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‘Going the distance’:
Impact, journeys and
distance travelled
Third Interim National Positive
Futures Case Study Research Report
Tim Crabbe
Research Team:
Gavin Bailey, Tony Blackshaw, Adam Brown, Clare Choak, Tim
Crabbe, Ben Gidley, Gavin Mellor, Kath O’Connor, Alex Robertson,
Imogen Slater, Donna Woodhouse
August 2006
1
Contents
‘Going the distance’: Executive Summary
Page
3
Part One: Introduction and Research Methodology
10
1.1
1.2
1.3
10
11
16
Introduction
Methodology
Positive Futures and conventional measures of success
Part Two: Beyond the stop watch. Re-assessing the impact of
Positive Futures
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
Diversion v Development: Positive Futures and the emergence of
new styles of delivery
Outside the comfort zone: How Positive Futures influences the use
and perception of neighbourhood spaces
Beyond sport: Positive Futures and the diversification of provision
Appropriate styles of delivery
Maintaining involvement
‘Keepin’ it real’: Managing growth and protecting project integrity
22
22
24
32
36
42
46
Part Three: Rethinking progress and achievement
50
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
50
53
66
70
What’s the ‘problem’?
‘Alternative’ pathways and distance travelled
Every Child Matters
Final score
Part Four: Conclusion
75
Bibliography
79
Appendix 1: Research Activity, Positive Futures Case Study
Research Project, 2004-2006
81
Appendix 2: Summary of Participant Journeys
82
2
‘Going the distance’: Executive Summary
In this final interim report we intend to focus more explicitly on the impact of
Positive Futures through the duration of our study. In doing so, we also intend to
present an alternative framework for the assessment of programme impacts
which will involve:
•
•
•
A critical review of the evaluative framework for PF and conventional
approaches to research and evaluation in this sector.
Presentation of the most pertinent themes that have emerged from the
research in order to reveal a sense of ‘best practice’ and the story of what
it is to be involved with PF and the challenges the work presents.
A fresh, illustrated consideration of the ways in which we look at the idea
of progression and programme achievement.
Positive Futures and conventional measures of success
The last round of Key Elements surveys revealed the following snapshot data
from our six case study projects.
•
•
•
•
•
Whilst continuing to attract new participants, significant proportions remain
engaged from one evaluation period to the next.
All of the projects engage a significant proportion of girls and young
women.
An extensive programme of non sports activities sits alongside more
conventional sports provision.
Young people’s progression is seen to relate principally to educational
improvement, better social relations and growing engagement with the
programme.
Those projects working with fewer participants are more likely to have a
significant impact on a higher proportion of those they work with than
projects working with large numbers.
Key Message The strength of the Key Elements format was its inclusion of a
focus upon involvement and personal achievement rather than dubious claims
relating to causality. As the research has moved forward, these experiences have
helped to inform the demand for a new model of M&E which is more attuned to
the needs of the sports based social policy sector.
Diversion v Development
•
•
All work with young people could be regarded in the first instance as
diversionary.
Some projects draw distinctions between diversionary and developmental
work.
3
•
•
For other projects diversionary work represents a ‘taster’ bringing new
participants into contact with their work.
Ideally PF involves layering a developmental positive futures approach
over a diversionary positive activities approach.
Key Message PF projects need to mobilise the attractions of sport and the
advantages of engaging young people in positive activities whilst using this
engagement to move beyond the diversionary and into more developmental
styles of work.
PF and the use and perception of neighbourhood spaces
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The work of PF is intimately and inevitably tied up with both the perception
and use of local spaces.
This objective is not merely a factor of external practitioner demands but is
wrapped up in the everyday realities faced by participants.
When talking about their areas young people often reflect on them in
terms of their own fears of crime and danger.
For others, the work revealed young people’s affinity with their
environment and great love for friends and family.
Projects have often designed their programmes of activity accordingly,
whether this is to accommodate young people’s preferences, to challenge
the associated territorialism or avoid the conflicts associated with it.
One of the principle aims of the PF programme is to provide young people
defined as being ‘at risk’ with safe space in which to develop.
In some contexts this is about finding spaces which lie outside notions of
geography and territory and merely provide ‘room’.
Several of the projects provide spaces for participants to use simply as
‘chill out’ space.
