‘Asking Good Questions: The Survey’ is officially live!

At the Centre, we are regularly asked what the youth sector is thinking and ‘doing’ about evaluation. Sometimes this is about trends – “do most youth organisations have a Theory of Change now?’ – and sometimes it is about perceptions – “what do youth workers think about gathering data from young people?”. Sometimes we have questions that we’dlove to hear practitioners’ voices on, like “how do you use your smart phones in your work with young people?”. We talk to lots of practitioners every week, but often struggle to represent the breadth of views and experiences. We wanted to find a way to enable those working with and for young people to share their thoughts on evaluation quickly and easily – with us and with each other - so we can collectively understand how it’s experienced now, and how it could be better. 
 
‘Asking Good Questions: The Survey’ is a regular anonymous survey created by and for organisations working with young people. We’d love for you to take part: you can access this month’s survey here.  The survey will be open for 3 weeks and will close on 27 February.

We’ll ask three short questions in each survey, with a particular focus on evaluation, quality, impact and learning. Once you’ve responded, you’ll be able to see the data live as your colleagues across the sector take part, and we’ll then share the final findings when each survey closes. We’ll be drawing insights from the survey data to inform our work, and share with funders and government. The survey will enable us to represent your voices directly. 
 
We’re interested to hear from anyone who works or volunteers for an organisation working directly with young people in the UK. You’ll need to input your email address to access the survey link, and you’ll be asked a few short registration questions before you take part (you’ll only need to do this once). The results of the survey are completely anonymous and we’ll never share your personal data.
 
At the Centre, we’ve been thinking a lot about how we listen to youth organisations, and have been influenced and excited by the growth in Teacher Tapp in the formal education sector. We think our survey is the first of its kind within the youth sector (but let us know if it isn’t!).  We hope it is an exciting opportunity to learn more about how the different organisations that make up the youth sector work, and for an honest reflection of what they really think and experience when it comes to impact measurement and evaluation.
 
We’re keen for this to be a collaborative project, so if you have ideas for questions you’d like to ask your colleagues across the sector, or you think other stakeholders need to hear practitioner views on, fill out this google form or get in touch with hello@youthimpact.uk.