Over the past two years, London Youth has worked to better understand the impact of its youth programs. Surveys of over 4,000 participants found that the programs strongly improved confidence and resilience. The organization's sports and outdoor education programs in particular increased self-confidence, determination, and relationship skills. London Youth will use these insights to further strengthen its offerings and better support youth organizations.

1. @LondonYouth
londonyouth.org
Good Youth
Work Works?
Our learning from 2013/14

2. London Youth has a long history of supporting and challenging young people to become
the best they can be. For more than 100 years, our team has worked with our member
youth clubs to offer young people a wide range of high quality opportunities for learning
and fun and to build strong trusted relationships with adults and their peers.
Back in 2011 we set out what we believed to be the value of good youth work through
our publication, Hunch: a vision for youth in post-austerity Britain. Our ‘hunch’ was
that quality youth work, delivered in a place where young people choose to go, leads to
broadened networks and increased confidence, character and skills. Yet until recently, it
remained, for the most part, a hunch, without robust data to back it up.
Over the last two years, we have begun a journey with our members to progress our
collective understanding of our impact. We can now clearly demonstrate and say with
confidence that what we do makes a positive difference. We want to share this insight so
that both practice and policy improve and there is greater investment in what works.
This report outlines what we have uncovered to date. We’re very excited about the insights
emerging and the scope they give us – and other practitioners – to improve services and
opportunities for young people. Our organisational principles command us to be honest
about what works, collaborative with others and committed
to continuous improvement. We believe this work is a
significant step forward on all of these.
We know it is early days and we want to continue to
engage more young people, youth organisations and other
practitioners in the dialogue so we can continue to refine and
evolve our learning. I’d like to say a huge thank you to all the
London Youth team as well as the members, young people,
funders and partners who have been with us on this journey
so far. This is just the beginning.
Rosie Ferguson
Chief Executive
Good Youth Work Works?
1

3. London Youth supports a network of over 400 community youth organisations serving
75,000 young people across the capital. We deliver programmes with and through this
membership to achieve our mission of supporting and challenging young people to become
the best they can be.
Back in January 2013, we started a learning journey to understand the impact our work
has on young people. Because this agenda was of primary importance for youth workers,
outdoor education instructors and delivery teams, we let them lead it. We started by posing
a series of questions to young people, delivery staff and managers within London Youth:
• What changes as a result of the opportunities that we provide for young people?
• Why do these changes take place?
• How can we do more of what works and less of what doesn’t?
Testing our hunch
We developed ‘journeys of change’ for all our programmes – roadmaps to understanding our
goals, outcomes and the process for achieving these. Those involved defined the outcomes they
believed their work delivered and chose the tools through which these would be measured.
In an increasingly challenging funding environment, the only way that our own programmes
– and our member clubs – can be sustainable is if we can demonstrate the impact of our
work in terms that others will understand. Youth organisations are not schools, and so we
shouldn’t feel we need to measure ourselves in the same way as they do. But we do have a
responsibility to show that the resources we use are effective.
What we have done so far
2

4. Who we worked with in 2013/14
Young people
Directly supported
22,695young people
877through our
employability
work
2,550through
our sports
development
work
1,525through our social
action work3
16,300through our
outdoor centres

5. 4
Organisations
We worked with 30
organisations who form the
Talent Match
Londonpartnership to support
young people into
fulfilling careers
We worked
with 90 youth
organisations
through our sports
development
programme,
Getting Ready
We have members
in every London
borough. Over
half of these are
located in the 20%
most economically
deprived areas
of England
Over 400
organisations
visited our outdoor
centres last year –
of these there were
94 member clubs
and 197 schools
4
We worked with 30
clubs on our social
action programme,
Athan 31, and 12
London clubs took
part in Volunteer It
Yourself (VIY)