Key Messages Young people involved with PF have local ‘knowledges’ of the
neighbourhoods in which projects operate which is based on their own
experiences, as well as stories from peers and parents and which can contrast
with dominant perspectives on contemporary urban youth. In the face of
racialised and territorial conflict PF projects can provide safe spaces. Their
capacity to do so is related to their willingness to enter ‘danger zones’ and to
build relationships with young people that enable the creation of spaces which
are not only ‘physically safe’ but also ‘emotionally safe’
Beyond sport
•
•
The provision of something ‘different’ provides no better guarantee of
success than the use of conventional sports.
Activities are generally viewed by projects as secondary to the
relationships built with the young people.
4
•
•
•
•
When sport is neither appropriate nor valued by young people due to
gender differences and other factors, effective projects alter their
programmes of work and provide sessions which are more suited to
providing a platform for relationship building.
The degree of sensitivity to the issue of gender difference is not uniform
across the programme and participation rates can mask a poor quality of
engagement.
For others, alternative spaces and residentials have proven successful in
allowing young people to shed their ‘tough’ street exterior and behave like
children in a safe and neutral environment.
For the most part it is football that continues to have a particular hold on
the young people we have observed. This raises questions about the
benefits of diversifying activities for its own sake.
Key messages PF projects have been willing to diversify their provision to attract
a broad range of participants across different gender and racial boundaries.
Where ‘alternative’ activities are offered this should not be done for its own sake
but should be related to the availability of staff with the appropriate skills as well
as the interests of particular target groups.
Styles of delivery
•
•
•
PF is concerned to offer more than the simple provision of ‘things to do’
and involves using the relationships established with young people to aid
their personal and social development.
Effective projects mobilise an approach which can be characterised by a
three-step model of engagement:
o Initial engagement and relationship building
o Maintaining engagement/Development
o Purposeful & tailored engagement
Ultimately, projects have to strike a, sometimes precarious, balance which
involves the employment of a youth work style characterised by the
construction of both ‘buddy’ and ‘bounded’ personalities which it seems
young people are frequently able to respond to, precisely because of the
mix of the two.
Key message In the context of PF’s attempts to aid the personal and social
development of participants, projects need to adopt a staged approach towards
engagement that establishes social outcomes as an end point rather than a
starting point
Maintaining involvement
•
2419 of the young people engaged by our case study projects in
September 2005 had been engaged since at least February 2005.
5
•
•
•
•
A key factor in the retention of participants is whether projects have been
successful in maintaining low levels of staff turnover.
The next hurdle is to develop the capacity, resources and skills to provide
accredited training and qualifications.
The best approach towards retaining both staff and participants is
provided by a progression model characterised by the movement of young
people through a participant, volunteer, staff hierarchy.
If an organisation can retain a clear and powerful sense of its values and
commitment to the young people it is working with it will be likely to make
good progress and to retain and recruit good staff.
Key message Projects’ capacity to retain young people’s engagement is a factor
of both the maintenance of staff stability and a clear set of values which
prioritises the needs of participants.
Managing growth
•
•
•
•
•
The growth and development of PF has had implications for projects,
some of which have seen the programme shift away from their initial
interpretation of its ethos and others which have embraced new agendas
more enthusiastically.
In some settings growth has led to the need for new staffing structures in
order to manage the expanding number and reach of their various
schemes of work.
Statutory sector led projects, influenced and moulded by early PF strategic
thinking, have sometimes been reluctant to move away from a referral
based system of identifying young people.
Perhaps surprisingly, the most significant organisational developments
and change have been witnessed at the newer third wave projects, one of
which has perhaps embraced the PF approach as articulated in Cul-desacs and gateways most fully.
This projects success is wrapped up with a managerial style which allows
delivery staff to manage their schemes of work with a degree of autonomy.
Key message Projects capacity to retain a commitment to the core values of PF
relies upon a managerial style which devolves authority to front line delivery staff
and which enables them to manage their schemes of work with a degree of
autonomy.
Measuring
travelled
•
success,
‘alternative’
pathways
and
distance
It is not possible to make direct connections between the impact of sports
based social interventions and reductions in crime or substance misuse
precisely because so many other factors are at play.
6
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
There is growing interest in the identification of new ways of assessing
‘impact’ based on concepts such as ‘journeys’ and ‘distance travelled’.
What is important is to capture participant developments over time and the
ways in which they relate to or are hindered by project activity.
Following the lessons drawn from earlier case study research reports,
from the summer of 2005 PF began piloting a new M&E framework
developed by Substance1 in order to address these needs.
