Outcomes

Outcomes are a key concept both in Every Child Matters and in the planning for outcomes process in Birmingham.  What difference will an activity or service make to children and young people?  What will be achieved and what evidence is there that it has been achieved?

In September/October 2007 and in March 2008 VCS Matters ran a series of seminars on 'Outcomes'.  The key presentations by Liz Hoggarth, Hilary Comfort and Andy Bulman from DeMontfort University Youth Affairs Unit are below.

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What difference does it make? - Free handbook available

There has been a sea change in the planning of public services, especially those for children and young people. Voluntary organisations used to be asked by their funders for outputs such as attendance figures or the number of sessions delivered. Now project managers are being asked for evidence of the outcomes of their work, to demonstrate that it ‘makes a difference'.

Planning and commissioning processes are replacing traditional grant regimes. Commissioners are funding services that they believe will contribute to the changes they want to see achieved, to outcomes for a city or district or for a particular group of people. They want to fund effective projects and to see the evidence that they can achieve change for their users.

This turnaround has happened in Britain over a five to ten year period. Only over the last year or two has the trend started to filter down to local projects. A new handbook on evaluating outcomes has now been published, with the title ‘What difference does it make?' It is intended as a resource for workers delivering services at community level to help them respond to these demands for evidence of outcomes. The handbook was written by Liz Hoggarth and Hilary Comfort of the Youth Affairs Unit at De Montfort University, Leicester, commissioned by Birmingham Children's Fund, with printing and distribution by VCS Matters with permission from Birmingham City Council. The book is based on practical experience with the projects funded by the Birmingham Children's Fund in the last few years of its life.

This free publication provides an account of approaches to outcome-led evaluation for small and medium sized agencies working directly with children and young people and enters the debate about what is feasible and proper evidence for small projects to produce. It is deliberately geared for people who may not have had any previous experience or training in evaluation and it offers case examples and good practice from Birmingham projects and activities you can try yourself to apply the thinking to your own situation.

You can pick up your free copy of ‘What difference does it make?' from BVSC - The Centre for Voluntary Action at 138 Digbeth or send your full postal address to vcsmatters@bvsc.org

As mentioned in the handbook the support materials listed in Appendix C are available below as attachments:

C1 - Recording sheet Inputs - Outcomes

C2 - Proforma. The 4 levels of evaluation

C4 - Specimen Consent Form for interviews

C6 - Specimen Questionnaire 1 ACT

C7 - Spreadsheet for Questionnaire 1 ACT

C8 - Questionnaire 2 Green Park Play Scheme

C9 - Spreadsheet for Questionnaire 2 Green Park

C11 - Proforma for an evaluation plan

C12 - Using Excel to calculate percentages

C13 - Producing a Chart using Excel

C14 - Selecting your data for a chart

C15 - Producing a Pie Chart

C17 - Notes on Excel Functions

C18 - Working out the mean, median and mode.