High Trees Community Development Trust and the Lambeth Peer Action Collective (LPAC) were recently awarded further funding from VISION to co-develop an evaluation framework to measure the impact and value for money of open access youth work and provision on reducing young people’s exposure to violence in Lambeth.
The project draws on an existing collaboration and partnership between VISION, High Trees and LPAC that explored the role trusted adults and safe spaces play in protecting young people from violence. The findings from the original partnership support emerging national data about the role that youth organisations, positive activities and trusted adults play in supporting vulnerable young people. However, existing approaches to evaluation surface challenges about how youth work is measured, monitored and evaluated. Through previous LPAC research with young people, youth practitioners and organisations, the team observed a disconnect between how practice is recognised and valued by young people and how funders, commissioners and policymakers expect impact and value for money to be measured.
This contributes to gaps in the quality, consistency and reliability in evidence, particularly as smaller youth organisations have limited capacity and resources to contribute to large-scale evaluations using established methods. For those offering open access youth work and services, where provisions can be accessed by young people regardless of background or need, demonstrating impact and value for money proves even more difficult as these interventions are longer-term, open-ended and/or unstructured across different settings.
Therefore, building on the previous LPAC research and an initial Cost-Consequence Analysis (CCA) produced by VISION, the aim of the current project is to co-produce an evaluation framework, including components for economic evaluation, that supports youth organisations in Lambeth to measure and demonstrate the impact (and potential value for money) of youth service provision.
For further information on the original research, please see the blog, The story so far: Co-production in Lambeth
For further information, please contact Lizzie at elizabeth.cook@citystgeorges.ac.uk