Consideration of the many young people involved in the research would
suggest that far from being at odds with the mainstream, their values and
dreams are largely a reflection of convention.
Whilst many participants have merely been ‘visitors’, those that have ‘hung
around’ and developed appear to have benefited from a level of support
which is quite simple and straightforward in its conception.
Where there is less focus on the progression of young people amidst a
concern to modify their behaviour it is harder to sustain the progression of
a participant’s journey.
Development is rarely linear and projects can engage young people and
record development whilst flashpoint incidents out of the realm of PF’s
influence continue to occur.
Projects should not necessarily see this type of fractured progression as a
failure but as the context in which the work necessarily occurs.
The journey of PF projects can enable a layered progression which
involves the development of participants, staff, projects, partners and
neighbourhoods rather than merely being limited to individual stories.
Whilst the young people involved with PF have aspirations that might be
regarded as in some respects mundane and ordinary, this does not mean
that they do not require assistance in achieving them.
In order to support young people’s progression it is vital that projects
provide access to both informal and formal recognition of their
achievements and well structured and signposted pathways into
volunteering and employment.
Key messages PF projects should not necessarily see the fractured and
inconsistent progression of participants as a failure but as the context in which
appropriate work necessarily occurs. In such circumstances the continued
involvement of participants is a success in and of itself. From this kind of
engagement wider social and community impacts become possible
Every Child Matters
•
1
This focus on facilitating young people’s progression through an emphasis
on support rather than coercion is now a cornerstone of government policy
following the publication of Every Child Matters (ECM): Change for
Children.
www.substance.coop
7
•
•
•
•
•
•
PF projects are exceptionally well placed to address this agenda and meet
a whole variety of elements of the ECM Outcomes Framework criteria.
All of the case study projects offer a range of opportunities for involvement
in structured physical activity and access to guidance and support relating
to personal health.
Whilst PF projects are not ‘crime prevention’ initiatives, time spent with
projects does provide a safe space in which young people can operate
and in which projects can address wider issues relating to ‘risky’
behaviour.
Perhaps more than any other aspect of the ECM Outcomes Framework
PF provides an opportunity for young people to ‘enjoy and achieve’.
In many ways one of the principle concerns of PF is to make a ‘positive
contribution’ in terms of encouraging and facilitating young people’s
opportunities, aspirations and achievements.
In terms of achieving ‘economic well being’ it is quite clearly a major
challenge for projects to demonstrate a significant impact but a small
number of participants from our case study projects have moved into
employment as a result of their involvement.
Key message PF projects are perhaps uniquely placed to achieve the objectives
outlined in the ECM Outcomes Framework
Conclusion
Employing Richard Williams’ conceptualisation of ‘dominant’, ‘residual’ and
‘emergent’ paradigms within different social spheres, within the community sport
sector we believe it is possible to distinguish between a ‘dominant’ approach
characterised by a sports development perspective and a ‘residual’ approach
whose legacy derives from the Victorian Rational Recreation and Muscular
Christianity movements. This leaves the social inclusion and community
development approach espoused by PF as a new ‘emergent’ force.
Whilst we are inclined towards the representation of PF as an emergent
influence, which is increasingly likely to assume a dominant position, this cannot
be claimed in any complete and uniform sense. Rather it may be possible within
the PF programme to identify a further battle for hegemonic authority between a
range of influences which will help to determine the future direction of the
programme and, in turn, community sports practice more generally.
A taxonomy of PF project approaches
Category
Dominant
Approach
Crime
reduction
Characteristics
Highly targeted
Criminal justice agency led
Focused on the control and management of
disruptive behaviour
8
Residual
Sport
development
Emergent
Social
inclusion
Focus on development of mass participation
Activity driven
Led by conventional sport providers
Focused on personal and social development
Flexible, outreach approaches
Community based and led
Whilst we have included a ‘crime reduction’ approach here as the ‘dominant’
category, from our observations it is clear that the community development
approach is the emergent and increasingly dominant influence. Projects adopting
this approach have most clearly and un self-consciously demonstrated their
success in retaining young people’s engagement, contributing to their personal
development and impacting upon their wider patterns of social behaviour.
