Good Youth Work Works?

Good Youth Work Works?

Our learning from 2013/14

@LondonYouth londonyouth.org

Good Youth Work Works?

London Youth has a long history of supporting and challenging young people to become the best they can be. For more than 100 years, our team has worked with our member youth clubs to offer young people a wide range of high quality opportunities for learning and fun and to build strong trusted relationships with adults and their peers.

Back in 2011 we set out what we believed to be the value of good youth work through our publication, Hunch: a vision for youth in post-austerity Britain. Our ‘hunch’ was that quality youth work, delivered in a place where young people choose to go, leads to broadened networks and increased confidence, character and skills. Yet until recently, it remained, for the most part, a hunch, without robust data to back it up.

Over the last two years, we have begun a journey with our members to progress our collective understanding of our impact. We can now clearly demonstrate and say with confidence that what we do makes a positive difference. We want to share this insight so that both practice and policy improve and there is greater investment in what works.

This report outlines what we have uncovered to date. We’re very excited about the insights emerging and the scope they give us – and other practitioners – to improve services and opportunities for young people. Our organisational principles command us to be honest about what works, collaborative with others and committed to continuous improvement. We believe this work is a significant step forward on all of these.

We know it is early days and we want to continue to engage more young people, youth organisations and other practitioners in the dialogue so we can continue to refine and evolve our learning. I’d like to say a huge thank you to all the London Youth team as well as the members, young people, funders and partners who have been with us on this journey so far. This is just the beginning.

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Rosie Ferguson Chief Executive

Testing our hunch London Youth supports a network of over 400 community youth organisations serving 75,000 young people across the capital. We deliver programmes with and through this membership to achieve our mission of supporting and challenging young people to become the best they can be.

Back in January 2013, we started a learning journey to understand the impact our work has on young people. Because this agenda was of primary importance for youth workers, outdoor education instructors and delivery teams, we let them lead it. We started by posing a series of questions to young people, delivery staff and managers within London Youth: • What changes as a result of the opportunities that we provide for young people?

• Why do these changes take place?

• How can we do more of what works and less of what doesn’t?

What we have done so far We developed ‘journeys of change’ for all our programmes – roadmaps to understanding our goals, outcomes and the process for achieving these. Those involved defined the outcomes they believed their work delivered and chose the tools through which these would be measured.

In an increasingly challenging funding environment, the only way that our own programmes – and our member clubs – can be sustainable is if we can demonstrate the impact of our work in terms that others will understand. Youth organisations are not schools, and so we shouldn’t feel we need to measure ourselves in the same way as they do. But we do have a responsibility to show that the resources we use are effective.

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Who we worked with in 2013/14 Young people Directly supported

22,695 young people

16,300 through our outdoor centres

877

through our employability work

2,550 through our sports development work

1,525

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through our social action work

4 Organisations We have members in every London borough. Over half of these are located in the 20% most economically deprived areas of England

Over 400 organisations visited our outdoor centres last year – of these there were 94 member clubs and 197 schools

We worked with 30 clubs on our social action programme, Athan 31, and 12 London clubs took part in Volunteer It Yourself (VIY)

We worked with 90 youth organisations through our sports development programme, Getting Ready

We worked with 30 organisations who form the

Talent Match

London

partnership to support young people into fulfilling careers 4

How we deliver Good youth work works When we wrote Hunch, we were struck by the overwhelming agreement that good youth work – structured activities, delivered by a youth worker with whom a young person has built trust, in a place they have chosen to go – can and does have an impact. Our own hunch was that the better the delivery of that opportunity – the process – the stronger the outcome or impact will be. So we wanted to test this, and measure the quality of the process, as well as the impact on young people.

The steps we took First, our teams and youth workers decided what made good process in delivering programmes to young people. The seven components we decided to measure are detailed on the diagram below.

