Exploring need and demand in evaluation and learning

To what extent have expectations around evaluation and learning in youth work and provision for young people changed in the last five years? And for better or for worse?

In an ideal world, what evidence would you like to see the informal and non-formal youth sector sharing with government and funders in five years’ time? What would they do with this evidence?

What can the Centre for Youth Impact do to help support a step-change in the way that all those working with and for young people understand and act on evaluation and learning in all youth settings to improve outcomes? What’s the change that’s needed?

These are some of the searching questions we’ve been asking organisations working with young people as part of the Centre for Youth Impact’s work to develop new support for practitioners to build evidence and act on insight. We are conducting a rapid needs analysis to help understand what those engaged with monitoring, evaluation and learning in informal and non-formal youth provision want and need.

We are exploring confidence around evaluation and learning, perspectives on the value (and demands) of this work, and how organisations in the youth sector would like to be supported. This insight will be vitally important for the Centre so we can tailor our future offer, and support greater access and alignment in our support to youth organisations and the funding community.

So far we’ve interviewed organisations from across the full diversity of the youth sector in England – from small community groups running open access provision a few evenings a week through to national charities offering defined programmes of activity for young people. 

Our conversations acknowledge that, for many, evaluation can be a divisive topic. We’ve heard practitioners and managers talk about the power of evaluation and learning as a tool for honouring young people, delivering quality services and communicating the importance and power of youth work.  Others, however, have expressed their frustration that the sector still has to ‘prove’ its worth, and the very real barriers they face with time, capacity and resources.

Some interviewees have shared their desire to find new ideas for evaluation and learning: young-person led, and not onerous for those involved.  There have also been rallying cries to ensure that we share learning across the sector particularly against the backdrop of the pandemic where the challenges young people face are more acute.

We will be analysing the findings and publishing a report for the benefit of the whole sector. A ‘one size fits all’ solution almost certainly doesn’t exist (and nor should it) but we know that we can do more and better to understand the potential of non-formal and informal provision for young people. Evaluation and learning can be carried out in ways that are and realistic to where organisations are on their evidence journey, and proportionate to their size and scale – whilst centring equity and youth voice.

We can’t reach everyone we’d like to as part of the needs analysis but there is still time to fill in a short survey and let us know your views. It is now open until 21 March and will help us understand more about the range of interests and needs for evaluation and evidence support.

Take part here.

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The rapid needs analysis is supported by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), as part of wider activity to expand access to quality tools, data, and frameworks that support shared approaches to learning and evaluation across the youth sector. Find out more here.