9
Part One: Introduction and Research Methodology
1.1 Introduction
In our previous interim reports (Crabbe, 2005; Crabbe, 2006) we chose to focus
our attention on the process, delivery and organisational elements of the Positive
Futures programme. We were concerned to paint a picture of the kind of work
that Positive Futures projects do, the approaches that they use as well as the
ways in which the various case study projects have been managed and
organised. In this sense up to now we have only been able to offer fleeting
glances at the ways in which young people and communities have benefited from
the programme and how the projects and staff themselves have progressed
through the period of our research. In this final interim report we intend to focus
more explicitly on the impact of Positive Futures through the duration of our
study.
In doing so, we also intend to present an alternative framework for the
assessment of programme impacts; for it is our contention that many of the more
conventional evaluative models are simply not up to the job. Their reliance on the
‘measurement’ of rather fixed and inflexible sets of ‘inputs’, ‘outputs’,
‘performance indicators’ and ‘outcomes’ does not necessarily reflect the complex
and evolutionary nature of the interventions with disadvantaged young people
that we have observed. The more qualitative and engaged model that we have
developed has enabled us to better capture the journeys that participants, staff
and projects have travelled, for better or for worse, and it is these journeys that
we seek to reveal in this report.
Having introduced our wider methodological approach in previous reports we will
begin with a brief review of the practical methods that we have employed during
the course of this research project and which underpin our findings. Before we
present these findings in more detail we will also reveal the ways in which the
case study projects’ stories have been told to date through a critical review of the
evaluative framework for PF and conventional approaches to research and
evaluation in this sector.
In Part Two of the report we will then present our findings in relation to the most
pertinent themes that have emerged from the research in order to reveal a sense
of ‘best practice’ on the basis of contextualised illustrations from particular
activities, events and spaces, bullet point findings and key messages. These are
not ‘results’ in the conventional sense of the word but rather they tell the story of
what it is to be involved with PF and the challenges that the work presents.
In Part Three of the report we will develop these themes in order to provide a
longer term perspective based upon a fresh, illustrated consideration of the ways
in which we look at the idea of progression and programme achievement, before
concluding with an attempt to draw out what is distinct about the PF programme.
10
1.2 Research Methodology
In the previous interim research reports referred to above, we outlined the
Participatory Action Research methodologies that have underpinned our work.
We have remained committed and true to these approaches throughout the
course of the study with our main method of enquiry being the use of highly
engaged participatory action research approaches. Within this broad framework
we have been willing to adapt the methods we use and to draw upon a range of
techniques depending on the groups we are working with, once we have got ‘a
feel’ for what might be most appropriate. Our participation has ranged then from
the full and active, e.g. playing as part of a team in a series of football matches,
through the simple administration of registers, helping to carry kit and setting up
equipment, to non-participant observation. Other methods have been employed
designed to fit with whatever activity was taking place without taking over or
encroaching on the activity itself. This meant that during a football session, for
example, informal chats and interviews might be deemed to work best, while at
educational sessions it was easier to sit down and do questionnaires. In other
contexts, the research techniques helped to frame the activities being delivered
through the use of mapping exercises, photography and video exercises.
In general the researchers were given full access to the case study projects, and
over time the role of researchers as participants in sessions enabled insights that
would not have been gained otherwise. Over the course of the study they
regularly attended sessions connected to a number of schemes of work that were
chosen to represent both the range and style of activity and the demographics of
participants at each of the case study projects. Where possible, this led to the
selection of a small number of schemes of work which were followed
longitudinally and within which the journeys of particular staff and specific young
people could be tracked over significant periods of time. Typically, two schemes
of work, which we introduced in the First Interim Case Study Research Report
were selected in each case study setting. Within these schemes we monitored
the progress of up to half a dozen young people over periods stretching from
several months to the full duration of the research project2. In some contexts this
was more difficult than others since where we as researchers found it difficult to
follow young people longitudinally, it was actually because the projects
themselves (or particular sessions within them) weren’t carrying out sustained
engaged work. In such contexts how could we as researchers build and maintain
relationships with young people when the project co-ordinators did not.
