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7 March 2011 |
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Tim Crabbe
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Finally, some good news. A programme that helps young people
from deprived communities to steer clear of drug and alcohol
misuse and crime has just received £10m from the Home Office.
Positive Futures engages 10 to 19-year-olds and supports them to move forward with their
lives. There are 91 Positive Futures projects across England and Wales, each one focusing on a
distinct disadvantaged local community.
But in the current climate of spending cuts, which have taken their toll on the youth sector,
what has Positive Futures done differently? How has this prevention programme, which works
with 50,000 young people every year, been able to retain its funding for the next two years?
The answer lies in the programme’s ability to tell its story. For the past ten years Positive
Futures has focused on evidencing the impact it has on young people’s lives. But it’s not just
about numbers. The latest figures do show improved engagement among 70 per cent of
participants, with over 10,000 gaining qualifications and almost 30,000 achieving other
positive outcomes including access to drug treatment, employment, volunteering and a return
to education. But the evidence also reveals the journey of many of those young people who
have been mixed up with drug and alcohol misuse and are now developing the skills needed
to get on a positive career path.
Take Andrew. He’s 19 and has been part of the Leyton Orient Positive Futures Community
Sports Programme since the age of ten. Now he’s a Positive Futures youth advisor and a
member of the Positive Futures national youth advisory board. ‘When you grow up watching
drug dealers driving around in expensive cars, it’s easy to want a piece of the action and
staying on the right path is difficult,’ he says. ‘I see many young people where I live in flash
clothes – it’s obvious they haven’t got those things legally. Positive Futures... gives young
people positive role models, someone who talks to young people as a friend... and who can
also show them the right way to go without forcing it. The young participants at Leyton Orient
Positive Futures look up to me, so it is my duty to keep them socially engaged.’
Projects around the country record their impact through thousands of first-hand accounts
like this, with young people talking about their personal experiences of the programme – good
and bad. Many participants also take part in filmed interviews, they keep diaries, take photos
and create artwork. Staff track how many young people enrolled on a drug treatment
programme or smoking cessation course. Did an inidiviual attend a music event raising
awareness of binge drinking and substance misuse? Did they stay on the sidelines or become
more involved? Maybe a young person helped a staff member set up a youth club session
around drug prevention or perhaps they supported a peer?
Projects use an impact matrix to measure a young person’s level of engagement and
progression as they move from ‘disengagement’, through ‘curiosity’, ‘involvement’ and
‘achievement’ to the ultimate goal of gaining ‘autonomy’. This shows how important it is to
embed results evaluation in the day-to-day work of staff. A coach may see a young person who
is totally disengaged and boasting about drinking to their mates. Rather than dismissing them
as an outsider or lost cause they become motivated to find ways to engage that individual and
build a relationship so they gradually move up the matrix.
With the reality of results-based funding looming, the model for early intervention and
development projects must recognise and reward this type of evidence rather than relying on a
simplistic zero-sum game: ‘failed’ or ‘achieved’. Getting a young person to stop binge drinking
might be the goal but getting them to reflect on the negative impact of alcohol misuse in
front of their mates is certainly a step along the road, particularly where complementary
outcomes such as a cessation of anti-social behaviour are achieved as a by-product.
It was this rich evidence base that helped Positive Futures secure funding by giving the
Home Office a detailed oversight of the programme’s impact at both macro and micro levels.
This was made possible by a sophisticated monitoring system developed by Substance, the
social research co-operative that is currently responsible for the evaluation of Positive Futures
in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University.
Substance is now piloting a new and enhanced model of impact monitoring called Views,
which it hopes will replace more burdensome and bureaucratic approaches to evaluation.
Rather than being an imposition, this new model empowers frontline workers and makes use
of young people’s experiences and those of their families.
More than ever, commissioners are having to make tough choices about what to cut and
what to keep. Personal development projects tackling alcohol and drug misuse must get better
at telling their story if they want to stay the funding axe.
DDN
Professor Tim Crabbe is chair of Substance and is responsible for the evaluation of Positive
Futures in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University. The Views impact monitoring system is
being piloted by four Positive Futures projects. Visit www.views.coop to find out more.
Programmes must give a better
account of themselves if they
want to keep their funding,
says
Professor Tim Crabbe
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