Who is the Learning Partner? 

The Learning Partners include the Dartington Service Design Lab, the Centre for Youth Impact, Research in Practice and the University of Plymouth. Together, we will be synthesising data, evidence and insights from grantees and existing research and translating it into actionable learning for grantees and the wider sector.  

The learning will focus on four areas:  

  • How to engage and retain young people in services during the pandemic; 

  • Adaptation across different forms of youth provision, and implications for delivery and impact during the pandemic; 

  • How the wider system and local context affect patterns of youth violence and supports for young people; and 

  • A final theme to be determined in liaison with YEF and grantees over the next six months. 

We’re really looking forward to working with you on this exciting project! 

 

How does my organisation fit into this?  

Your organisation will play a key role in helping us understand the experience facing young people and the sector as well as qualifying the existing evidence and insights we generate. This will be achieved through a number of online learning events, peer-to-peer discussions and workshops.  

These engagements will be organised online and will provide an opportunity for you to meet with other grantees, hear from the Learning Partner and discuss the learning that will be disseminated to the wider sector.   

 

What data must I collect and report upon? 

As we are not undertaking an evaluation of each grantee’s activities, there are no mandatory data reporting requirements, other than those that form part of your quarterly grant conditions and reporting requirements to the YEF grants team.   

 

How is evidence and insight going to be generated? 

Our role as a Learning Partner is to identify, synthesise and distil evidence and insight about changing patterns of youth violence over the course of the current pandemic, and how organisations such as the 129 grantees of the YEF COVID-19 Grants Round are responding to this.  

We will identify evidence and insight from a variety of sources. This will include the existing and emerging research literature, data, and insights from a variety of experts and stakeholders – including from you and the young people you support!  This will include insights generated through a series of questionnaires, workshops and interviews with grantees and wider stakeholders.  

From here, we will create engaging and accessible “Insight Briefs”. These short reports and accompanying materials will draw together all of this learning so that YEF, grantees and the wider sector can make more informed decisions in regards to the ways in which to support children and young people during this time. 

 

Can I contact the Learning Partners if I have questions about my organisation’s evaluation plans or ways to show the outcomes or impact of our programme? 

The Learning Partners are here to generate and disseminate learning about how grantees are attempting to reach and support young people amidst the rapidly evolving COVID-19 context. The focus is not on how to measure outcomes and impact for the young people and families supported for each grantee. Unfortunately, the large number of grantees (129) prevents us from offering personalised support or advice about how to collect data to monitor and evaluate services or activities.  

The good news is that we will be offering capacity-building tutorials and limited personalised support focused on theories of change (and logic models). The Theory of Change is the main blueprint of what a service or activity is meant to achieve and how it will do this, thus forming the basis of evaluation plans. So, you might still gain the guidance you need by participating in these activities. 

 

Where can I see the Learning Partner activities? 

All of the activities planned for the year were sent via email to grantees but you can also view them here. Online activities will also be sent directly to grantees so please make sure you have added YEFlearning@dartington.org.uk to your email address book.   

 

How do I indicate my interest in participating in a Learning Partner activity? 

The Learning Partner will send an event invite from the YEFlearning@dartington.org.uk email, requesting you to sign-up to one of a number of identical online discussions via Eventbrite. Please note that each session will be capped to ensure discussion is fruitful. Please add the email address to your address book to avoid key information ending up in your email spam or junk box.  

Not all discussions will be relevant to your organisation, so please sign up only if you feel that the discussion will be applicable to you. 

 

What do these online sessions look like? 

Each online discussion will have roughly 20 grantees on the call and several Learning Partner members to help facilitate discussion.  

The session will start with a presentation before breaking out into online groups for discussion.  

The sessions will be held on Zoom. Please make sure you have registered for Zoom (it’s free) and use either a mobile or laptop to be on the call.  

To register for the online discussions, we will use Eventbrite. Please check your email after signing-up to the events. If you have not received an email from us, please check the Junk/Spam folder for an email from YEFlearning@dartington.org.uk

 

What are the Theory of Change webinars?