London Youth Process

Engagement with staff

Experience of the programme

Development of skills

Barriers removed

Learning taking place

Participation in designing activities

Support received

Then we created questionnaires to measure how effective our processes were against these headings which were completed by young people and the adult professionals supporting them after they had experienced the programme. We had responses from over 4,000 children, young people and youth workers.

Numbers of respondents to our process questionnaires

1,240 young people (12-17)

3,000 children (under 12)

5

550

youth professionals

What we have learned The headline findings are positive, but with some important learning, highlighted below.

Our learning about process

What we will do with this

Teachers and youth workers perceive that young people learn a lot through their experience – young people are a bit more cautious.

We will try and build more reflection time into our programmes and residentials so young people, youth workers and teachers have time together to capture and digest learning.

Children aged under 12 who attended Hindleap and Woodrow are slightly more satisfied with their experience than teenagers. They rated their experience highest, particularly at our outdoor centres, giving an overall score of 9.34 out of 10. Young people scored us well too, with an average score of 8.25.

These insights are helping us develop our offer to youth groups at Hindleap and Woodrow so that their experience becomes even stronger in the future.

Do we help young people remove barriers? Our belief that we do isn’t as strongly shared by the young people themselves.

We will explore with young people and youth workers what is behind this – it may be that they don’t perceive barriers in the same way as we do. Or that the effects are taken as read.

Our people: all groups – children, young people and youth professionals – are extremely satisfied with the quality of relationship with our staff.

This gives us the confidence that we have skilled staff, which will help us support youth clubs and youth workers more effectively.

Satisfaction with the quality of delivery as a whole is high. We achieved an average score of 8.5 out of 10 across all the factors from close to 5,000 people questioned.

We are confident that we can keep improving our approach, but from a position of relative strength.

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Our impact so far Our staff and practitioners then explored the definition of ‘impact’ using the Catalyst Consortium’s youth outcomes framework. We found that every team, whether they delivered a sports development programme, social action, or took young people on a residential at our outdoor centres, thought that we delivered against three core outcomes: confidence & agency, relationships & leadership and resilience & determination.

London Youth Impact

Confidence & Agency

Relationships & Leadership

Resilience & Determination

Planning & Problem Solving

Manage Feelings

Communication

Creativity

We selected an appropriate tool to measure our impact on those indicators: the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire. We chose this one because it used positive language to describe circumstance. Because this questionnaire is designed to measure change, young people must complete it at both the start and end of their time with us so we can see how their answers, and so their outcomes, have changed over time.

Impact on children and young people The results from the Life Effectiveness Questionnaires gave us some rich learning, with lots of positives, and also things for us to think about.

Overall headlines

In almost all aspects of our work, young people show strong changes in their self-confidence • As a result of working with us, young people are developing their resilience & determination – especially through our more physically active work: in sport and at our outdoor centres • We are also developing young people’s relationship skills, though this seems to be to a lesser extent so far •

Over the following pages we will share further details about the outcome data we have collected for our programmes in 2013/14.

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Build-it Build-it offers young people in Lambeth the chance to get work experience, personal development support and enhance their skills so that they can go into education or work in the construction industry. So far we have supported more than 1,100 young people through the programme.

We’ve also had success with those young people who face the biggest barriers: for example, Lambeth has the highest levels of unemployment for young black men out of all London boroughs.

28%

of participants have got jobs and 31% have gone onto further education or training

Of the young black men from Lambeth who have been through the programme, 29% of those that have left the programme have got jobs and 38% have gone onto further education or training

What this tells us We have a successful model which offers support to people who face particular disadvantage and who have struggled to get opportunities for work and training to overcome these barriers.

We offer good support to those facing particular disadvantage. There is still room for us to make our model stronger, and support young people more effectively, and we’ll be seeking to make this a reality, working with a smaller number of people over the next 18 months.

