Dartington Service Design Lab are the lead partner in the #iwill Fund Impact Evaluation and Learning Contract.

The #iwill Fund is a collaboration between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), working with match funders to support young people to access high quality social action. Social action involves activities such as campaigning, fundraising, and volunteering, all of which enable young people to make a positive difference in their communities as well as develop their own skills and knowledge.

Connected Futures is a £16m programme that seeks to change the journey from education to employment for young people facing exclusion and disadvantage. It aims to support the development of local approaches to youth employment that put young people at the heart of the system, from schools and employers to housing, health and care. Blackpool is one of several areas funded by the Youth Futures Foundation to embark on systemic changes to reduce the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).

Chance UK is solution-focused mentoring and support charity which works with children and families to reduce the impact of trauma on their lives. The charity works to support children aged 8-14 experiencing behavioural and emotional difficulties in a needs-led and strengths-based way to develop skills which can protect them from risks in the future. Chance UK collaborates with others (e.g. education, health, social work) to support children in realising a brighter future. Chance UK work directly with young people with a 1-2-1 mentoring programme at the centre of its delivery model, with other curriculum and skills-based activities to support positive change. The charity also conducts direct work with parents and carers in developing their skills and knowledge to gain a holistic view of the young people they are working with, and to ensure their work is meaningful for families.

The ThinkForward: FutureMe programme works with young people to support their continuation in education, employment, and training and to prevent them from being identified as “Neet.” They use a blended approach of one-to-one and group coaching sessions delivered by trained coaches who support the young people to work through the seven work “work readiness capabilities” of being; self-aware, driven, resilient, self-assured, organised, and a good communicator. These qualities have been identified as being desirable by employers. The programme also offers business mentoring, CV writing and interview skills workshops, work experience placements, and parental engagement.

We are carrying out a participatory pilot study to determine whether Career Ahead can be delivered as intended and contribute to improvements in skills, cultural capital, education and employment outcomes.

Using a community participatory approach, we are working with a team of community researchers from Lambeth to undertake a mixed method developmental and summative evaluation of LEAP which is A Better Start Project in Lambeth.

We are working as an evaluator and Learning Partner for the Youth Endowment Fund, supporting their work with those at risk of youth violence.

The projects we are currently working on are: Becoming a Man, Pause For Thought, COVID-19 Learning Partnership, Big Brothers Little Sisters and Neighbourhood Fund.

We have joined forces with PEDAL to apply our rapid-cycle design and testing approach in a new and exciting way. For us, it’s learning how our approach works when driven by others, with us riding along and coaching in the backseat. For our partners, it’s learning whether they can use our approach to quickly adapt for online delivery of an evidence-based face-to-face book sharing intervention

The Uniformed Youth Fund is part of the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’ to ensure every young person across England will have access to regular out of school activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer. Together with our partners at Ipsos, we are evaluating how successful the Fund has been in its goal of reducing waiting lists, and exploring how young people may benefit from being part of Uniformed Youth Groups.