Research Context ...............................................................................................................6

Authors

Dr Rachel Massie is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Community Research and Development at the University of Wolverhampton. She has experience of conducting mixedmethods evaluations of community programmes designed to improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable groups (including young people, individuals living with long-term conditions, and individuals with multiple and complex needs).

Dr Bozena Sojka is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Community Research and Development at the University of Wolverhampton. She has worked as part of dynamic research groups and has more than 10 years' experience of undertaking research on vulnerable groups. She received advanced social research training with a particular focus on innovative qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Professor Laura Caulfield PhD is Director of the Institute for Community Research and Development at the University of Wolverhampton. Laura is an expert in the evaluation of programmes designed to reduce risk of crime and she has particular expertise in evaluating arts and creative programmes in the criminal justice system. She has designed and conducted over 30 research evaluations and has received funding from the Home Office, Economic and Social Research Council, the NHS, the Ministry of Justice, and several thirdsector organisations. Her latest book, ‘Criminological Skills and Research for Beginners’, was published by Routledge in April 2018.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the staff at Changing Lives, in particular Nicola Salt and Sommer Stringer, for facilitating qualitative data collection and extracting the quantitative data. We are grateful to Changing Lives and the National Lottery Community Reaching Communities Fund for funding this evaluation. Thank you to all the stakeholders who participated in an interview and/or stakeholder event. We would also like to thank Dr Angela Morgan (Senior Research Fellow) for her input to the early stages of the evaluation set-up and study design. Finally, thanks to Sam Thorne (ICRD Administrator) for his time transcribing the interview data.