David was “kicked out” of secondary school and placed in a centre which he left with only a few GCSEs, and described to our team that he had struggled to stay engaged when he’d been offered opportunities since then. When he joined Build-it it became clear that he suffered from a lack of concentration which consequently resulted in him distracting others. Through discussions with our support officer, David realised that this at times stopped him from learning and increasing his employability skills. He began to learn techniques for dealing with this, including a need for quiet space, which we helped him find. He slowly built up his skills and recently completed work experience and training with Wates and Mears. David is now feeling more positive with better future prospects.

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Sports development – Getting Ready Getting Ready is our sports development programme. Last year, we engaged over 3,000 young people in regular sport and 43% of these were doing no sport outside of school.

Many of these young people were disengaged from school and not accessing sports at all – and certainly couldn’t afford to pay leisure centre or membership club fees. Getting Ready gives those who don’t participate in sport the chance to choose and learn new sports together, in weekly programmes delivered in their youth club. 198 young people who had gone through Getting Ready completed pre and post programme questionnaires.

Headline findings

63% of young people reported on average a positive change in determination and resilience between the beginning and end of the programme

19%

70% of those young people report an average of positive 18% change across all emotional and social capabilities – so they felt better about themselves and more prepared generally to meet life’s challenges

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58% of young people reported an average increase in 25% self-confidence

nce

What this tells us We can say with some confidence that the programme had a positive impact on the young people who completed the questionnaires. For over 6 in 10 to be almost 20% more determined and resilient at the end of the programme is a strong indicator of success.

While we can’t say that it was definitely Getting Ready that led to this, we can be confident that the offer of structured support, delivered in their youth club over a sustained period, has contributed to their development. We will use this learning to develop our offer, and support more tailored work using sport to engage and inspire more women and more young people with disabilities.

Sophie is 19 and has been a member of Streatham Youth & Community Trust (SYCT) for ten years now, where she first participated in Getting Ready. She has completed coaching courses in a number of different sports including football, tennis, basketball, cricket and tag rugby, bringing all the skills she has learnt back into SYCT so that she can pass them onto the more junior members. Sophie quickly became a young leader in the club and is now an apprentice youth worker there. Part of her role is to develop sports programmes for the club members. Sophie recognised that not many young girls were getting involved in the sports sessions, and so she decided to try and address this by creating ‘girls only’ sessions and has really encouraged other girls to take part due to her sheer enthusiasm. Sophie is proving to be a strong role model for others and her success is truly inspiring the SYCT members.

Angie Foran, the manager at Streatham Youth & Community Trust, says: “We are now seeing more girls attending, they are becoming healthier and enjoying club a lot more. Sophie is proving to be a great role model for the girls, as well as the male club members, the staff team and myself.”

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Outdoor education Hindleap Warren Hindleap Warren is London Youth’s outdoor adventure centre, working with over 10,000 young people from schools and youth clubs each year. Over the last 15 months we have been collecting impact data from Hindleap participants and know that in particular young people make significant improvements in creative thinking and confidence whilst at the centre.

Headline findings

76% Young people finish a residential at Hindleap saying they are more confident

9.5

of children or young people visiting Hindleap say they get on better with other people as a result of the Hindleap experience

18% change

with improved creativity

21% change

and more emotional control

20% change

When asked about our staff’s engagement with young people, and the quality of learning we provide, youth leaders gave us average scores of 9.5 out of 10

What this tells us Young people, children and youth workers get a lot from their time at Hindleap, and say that they can really see and feel the benefits. We can use this learning to help us make further improvements: for those young people who don’t always recognise the learning they achieve at Hindleap we need to do more to help them identify the transferable skills they pick up as part of their development. We can use the fact that our staff are highly rated and valued to engage youth workers, teachers and young people in further conversations so that we can better meet need.

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Woodrow High House Woodrow High House is our residential learning centre, working with more than 4,000 schoolchildren and young people each year. It provides learning experiences every day of the year for schools and youth groups, with a particular focus on personal development.