6. Good youth work works
When we wrote Hunch, we were struck by the overwhelming agreement that good youth
work – structured activities, delivered by a youth worker with whom a young person has built
trust, in a place they have chosen to go – can and does have an impact. Our own hunch was
that the better the delivery of that opportunity – the process – the stronger the outcome or
impact will be. So we wanted to test this, and measure the quality of the process, as well as
the impact on young people.
The steps we took
First, our teams and youth workers decided what made good process in delivering
programmes to young people. The seven components we decided to measure are
detailed on the diagram below.
Numbers of respondents to our process questionnaires
3,000
1,240
550children (under 12)
young people (12-17)
youth professionals
Then we created questionnaires to measure how effective our processes were against
these headings which were completed by young people and the adult professionals
supporting them after they had experienced the programme. We had responses from over
4,000 children, young people and youth workers.
How we deliver
London Youth
Process
Engagement
with staff
Barriers
removed
Experience of the
programme
Learning
taking place
Development
of skills
Participation in
designing activities
Support
received
5

7. Teachers and youth workers perceive
that young people learn a lot through
their experience – young people are a bit
more cautious.
Children aged under 12 who
attended Hindleap and Woodrow
are slightly more satisfied with their
experience than teenagers. They rated
their experience highest, particularly at our
outdoor centres, giving an overall score of
9.34 out of 10. Young people scored us well
too, with an average score of 8.25.
Do we help young people remove
barriers? Our belief that we do isn’t
as strongly shared by the young people
themselves.
Our people: all groups – children, young
people and youth professionals – are
extremely satisfied with the quality of
relationship with our staff.
Satisfaction with the quality of
delivery as a whole is high. We
achieved an average score of 8.5 out of 10
across all the factors from close to 5,000
people questioned.
We will try and build more reflection time
into our programmes and residentials so
young people, youth workers and teachers
have time together to capture and digest
learning.
These insights are helping us develop our
offer to youth groups at Hindleap and
Woodrow so that their experience becomes
even stronger in the future.
We will explore with young people and
youth workers what is behind this – it may
be that they don’t perceive barriers in the
same way as we do. Or that the effects are
taken as read.
This gives us the confidence that we have
skilled staff, which will help us support
youth clubs and youth workers more
effectively.
We are confident that we can keep
improving our approach, but from a
position of relative strength.
The headline findings are positive, but with some important learning, highlighted below.
What we have learned
Our learning about process What we will do with this
6

8. Our impact so far
Our staff and practitioners then explored the definition of ‘impact’ using the Catalyst
Consortium’s youth outcomes framework. We found that every team, whether they
delivered a sports development programme, social action, or took young people on a
residential at our outdoor centres, thought that we delivered against three core outcomes:
confidence & agency, relationships & leadership and resilience & determination.
We selected an appropriate tool to measure our impact on those indicators: the Life
Effectiveness Questionnaire. We chose this one because it used positive language to
describe circumstance. Because this questionnaire is designed to measure change, young
people must complete it at both the start and end of their time with us so we can see how
their answers, and so their outcomes, have changed over time.
Impact on children and young people
The results from the Life Effectiveness Questionnaires gave us some rich learning, with
lots of positives, and also things for us to think about.
Overall headlines
• In almost all aspects of our work, young people show strong changes in their
self-confidence
• As a result of working with us, young people are developing their resilience
determination – especially through our more physically active work: in sport and
at our outdoor centres
• We are also developing young people’s relationship skills, though this seems to be
to a lesser extent so far
Over the following pages we will share further details about the outcome data we have
collected for our programmes in 2013/14.
London Youth
Impact
Confidence
Agency
Planning
Problem Solving
Relationships
Leadership
Manage
Feelings
Resilience
Determination
Communication
Creativity
7

9. What this tells us
8
We have a successful model which offers support to people who face particular disadvantage
and who have struggled to get opportunities for work and training to overcome these barriers.
We offer good support to those facing particular disadvantage. There is still room for us to
make our model stronger, and support young people more effectively, and we’ll be seeking
to make this a reality, working with a smaller number of people over the next 18 months.
Build-it offers young people in Lambeth
the chance to get work experience,
personal development support and
enhance their skills so that they can go
into education or work in the construction
industry. So far we have supported
more than 1,100 young people through
the programme.
We’ve also had success with those young
people who face the biggest barriers: for
example, Lambeth has the highest levels
of unemployment for young black men
out of all London boroughs.
Build-it
David was “kicked out” of secondary school and placed in a centre which he
left with only a few GCSEs, and described to our team that he had struggled to
stay engaged when he’d been offered opportunities since then. When he joined
Build-it it became clear that he suffered from a lack of concentration which
consequently resulted in him distracting others. Through discussions with our
support officer, David realised that this at times stopped him from learning and
increasing his employability skills. He began to learn techniques for dealing with
this, including a need for quiet space, which we helped him find. He slowly built
up his skills and recently completed work experience and training with Wates
and Mears. David is now feeling more positive with better future prospects.
of participants have
got jobs and 31% have
gone onto further
education or training
Of the young black men from Lambeth
who have been through the programme,
29% of those that have left the
programme have got jobs and 38% have
gone onto further education or training
28%