Nevertheless, on the basis of our desire to connect with young people in a more
complete fashion, we sought to engage them in the research process directly and
in more innovative and self determined ways to overcome young people’s
discomfort with traditional means of documentation (Seabrook and Green,
2004:129). Some participants carried disposal cameras so they could take
2
A summary of the progress of these participants is provided at Appendix 2
11
photographs of places where they hang out and have fun, people they respect,
places they would like to visit and places that are considered off limits locally. In
other contexts we used large, colourful Ordinance Survey maps to talk with
participants and staff about familiar places to help young people locate
themselves. For those who did not wish to engage in discussion, and indeed for
those who did, young people were encouraged to stick coloured post-its to the
map, the colours representing ideas such as ‘a place which is off limits’ or ‘a
place where I play.’ These approaches were embraced with great enthusiasm by
some, though not all, participants who chatted with the researchers about what
they intended to take pictures of and why those places and people mean so
much to them. This kind of map work is valuable because of the impact of space
on the social relations of young people. Space is deeply embedded within notions
of local knowledge, which contributes to the ways in which localities are
subjectively inhabited, with risk, danger and safety being part of the calculation
young people use to negotiate it.
Figure 1: Mapping activity guidance
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Figure 2: Collage from ‘Myself in pictures’ activity
In this context, whilst the researchers’ role was sometimes misunderstood by
staff and young people, through their sustained attendance and organisation of
13
activities, they achieved their goal and became part of the PF set up, with
dividing lines between members of ‘staff’ and ‘researchers’ blurring. Indeed we
have consistently spent time hanging out with staff at project bases, as well as in
more 'social' locations, policy forums and conferences. Informal relationships
were forged and communication gradually moved towards a friendly and informal
style based on chat and text messaging. This evolving contact with staff enabled
an understanding of the routine and non-routine activities in which they engage
and a deepening of relationships which in turn aided staff accessibility and their
cooperation with the research.
As such, these approaches, which were augmented by both formal and informal
interviews with staff, participants and partner organisations3, have allowed us to
produce detailed ‘thick’ descriptions (Geertz, 1973) of the ways in which young
people and staff have responded to project activities and the social worlds that
surround the work. As well as producing evidence which has more ‘richness’ than
that associated with quantitative research, we believe that a sometimes intense
investment by stakeholders in the research means that the findings were more
likely to be respected and acted upon than those provided by more distant, non
negotiated research.
These observations notwithstanding, the diverse nature of the individual case
study projects clearly influenced the ways in which they interacted with and
responded to the research process and its findings. Whilst in some settings the
relationship developed between the PF staff and the research team was
extremely positive and open with staff being welcoming and appreciative and
willing to discuss weaknesses and challenges in order to generate new ideas for
future direction, elsewhere, there has been more caution. Staff at all of the case
studies appeared to come to understand the research approach, and
appreciation was often expressed for the style used and for the opportunity it
gave for reflection on practise but this was often attenuated by the motivations
and perspective of individual projects. Where particular projects wished to portray
themselves in a positive light there tended to be more talk relating to what they
thought they were achieving, whereas where there was clearer evidence of
achievement the staff seemed to have less necessity to do this. Instead they
wanted the researchers to see delivery in action for themselves. The
effectiveness of this participatory approach to the research was evidenced in the
remarks of a co-ordinator at a new project which has witnessed spectacular
growth over the last two years. As she put it, towards the end of the second year
of the research:
3
A full breakdown of research activity is provided at Appendix 1
14
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There is though a potentially limited shelf life for such an approach since at
another more established host agency which is equally willing to embrace
research and evaluation as a means of improving delivery, the commitment to the
contribution of the research appeared to wane. At the front line, staff have been
incredibly co-operative in terms of involving the researchers at sessions and
meetings and have consistently asked questions about the aims of the project, what it was unearthing and what activities are offered at other projects etc.
However, at a more senior level, towards the end of the research period the
value and capacity of the research to influence seemed increasingly subservient
to the organisation’s own shifting structures and personalities, despite the
continued personal warmth to the researcher.
In another context we also experienced much stronger sensitivity towards the
research’s wider purpose. Rather than seeing the research as a means to
develop the project, at a senior level some have seen the research findings as a
challenge to a status quo which they are certain is the way to operate locally.
Whilst the research team welcomes challenge and negotiation, here, the belief
that ‘hopefully, one day the centre will start to do things [our] way’ seems driven
by both the personalities of those involved and the rigid nature of the statutory
agency in question.
For others, this kind of organisational dogma has insulated projects from the
research findings and the pressure to change such that when the service
manager was asked whether they would be moving away from their existing
reliance on participant referrals as recommended by the national team and
mentioned in previous reports he declined, adding that:
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In some respects this apparent adherence to a formulaic interpretation of
programme objectives was influenced by the initial forms of monitoring adopted
by PF which enabled projects to assess their impact against relatively fixed
criteria. In the following section we will review the limitations of these approaches
before moving on to consider some alternative ways in which to assess the
impact of PF in terms of the journeys made by participants and the notion of
‘distance travelled’.
