Letters to the Editor: Measuring youth work impact benefits all

Bethia McNeil's article on youth work impact was refreshingly honest about some of the challenges of outcome measurement (Understanding youth work impact, CYP Now, 3 March). There is a real risk of putting small organisations with stretched resources through the "mother of all hoops".

We've been on a journey to understand the impact of our work with young people over the past couple of years. One of the key pieces of learning for us is that as well as the obvious driver of wanting to deliver the highest quality programmes, an added benefit of the process has been the improvement within our own organisation through that journey.

Not only is our own planning and delivery stronger, as it is based on clear data and evidence, but our delivery staff are more engaged, as they can see - and show - the value of the work they do. Our strategic planning is more focused on impact than on assumptions and we can readily see where things need improving or investment. For instance, we've learned that in some areas we need to be better facilitators to make young people more aware of what they're learning.

And importantly, we've learned that it really does matter less what specific opportunities young people take part in, whether sport or drama or outdoor activities, and more that they are quality opportunities led by skilled adults offering a chance to try new things.

We've just published our first Learning Report summarising what we've understood about our impact to date. It is genuinely exciting to see that across the board our programmes have a positive impact on young people's social and emotional capabilities. As we begin to support our member youth clubs to measure their own impact, one of the most important challenges will be to help them experience similar excitement and to ensure that they are not jumping through hoops, but are instead making themselves stronger and more sustainable.

Rosie Ferguson, chief executive, London Youth

Call for extra training for early years staff

I found the article Early Years Pupil Premium tested (CYP Now, 3 February) very interesting and thought-provoking.

As the piece correctly highlights, once this crucial funding has been divided among all the disadvantaged young children in each allocated council, the money will not go very far to really have an effective impact on the children's life chances.

I would like to suggest an alternative view of how the allocation of this money could be spent, or at least a proportion of it, and that is additional training for staff teams.

What I am proposing is a long-term solution to a short-term injection of funding, which provides staff teams with the confidence and the knowledge to work more effectively with disadvantaged children. The training may include, for example, increasing the skills of the workforce through observation and reflective practice techniques to recognise triggers and signs of behavioural difficulties.

The training could also incorporate some further knowledge of children's development and how this relates to every child within the centre - for example, children develop at differing rates regardless of being identified as advantaged or disadvantaged.

Further training of the childcare workforce would have a positive impact on children currently in early years settings alongside the future children to attend, which presents a longevity aspect to the current funding.

Jane Roberts, Characteristics of Childhood