Good Practice in Recording Outcomes
Blandford Youth Centre,
Dorset
Blandford Youth Centre is an open access youth centre based on a school site. It opens two evenings in the week for Senior members and two evenings for Juniors. Additionally, one evening is given over to ‘project work’ with specific groups of invited young people, and there is also a basketball club one evening. On Saturday there is a Gateway Club for young people with learning disabilities. The centre also runs a lunchtime club for young people from the school. Young people access the club from a wide area, not just the local school, and this includes the local army camp – the centre runs a club on the camp. Youth workers also do detached work at the skate park etc. There is one f/t staff member and 5 p/t staff, plus volunteers and an admin worker. Dorset Youth Service funds the centre, and it accesses some external funds for project work.
The centre has a system of folder work in place. Every young person who registers as a member, receives their own folder which they can fill with any of the results of the work they’ve achieved. This provides all the evidence the youth workers and young people need of their contact with the centre. At some point at the start of the relationship with every new member, a basic needs assessment is completed with them. This needs assessment informs progress and helps to set goals for worker and young person for what they hope to achieve out of the contact. The extra workload involved in doing this meant that an additional worker was required for the centre, and this was funded through prioritisation of existing resources. On one evening a week, a p/t worker works specifically on the folders with the young people accessing the club. Throughout contact with the young person, they are encouraged to use their file to evidence their achievements. Progress is reviewed on a rolling programme.
Tides Youth Project, Weymouth,
Dorset
Tides is a young person’s project centre covering the Weymouth area. There are 12 members of staff, and they have around 6,000 contacts with young people per year. Tides works on a referral system and the young people also self refer. The centre is open every afternoon and three evenings a week. Tides offer a variety of provision including project based activities, work towards Key Skills and the ASDAN Foundation Training Award, and one-to-one work on specific issues. Tides is funded through Dorset Youth Service and also receives funding from the Neighbourhood Support Fund.
Tides uses a system of soft indicator assessment, in order to identify a baseline for the young person. Youth workers carry out a simple questionnaire with young people, where they indicate their assessment of their behaviour, communication and self esteem at the start of their contact with the project. This is completed on their own. The assessment was developed by the team at Tides based on NLP principles. The assessment is re-visited at regular intervals, and details are kept in the young person’s file for them to use. These assessments provide recorded outcomes for the young people
Sedgemoor Area Team,
Somerset County Youth Service
Sedgemoor Area is part of the County Youth Service. It comprises 12 clubs and additional projects. The team recently gave over some training time to think about how to introduce recorded outcomes to their centres. As a result, a system was devised which allows youth workers to record outcomes as part of session evaluation sheets. The details of the recorded outcome is then transferred to a recorded outcome monitoring form by the worker in charge, following the session. The recorded outcomes monitoring form contains details of all the recorded outcomes the centre has achieved, over a given period. It also contains details of where the evidence of the outcome can be found. See page 16 for a sample of the forms.
This system has been introduced across the teams within the area. In practice, youth workers are using the system as they spot demonstrable progression in the young person. The first action is to discuss the progression with the young people and give them some feedback and find out what they think they have learned. The worker then makes a brief note on the sessional evaluation form that a recorded outcome was awarded. Using this system has meant very little extra work for the youth workers, and although a little extra time is required by the worker in charge to transfer the details through to the monitoring sheets, this can be done after the session.
The difficulty has been in finding the time as part of an open access session to focus on one-to-one work with a young person. However both youth workers and young people have welcomed the opportunity that recording outcomes give to offer feedback to the young person and discuss their progression. Project work such as the young carers group, or the art and music project, has offered ample opportunities to reflect on progression with young people, and so recorded outcomes have integrated well. Young people on the whole are very positive about the chance to explore their own issues with the youth worker, and the system is also proving beneficial in providing evidence for young people to assist them with job/ college applications etc.