15
1.3 Positive Futures and conventional measures of success
Until the new monitoring and evaluation framework was established in April 2006
the PF programme utilised a range of monitoring techniques. Principal amongst
these was the Key Elements survey which replaced the management information
system YIPMIS which had been inherited by the programme from project
partners. Administered on a six monthly basis by MORI between March 2003 and
September 2005, Key Elements was a substantial document which often ran to
over twenty pages when completed. It provided an opportunity to report a wide
range of data in both numerical and textual formats but was quite formulaic in its
approach. The form began with a free text based general review of project
progress which was broken down into six sections:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Progress to date – where projects are invited to identify three main
developments from the past six months and the challenges associated
with them
Substance misuse prevention activities – where projects are invited to
outline their contribution in this area over the past six months
Achievements by young people – where a case example of a participant
‘life story’ is requested
Developments on the partnership front – where projects are invited to
identify the five most influential partner agencies over the past six months
Developments planned for the future – which requests projects to identify
the three key development plans for the coming six months
Other issues – where projects are free to include additional information
These forms were then followed by five more conventional forms requesting core
aggregate statistical data focused upon:
•
•
•
•
•
The number and type of young people involved in the project and their
referral status
The activities in which young people are involved at the projects
The main achievement of each participant
The nature of partner involvement
Additional holiday activities
In the tables which follow, we summarise the key findings from these parts of the
Key Elements reports returned by each of the case study research projects in
September 2004, which reflect on the period when the research was getting
underway, and the final Key Elements reports returned in September 2005. Each
set of findings relates to the six month period preceding the completion of the
reports and for the purposes of simple comparison we have amalgamated certain
categories relating to the range of activities and achievements of young people.
We have also anonymised the projects and simply labelled them as projects one
16
to six. They are presented then in order to provide a snapshot of the range of
projects rather than as a basis for assessment.
Table1: Summary of Key Elements findings September 2004
Key Element Finding
Current participants
New participants
Males
Females
White and Irish
Black and mixed black
Asian and mixed Asian
Agency referral
Self referral
Core 50
Sporting activities attended
Other activities attended
Educational improvement
Awards (signed up/gained)
Training (signed up/had)
Gained employment
Volunteering
Sport progression
Improved social relations
Improved PF engagement
No achievement
P1
61
85
62
23
49
1
35
37
48
24
194
124
28
48
4
2
2
4
18
23
45
P2
1140
6135
3987
2148
6124
11
0
6135
0
0
5833
999
13
35
7
0
2
0
0
0
0
P3
60
60
20
40
56
4
0
24
36
4
32
67
4
6
3
0
1
2
3
2
14
P4
60
22
9
13
21
0
1
18
3
0
39
19
8
0
0
3
0
1
3
2
33
P5
623
275
195
80
65
192
4
61
214
40
339
538
20
57
59
6
10
248
37
28
70
P64
P5
1877
605
416
189
180
370
24
166
439
38
386
P6
1118
562
398
164
183
275
21
562
26
725
Table 2: Summary of Key Elements findings September 2005
Key Element Finding
Current participants
New participants
Males
Females
White and Irish
Black and mixed black
Asian and mixed Asian
Agency referral
Self referral
Core 50
Sporting activities attended
P1
150
97
60
37
64
33
17
80
35
214
P2
1493
956
728
228
915
31
10
956
3906
P3
175
70
40
30
65
6
1
40
30
N/A
373
P4
120
64
40
24
61
2
1
58
6
37
433
4
NB: Due to administrative changes at this project the KE return for September 2004 was not
available
17
Other activities attended
Educational improvement
Awards (signed up/gained)
Training (signed up/had)
Gained employment
Volunteering
Sport progression
Improved social relations
Improved PF engagement
No achievement
86
28
31
1
3
21
26
20
42
62
13
3
25
44
176
-
196
38
9
8
4
5
18
36
30
33
244
2
8
8
3
3
14
19
-
235
50
50
3
14
18
53
13
17
39
375
53
7
7
5
2
19
23
30
-
These snapshots clearly reveal some diversity of provision but also demonstrate
some core programme features. Whilst some projects work with large numbers of
participants, others are much more focused. Looking at the outcomes reported
though what is clear is that those projects working in a sustained manner with
fewer participants are much more likely to have a significant impact on a higher
proportion of those they work with than projects working with large numbers over
limited periods. Encouragingly then whilst the projects are continuing to attract
new participants, it is clear that significant proportions remain engaged from one
evaluation period to the next. All of the projects also engage a significant
proportion of girls and young women whilst an extensive programme of non
sports activities sits alongside more conventional sports provision. Ultimately,
from these findings young people’s progression is seen to relate principally to
educational improvement, better social relations and growing engagement with
the programme.
