Thousands of individual case studies from Bolton Lads and Girls Club clearly show young people’s lives have been and continue to be transformed, but now Onside has begun to develop processes that will enable us to evidence and articulate what difference our Youth Zones will make to; young people, families and communities, volunteers, policy and practice.
We are developing an impact measurement toolkit that uses techniques rooted in youth work best practice, so that the methods to collect data are light touch, fun and where possible young person led.
We started in Carlisle in 2010 where OnSide contracted MB Associates to look at Carlisle Youth Zone’s impact with a Social Return On Investment (SROI) analysis. The SROI analysis shows cost-benefit at its broadest, including the knock on effects of the Youth Zone into the future and beyond the obvious people who would expect to benefit. As a result Carlisle is now preparing to compare the values of what they invest, what they do and the difference it makes, so they can see opportunities for growth or weaknesses in delivery and can advocate the impact of their work. The analysis undertaken in Carlisle is a forecast of how we expect the Youth Zone to perform in a year of operation once it is up and running at full strength. The forecast indicates that £1.4M of cash and social contributions are invested in one year and the discounted return over 20 years is £5M – a ratio of 4:1. For every pound invested in Carlisle we forecast £4 of social value will be created.
Dr John Ashworth CBE, Director of Public Health in Cumbria:
Central to all the outcomes is the social success of our young people, leading to personal well-being and social capital. The Prize will be much wider benefit to the social and economic capital of the city.
Our other Youth Zones are now benefiting from the groundwork done in Carlisle. Through a process of further consultation we are testing whether the outcomes are the same or similar in each Youth Zone area and are using the tools developed in Carlisle and tailoring them to the other Youth Zones so that they are embedded into the strategic and operational plan of the new staff and volunteer team from day one. Each Youth Zone will be able to evidence their impact after 12 months of operation and annually after that.
OnSide has also been working with a group of ‘Emerging Leaders’ from PricewaterhouseCoopers, three of which supported the design and delivery of local consultations and helped us to create the impact ‘map’. OnSide are seeking to develop an in house resource that can support all Youth Zone staff teams on an ongoing basis and co-ordinate data collection and analysis across the region.
Follow Us!