We heard from multiple grantees that they either didn’t have, or didn’t know what a Theory of Change was. As a result, the Learning Partner will host four seminars to share how to create a Theory of Change and how it can benefit your programme and its evaluation across January to March.

Each seminar will be followed up by a discussion group (there are three slots you can choose from) where you will be able to bring your specific programme and work with the Learning Partner to help apply your learning. This is a great opportunity to get some bespoke training and to meet fellow grantees. Whilst these sessions are not mandatory, they are strongly encouraged - particularly the discussion sets - as they will support your quarterly reporting returns to YEF. 

 

Which Theory of Change webinar should I attend?

Ideally, you should attend each individual webinar as each session will build upon the learning from the last. If you cannot attend each one, we strongly advise you to watch the webinars in order - making sure to do the Baseline Survey prior to attending/watching Webinar One.

Webinar one: Why Theory of Change can be helpful - securing funding, communicating approach, planning and refining activities.

  • To introduce you to the use of Theory of Change in evaluation

  • To ensure that you know what is meant by and understand the concept of a Theory of Change

  • To help you understand why it is considered a useful set of ideas

  • To support you to think about your own Theory of Change

Webinar two: How can a diagram help you articulate what your intervention will do to achieve the outcomes outlined in your Theory of Change?

  • To help you visualise your Theory of Change

  • To develop a diagram visualising the input, outputs and outcomes related to your Theory of Change

  • To understand how a diagram can help you to articulate what the intervention will do to achieve the outcomes outlined in your Theory of Change.

Webinar three: How to engage your stakeholders, including children and young people, most effectively and use their involvement to refine your ToC.

  • To help you understand why stakeholder development is beneficial

  • To help you identify who your stakeholders are

  • To help you understand how to engage your stakeholders, including children and young people, most effectively

  • To help you understand how to use their involvement to refine your Theory of Change

Webinar four: How to use evaluation to revisit your Theory of Change.

  • Developing a Theory of Change document - bringing together stakeholder mapping, narrative and Theory of Change model

  • Identifying research and evaluation questions from Theory of Change

  • Developing a monitoring and evaluation framework

  • To understand how to use evaluation to revisit your Theory of Change

 

What if I can’t make either the webinars or the discussions?

If you are unable to attend the webinars live, please do not fret. The Learning Partner will send out recordings of the webinars so that you do not miss out on the teaching. We will also send out the “homework” or the “ways in which you can apply the learning” so that you can catch up at the discussions.

If you cannot attend the discussions, please try to monitor your progress through your reporting to YEF. We ask that each organisation, prior to watching Webinar 1, complete a Baseline Survey, so that at the end of the course you can assess your learning. This will help you refresh your memory and refine where you may need to invest more time.

 

Do I have to take part in the Learning Partner activities? 

It is a condition of your grant to make quarterly reporting returns to YEF. As part of some of these reports, there will be some light-touch reflections and insights requested by the Learning Partner to grantees. In addition, there will be a variety of learning activities and opportunities to bring grantees together to elicit insights, share learning and build capacity. Your participation in these is not mandatory, but engagement in as many activities as possible (and applicable) will prove highly beneficial to you and invaluable to the Learning Partnership and overall goals of the YEF COVID-19 Grants Round. You can decide which activities you think are most applicable, and feasible for your organisation to participate in. 

 

Where can I find out more about what the Learning Partners have produced? 

For each core topic, the Learning Partner will produce a series of insights which will be shared in a variety of ways. These include the webinars and online discussions, Insight Briefs, blogs and social media updates. 

We encourage you to keep an eye on the Dartington Service Design Lab ‘Resources’ page as well as following the partnership on social media. You’ll also be contacted by email with any new learning.  

 

Who should I contact for more information? 

If you still have questions, please contact Julia Mannes at YEFLearning@dartington.org.uk