The strength of this format lies in its focus upon involvement and personal
achievement rather than dubious claims relating to causality, as well as the
freedom it allowed projects to reveal young people’s stories. However, this
freedom was limited and ultimately the reporting of the achievements of
participants was restricted to a single ‘lifestory’ and each participant’s ‘main
achievement’. There is an acknowledgement then amongst staff at our case
study projects that this format has left a large part of the story of their work
untold. Indeed it was in this context that the case study research was
commissioned as part of a strategy to provide national partners with both up to
date ‘evidence’ and a better understanding of the work generally.
With PF being a partnership based programme lead agencies and their delivery
partners have also commented upon the onerous nature of data gathering and
reporting processes demanded by PF and other funders. This is particularly
significant in the context of the necessity of attracting funds from a variety of
sources, with one of our projects receiving less than 10% of its funds directly
from PF, and the complications created by the different delivery and reporting
requirements that come with these diverse funding streams. Some projects and
partners do recognise the ‘need’ for M&E in terms of accountability but fewer
recognise the potential benefits in the face of the perception that information has
18
tended to flow in one direction with little account being taken of project
information needs. It is in this context that PF has been concerned to change
projects and partners thinking about how they record progress, initially through
Key Elements and the Case Study research and now with the incorporation of a
new monitoring and evaluation framework.
At the same time, perhaps as a further reflection of the false security and tacit
power that ‘statistics’ can provide, we have been concerned about the way in
which the information generated through the existing M&E activity has sometimes
been used to justify unverified outcomes by projects themselves. Despite itself
being critical of quantitative data gathering, one of our projects recently fell back
on the statistics reported on the Key Elements form to defend its position when
challenged about the paucity of provision for girls and young women. The
‘evidence’ suggesting that, ‘attendance by girls increased 150% in the 3rd quarter.
These achievements have been made through the introduction of several pilot
projects.’ Another project has also created the false impression of attracting large
numbers of self-referrals through the use of aggregate statistics which do not
account for the lack of resources being applied to this element of its work.
What our own PAR approach helps to reveal is a more contextualised sense of
what is happening on the ground. What it shows is that some projects, perhaps
those who are less confident about the validity of their own approach or how it
will be interpreted by others, are able to obfuscate such that ‘attendance’ in its
broadest terms can be represented as a metaphor for engagement. Such
accounts do not reflect the maintenance of that attendance or the experience of
participants at sessions. Equally they do not reveal which elements of project
activity are using which styles of engagement and how this might alter participant
experience and relate to resource allocation.
At the same time though, projects readily recognise that whilst it is important to
‘count’ participants, and to monitor for age, gender and ethnicity it is not only the
reach of their work that is seen as a key indicator of success but also the
consistency with which young people attend sessions. As one project coordinator put it:. ‘Seeing them coming back, week in week out, that’s how we
know we’ve been successful’. The PF workers at this project also stress
qualitative indicators which are more difficult to ‘measure’ as the indices of
success closest to their heart: the story of a young man in a young offenders’
institution whose engagement with the project has led him to turn his life around;
the story of a group of young men on an estate who no longer engage in petty
crime. These are the things that they see with their own eyes which tell them their
work is worthwhile.
It is in this context that one of the points of departure of this research from other
elements of the existing programme of M&E is our contention that meaningful
evaluation of initiatives such as PF requires a methodological strategy that goes
beyond simple quantitative analysis. It is only when the real benefits rather than
19
spurious assumptions of quantitative research are utilised to support a qualitative
approach that we can achieve an evaluation which communicates the social
structures, processes, 'feelings' and context in which participants find themselves,
and in turn how they themselves respond to such pressures.
Key Elements enabled this shift to get underway and the Case Study research,
through its commitment to supplementing rather than replacing other forms of
M&E, has continued the process. Any monitoring and evaluation strategy should
be able to satisfy both the demand for immediate ‘state of the intervention’ data
and long term impact profiling of both a quantitative and qualitative nature but
should not only be about satisfying funders’ need to assess the impact of their
investments. It should also be about enhancing the return on those investments.
