Conference shines spotlight on effective evidence and evaluation

The online conference – held over the afternoons of Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 March – will address some of the key challenges affecting evidence and evaluation across services for children, young people and families.

Experts and inspiring practitioners will also provide practical advice, case studies and insight to aid professionals, teams and organisations to deliver improved outcomes.

Sessions relate to evaluation across the sector – from children’s services, youth services, early help teams, arts projects, wellbeing programmes and school support.

Key topics covered at the Evaluation in Action: Using evidence and evaluation to improve children's outcomes conference include:

• the value of different types of data for evaluation of services
• how to act on data to inform strategy, influence development and refine the quality of programmes
• how good evaluation can help innovation, creating new solutions to current and emerging challenges
• the challenges of capturing reliable data to measure long-term impact
• practical tips on evaluating services run on a small scale
• ways to measure so-called ‘soft outcomes’ including social and emotional skills
• how community participatory research can add depth and quality to evaluation
• the importance of listening to young people and systematic collection of feedback
• how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the way children and families engage
• insights to help services address the mental health challenges to have emerged over the pandemic.

Speakers at the conference include Professor Janet Boddy from the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth at the University of Sussex, Ellen Broome, managing director of CoramBAAF and Coram Family and Childcare, Matthew Horne, deputy chief executive of the Innovation Unit, and Bethia McNeil, chief executive at the Centre for Youth Impact.

To read the full conference programme click here or go to  http://www.evaluationconference.co.uk/programme

The conference will be useful for all practitioners with an interest in service evaluation as well as senior managers in children’s services, charity chiefs and senior staff, commissioners of services, heads of strategy, quality assurance and performance managers, and policy advisers.

To register your place for the conference, click here