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News & thoughts

Exploring the role and potential of an evidence base for youth work and provision for young people

6 June 2018

In June the Centre for Youth Impact and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) are hosting a series of roundtables that will explore the steps necessary to create and sustain an ‘evidence base’ for informal and non-formal youth provision in England.

Thoughts on the Holy Grail

16 May 2018

This blog was written by Bethia McNeil, Director of the Centre for Youth Impact. It is part of a pair blogs, written by James Noble, Impact Management Lead at NPC, and Bethia. You can read James's blog “Let's stop chasing our tails on impact measurement”.

Let's stop chasing our tails on impact measurement

16 May 2018

This blog was written by James Noble, Impact Management Lead at NPC. It is part of a pair blogs, written by James and Bethia McNeil, Director of the Centre for Youth Impact, questioning the focus of impact measurement in youth work. You can read Bethia's blog “Thoughts on the Holy Grail” here.

The Centre for Youth Impact is registering as a charity

12 April 2018

This April marks a significant moment for the Centre for Youth Impact.

Can you bottle a good relationship? Learning about mentoring in the Talent Match programme

11 April 2018

The Centre for Youth Impact, supported by Big Lottery Fund, is delighted to present our report from one year of working with the Talent Match partnerships to learn about quality in mentoring relationships.

Collaboration and Leadership for Impact

11 April 2018

This blog was written by Thomas Lawson, Chief Executive of Leap Confronting Conflict and the Chair of the Centre’s new board.

Making impact measurement work for funders and providers of youth services

9 April 2018

Kevin Franks is the Programmes Director at Youth Focus: North East and is the lead for the Centre's North East regional network. Kevin has 25 years’ experience in statutory and voluntary sector youth and community work, which includes centre based, outreach, detached and schools work.

Centre named as the evaluation partner on the Listening Fund

29 March 2018

The £900,000 Listening Fund is designed to support 22 youth-focused organisations in England to capture the views and voices of young people in shaping the services that they receive.

Youth work beyond the measurement imperative? Reflections on the Youth Investment Fund Learning Project from a critical friend

7 March 2018

In this blog Tania de St Croix, Lecturer in the Sociology of Youth and Childhood at King's College London, offers her thoughts on the Youth Investment Fund Learning Project, which the Centre is leading with NPC and others. You can find out more information on the YIF Learning Project at https://yiflearning.org.

The extinction of the Youth Service: the undervaluing of youth space

6 March 2018

This blog as written by Brahmpreet Gulati, a Member of the Youth Parliament and a youth councillor for Thurnby Lodge, who attended Raven Youth Centre in Leicester. Brahmpreet was part of the 'How Will You Hear Me?' project where young people shared their personal stories and talked about their experiences of being listened to – or not – by different public bodies across a series of short films.

Support offer to small organisations – Young Brent Foundation pilot

10 January 2018

Building on our existing work with the Young Brent Foundation (YBF) that developed a guidebook to evaluation, the Centre is piloting an enhanced support offer for YBF’s members.

Asking good questions: a framework to support evaluation

10 January 2018

The framework was developed by the Centre for the Young Brent Foundation and its members. It sets out six questions that will help organisations to understand the impact of their work with and for young people.

Let's talk about funders and evaluation

9 January 2018

In this blog Bethia McNeil, Director of the Centre for Youth Impact, opens a conversation about funders and evaluation. You can read Jane Steele's, Director, Evidence and Learning at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, response to Bethia's blog here.

Let's talk about funders and evaluation (a response)

9 January 2018

In this blog Jane Steele, Director of Evidence and Learning at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, responds to Bethia's thoughts about funders and evaluation.

It's (maybe) all about relationships

6 December 2017

This blog was written by Pippa Knott, Head of Networks at the Centre for Youth Impact.

Joining forces for transparency and accountability

6 December 2017

Earlier this month, we partnered with Street League to gather a group from across and beyond the youth sector, all with a keen interest in unpicking the relationship between accountability and transparency in impact measurement and reporting.