The implementation of our ‘Journey of Change’ evaluation yielded more data than ever on the experience of our visitors, who gave their highest scores to the ability of our staff to build relationships with them – a key ingredient in creating an environment in which young people can flourish. Although we’re in the early stages of measuring our impact, sample data from Woodrow over the last 12 months from our Life Effectiveness Questionnaires, shows very positive results, including that over 50% of the participants reported strong changes in their time management, social competence, self-confidence and intellectual flexibility after a visit to Woodrow.

What this tells us Our staff have worked hard to develop their skills and capabilities over the past few years, and our cohort of apprentice instructors get stronger and stronger each year – so it is nice to see the feedback that young people, youth workers and teachers appreciate that. We’re entering a new phase at Woodrow having finished refurbishment in early 2015 – and will use this learning to create even better programmes and experiences for young people.

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Youth social action Our portfolio of youth social action programmes are delivered through local youth clubs and are geared to supporting those young people who wouldn’t normally engage in volunteering and social action elsewhere.

These programmes work with a diverse client group, different from many volunteering or social action programmes, meaning that we help to bring youth action to those young people who are beyond the usual suspects.

Athan 31 participants:

65% are boys

70%

are from minority ethnic communities

17% have a disability

At the heart of our work are community projects, environmental initiatives and youth-led activities. Because these programmes have been expanding through 2014 the levels of data do not yet offer clear learning for us, but it is a priority through 2015 for us to gather more evidence and turn the experience of young people and youth workers into meaningful insights for the future.

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What next?

Two years into our journey to understand the impact of good youth work, we are pleased that both our initial hunch and early learning appear positive. But, perhaps inevitably, the pursuit of becoming a truly learning organisation means that for every question answered there are even more that arise.

At this stage, we cannot claim attribution – that the change happened only through the result of our work – and thus whilst the information is incredibly useful we are not yet in a position to take the data as the hard truth. Although there are positive signs that both process and impact results look encouraging, we cannot yet determine the link between the two.

What it has done is give us a base to move forward, with our members and others, to further understand the possibilities of our work with young people, and to continue to support great youth work in the capital. Our next steps will be: 1. To continue to collect and analyse data across all of our programmes, to refine our understanding and identify emerging trends 2. To begin analysing the links between process and impact data and then ultimately how the changes to young people’s social and emotional capabilities effect longer term outcomes like their health, education and employability 3. To work closely with our member youth clubs to ensure they have the capability to learn from and demonstrate their own impact 4. To continue dialogue with funders, so they can feel confident to make investment in good youth work 5. And to collaborate with partners in the sector and beyond, including through the Centre for Youth Impact, to ensure that as many organisations as possible working with young people are committed to understanding the effectiveness of their work

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And the last words, for now, from the Centre for Youth Impact, from a practitioner, and from our Head of Learning: “Evidence matters because: young people are assets to society, and deserve investment in their potential; good evidence can help organisations that work with young people to design and deliver better services, and to become more sustainable; and organisations that develop on the basis of quality evidence, representing reflective and high quality practice, are most likely to make the best investments in young people and improve their life chances.”

Centre for Youth Impact, 2014

“We have been working with London Youth to identify and measure the impact of the programmes we run. I feel really encouraged to know that I am getting to grips with the project, and it is definitely moving from ‘theoretical’ in my head to an actuality.”

Dom Hinshelwood, Senior Youth Worker, Laburnum Boat Club

“We’ve been on an incredible journey at London Youth, and the passion of the delivery teams, the youth workers and everyone involved has made it a very worthwhile process. We’re only just starting our journey to accountability – where we can show to young people and to all of our stakeholders the value of the work we do with them. But it is a very positive start, and feels exciting for London Youth and its members to be making it a reality.

Dimitrios Tourountsis, Head of Learning, London Youth

A detailed learning report with our full set of data tables from 2013/14 is available on the London Youth website at www.londonyouth.org/learning.

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