10. Getting Ready is our sports development programme. Last year, we engaged over 3,000
young people in regular sport and 43% of these were doing no sport outside of school.
Many of these young people were disengaged from school and not accessing sports at all
– and certainly couldn’t afford to pay leisure centre or membership club fees. Getting Ready
gives those who don’t participate in sport the chance to choose and learn new sports
together, in weekly programmes delivered in their youth club. 198 young people who had
gone through Getting Ready completed pre and post programme questionnaires.
Sports development – Getting Ready
9
Headline findings
of those young
people report
an average of
positive
change
across all
emotional and
social capabilities
– so they felt
better about
themselves and
more prepared
generally to meet
life’s challenges
of young people
reported on average a
positive change in
determination and
resilience between the
beginning and end of
the programme
of young people
reported an average
58%
63%
70%
18%
19%
25%
increase in
self-confidence

11. 10
What this tells us
We can say with some confidence that the programme had a positive impact on the
young people who completed the questionnaires. For over 6 in 10 to be almost 20% more
determined and resilient at the end of the programme is a strong indicator of success.
While we can’t say that it was definitely Getting Ready that led to this, we can be confident
that the offer of structured support, delivered in their youth club over a sustained period,
has contributed to their development. We will use this learning to develop our offer, and
support more tailored work using sport to engage and inspire more women and more
young people with disabilities.
Sophie is 19 and has been a member of Streatham Youth Community Trust (SYCT)
for ten years now, where she first participated in Getting Ready. She has completed
coaching courses in a number of different sports including football, tennis, basketball,
cricket and tag rugby, bringing all the skills she has learnt back into SYCT so that she
can pass them onto the more junior members. Sophie quickly became a young leader
in the club and is now an apprentice youth worker there. Part of her role is to develop
sports programmes for the club members. Sophie recognised that not many young girls
were getting involved in the sports sessions, and so she decided to try and address this
by creating ‘girls only’ sessions and has really encouraged other girls to take part due
to her sheer enthusiasm. Sophie is proving to be a strong role model for others and her
success is truly inspiring the SYCT members.
Angie Foran, the manager at Streatham Youth Community Trust, says: “We are
now seeing more girls attending, they are becoming healthier and enjoying club a lot
more. Sophie is proving to be a great role model for the girls, as well as the male club
members, the staff team and myself.”
nce

12. Outdoor education
Hindleap Warren
Hindleap Warren is London Youth’s outdoor adventure centre, working with over 10,000
young people from schools and youth clubs each year. Over the last 15 months we have been
collecting impact data from Hindleap participants and know that in particular young people
make significant improvements in creative thinking and confidence whilst at the centre.
Headline findings
76%
of children or young people visiting Hindleap say
they get on better with other people as a result of the
Hindleap experience
What this tells us
Young people, children and youth workers get a lot from their time at Hindleap, and say
that they can really see and feel the benefits. We can use this learning to help us make
further improvements: for those young people who don’t always recognise the learning
they achieve at Hindleap we need to do more to help them identify the transferable
skills they pick up as part of their development. We can use the fact that our staff are
highly rated and valued to engage youth workers, teachers and young people in further
conversations so that we can better meet need.
11
Young people
finish a residential
at Hindleap
saying they are
more confident
with
improved
creativity
and more
emotional
control
When asked about our staff’s engagement with young
people, and the quality of learning we provide, youth
leaders gave us average scores of 9.5 out of 109.5
18%
change
21%
change
20%
change

