at multiple levels and can be aimed at individuals, organisations or systems. To become evidence-based, these tools are tested against a control, ‘as usual’, or equivalent group. If effective in comparison, the package is then purveyed with the coveted ‘evidence-based’ moniker. Governments eager for tested approaches, as part of responsible governance, are then motivated to buy these tools and they are typically delivered by purveyor organisations as completed packages. Some previous efforts focused on addressing both evidence-informed and community-engaged values have resorted to ‘list selection’ approaches in which community is involved in selecting a package from a pre-assembled list of programs. This approach …