Rethinking Impact, Evaluation and Accountability in Youth Work, 2018-2021

The data collection included 87 qualitative interviews / focus groups (semi-structured and/or flexible / conversational / creative) with 143 people: 58 young people who engage in youth work, 59 youth workers and managers, and 26 policy makers, influencers and informants. The data focuses primarily on the value of youth work and its evaluation. The young people, youth workers and managers were from eight open youth work settings around England, selected to represent the diversity of open youth work (youth clubs in purpose built centres and shared spaces; detached / street based youth work; and open youth work with specific groups: trans young people, girls, and boys). The policy makers, influencers and informants were mostly from England. One was from Scotland and five from the USA; these perspectives were sought for comparative and international learning purposes. In addition, the researchers engaged in 73 sessions of participant observation. 63 of these were in the eight youth work settings mentioned above. The remaining ten were policy-related events. The fieldnotes and a small number of interview / focus group transcripts are not included in the shared dataset, either for ethical reasons (e.g. if it was not feasible to anonymise them or to redact sensitive data), or because participants opted out of data sharing.This research investigated the policy and practice of evaluation and accountability in youth work. It collaborated with young people, youth workers, managers, funders and policy makers/influencers, to understand the effects of impact measurement, and develop approaches to evaluation that are congruent with youth work practice. This three-year research project involved 143 participants in 87 qualitative interviews and focus groups, including flexible and creative approaches to interviewing (e.g. photovoice, peer interviewing, music elicitation). The researchers also engaged in extensive participant observation in eight open youth work settings around England (youth clubs, detached / street-based youth work, and youth work aimed at specific groups e.g. trans young people, girls, boys). The study aims to find out how the youth impact agenda is implemented in practice, and how impact processes are experienced and perceived by young people and youth workers. Interviews include the perspectives of policy makers and influencers in the UK and USA, to explore how and why 'youth impact' has become so important at this time.