13. Woodrow High House
Woodrow High House is our residential learning centre, working with more than 4,000
schoolchildren and young people each year. It provides learning experiences every day of
the year for schools and youth groups, with a particular focus on personal development.
The implementation of our ‘Journey of Change’ evaluation yielded more data than ever
on the experience of our visitors, who gave their highest scores to the ability of our
staff to build relationships with them – a key ingredient in creating an environment in
which young people can flourish. Although we’re in the early stages of measuring our
impact, sample data from Woodrow over the last 12 months from our Life Effectiveness
Questionnaires, shows very positive results, including that over 50% of the participants
reported strong changes in their time management, social competence, self-confidence
and intellectual flexibility after a visit to Woodrow.
What this tells us
Our staff have worked hard to develop their skills and capabilities over the past few years,
and our cohort of apprentice instructors get stronger and stronger each year – so it is nice
to see the feedback that young people, youth workers and teachers appreciate that. We’re
entering a new phase at Woodrow having finished refurbishment in early 2015 – and will
use this learning to create even better programmes and experiences for young people.
12

14. Youth social action
13
Our portfolio of youth social action programmes are delivered through local youth clubs
and are geared to supporting those young people who wouldn’t normally engage in
volunteering and social action elsewhere.
These programmes work with a diverse client group, different from many volunteering
or social action programmes, meaning that we help to bring youth action to those young
people who are beyond the usual suspects.
Athan 31 participants:
At the heart of our work are community projects, environmental initiatives and youth-led
activities. Because these programmes have been expanding through 2014 the levels of data
do not yet offer clear learning for us, but it is a priority through 2015 for us to gather more
evidence and turn the experience of young people and youth workers into meaningful
insights for the future.
65%are boys
17%have a
disability
70%are from minority
ethnic communities

15. Two years into our journey to understand the impact of good youth work, we are pleased that
both our initial hunch and early learning appear positive. But, perhaps inevitably, the pursuit
of becoming a truly learning organisation means that for every question answered there are
even more that arise.
At this stage, we cannot claim attribution – that the change happened only through the result
of our work – and thus whilst the information is incredibly useful we are not yet in a position
to take the data as the hard truth. Although there are positive signs that both process and
impact results look encouraging, we cannot yet determine the link between the two.
What it has done is give us a base to move forward, with our members and others, to further
understand the possibilities of our work with young people, and to continue to support great
youth work in the capital. Our next steps will be:
1. To continue to collect and analyse data across all of our programmes, to refine our
understanding and identify emerging trends
2. To begin analysing the links between process and impact data and then ultimately how
the changes to young people’s social and emotional capabilities effect longer term
outcomes like their health, education and employability
3. To work closely with our member youth clubs to ensure they have the capability to learn
from and demonstrate their own impact
4. To continue dialogue with funders, so they can feel confident to make investment in
good youth work
5. And to collaborate with partners in the sector and beyond, including through the Centre
for Youth Impact, to ensure that as many organisations as possible working with young
people are committed to understanding the effectiveness of their work
What next?
14

16. And the last words, for now, from the Centre for Youth Impact, from a practitioner,
and from our Head of Learning:
“Evidence matters because: young people are assets to society, and deserve
investment in their potential; good evidence can help organisations that work
with young people to design and deliver better services, and to become more
sustainable; and organisations that develop on the basis of quality evidence,
representing reflective and high quality practice, are most likely to make the best
investments in young people and improve their life chances.”
Centre for Youth Impact, 2014
“We have been working with London Youth to identify and measure the impact of the
programmes we run. I feel really encouraged to know that I am getting to grips with
the project, and it is definitely moving from ‘theoretical’ in my head to an actuality.”
Dom Hinshelwood, Senior Youth Worker, Laburnum Boat Club
“We’ve been on an incredible journey at London Youth, and the passion of the
delivery teams, the youth workers and everyone involved has made it a very
worthwhile process. We’re only just starting our journey to accountability –
where we can show to young people and to all of our stakeholders the value of
the work we do with them. But it is a very positive start, and feels exciting for
London Youth and its members to be making it a reality.
Dimitrios Tourountsis, Head of Learning, London Youth
020 7549 8800 | hello@londonyouth.org.uk
47-49 Pitfield Street | London N1 6DA
Registered Company Number: 258577
Registered Charity Number: 303324
A detailed learning report with our full set of data tables from 2013/14 is available on the
London Youth website at www.londonyouth.org/learning.