The National Youth Agency: Latest evalution report highlights positive achievements of YPDP

The report, compiled by the Social Science Research Unit as part of its three-year evaluation, highlighted a number of positive achievements on recruitment, retention, width of activity and a growing accreditation culture across the 27 projects. Young people had a positive view of projects and reported they had made them "healthier". They were also more likely than those from comparison sites to report condom use over a six-month period.

One unexpected finding was that young people from YPDP projects were more likely than comparison participants to report that they had truanted or been temporarily excluded from school in the past six months.

Richard McKie, YPDP national co-ordinator, commented: "Projects have done a lot of hard work so far, but there's clearly a lot more to do.

"The more we learn of the strengths and weaknesses of this type of work, the better it will become."

A final report will be made in spring 2007. For further information on YPDP, go to the web site www.nya.org.uk/ypdp.