A vital chance to show that youth services work

This has always been particularly challenging in young people’s services including youth work, where anecdotes are as abundant as solid evidence is scarce. The result is that these programmes have been hit disproportionately hard by the spending cuts up and down the country – services that may in fact have had a transformative impact on young lives.

This is work focused on the “soft” outcomes around young people’s personal and social development, while commissioners and investors crave evidence of “hard” outcomes such as educational attainment and good health. Proving the link between the “soft” and “hard” is fraught with difficulties.

But a development last week could prove pivotal in demonstrating the link, and in building a more solid evidence base for young people’s services including youth sport programmes, under threat despite the arrival of the Olympics. The Young Foundation has produced A Framework of Outcomes for Young People.