With an innovative project such as PF, notions of ‘best practice’ are not ‘given’,
but emerge out of the experience of deliverers and participants. Some of the case
study projects have recognised this point and one of the more established
projects has developed its own internal sophisticated system for tracking young
people’s progression, as described by a project worker:
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As the research has moved forward, these experiences have helped to inform the
demand for a new model of M&E which is more attuned to the needs of the
5
In the main PF articulates an approach which rejects the medicalised model underpinning the
labelling and stereotyping associated with this terminology, although through their work with
challenging young people projects are inevitably seen as a potential response or ‘cure’.
20
sports based social policy sector. We will reflect upon these developments further
in later sections of the report but now wish to move to an account of the principle
themes that have emerged from our research in relation to the impact of the PF
programme.
Key message: Attempts to ‘measure’ the success of programmes like PF are
inherently problematic but what is clear from the statistics is that those projects
working with fewer participants are much more likely to have a significant impact
on a higher proportion of those they work with than projects working with large
numbers.
21
Part Two: Beyond the stop watch. Re-assessing
the work of Positive Futures
2.1 Diversion v Development: Positive Futures and the
emergence of new styles of delivery
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This bold statement from the PF strategy document Cul-de-sacs and gateways is
built upon a binary distinction between the PF approach as something which is
concerned with fostering greater social interaction and human development and
more conventional ‘diversionary’ approaches which are concerned with social
control. Within this schematic, the community development principles of PF are
implicitly represented as having more value and ‘depth’ than the ‘shallow’
entertainment based control imperatives of diversionary work. However, such
distinctions are themselves inherently problematic, both because PF projects are
widely involved in wider diversionary schemes of work and because where good
youth work is practiced there will necessarily be elements of both diversionary
and developmental work.
All work with young people could be regarded in the first instance as diversionary
in that during its time of operation it offers an activity that maybe a diversion from
other activities which are deemed anti-social. Indeed, the initial impetus behind
the establishment of one of our case study projects in the late 1990s was the
perception of a major problem around territorial violence and gang-style
behaviour on two neighbouring estates. Football teams were set up on each
estate, which initially played against each other, and then a ‘United’ football club
was created with players from both estates. On one level, this was clearly using
sport as a ‘diversionary’ activity: giving young people something more positive to
do (a positive activity) instead of crime and violence. However, it was off the back
of this ‘diversionary’ work that the project developed a broader ‘developmental’
approach. The football work on the estates was the beginning of a sustained,
long-term intervention in the area, which diversified into other positive activities
such as music and dance but also worked with the young people involved to
develop them as individuals, emphasising critical life choices and helping them to
map out progression routes – i.e. layering a developmental positive futures
approach over a diversionary positive activities approach.
What maybe more significant then are projects’ overall aims or intent. All but one
of our case studies are heavily involved in the provision of an extended
programme of activities during the summer months and school holiday periods.
Indeed many are core deliverers for the ostensibly diversionary PAYP
programme. For one project the summer holidays do not represent a break or
shift in their work, but are instead a busier time with a fuller programme, aimed at
22
providing for their existing users and attracting new people. In this sense, the
summer programmes are often envisaged as tasters to bring new young people
into contact with the whole programme, who are then referred on to other types
of sessions, where the one-to-one developmental work can begin.
At this project the work is regarded as ongoing and annual. Because of their view
of engagement with young people as being essentially about development, their
structures are geared to this. This is evident in the fact that for each young
person attending a session a Personal Development Plan needs to be
completed. This lays out a two way agreement based on needs and interests,
and, while the individual may have at first been engaged through a particular
activity, they are ultimately offered a range of other options and possibilities.
However, another project which combines the provision of PAYP style summer
activities with its wider PF remit has struggled to make the same connections.
Whilst the project is a core provider of PAYP activities across their Borough they
have little control over who is referred to the scheme and, as a result, large
numbers of young people are involved for short, infrequent periods of time. In this
context the PAYP work is regarded by managerial staff as purely ‘diversionary’
and indeed separate from the core work of PF with the project manager explicitly
drawing the distinction:
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Another PF project in the same region is also a core provider of PAYP but for
them the PAYP activities are seen as integral to the work of PF. During the
summer of 2005 two of the Activity Development Workers had six weeks of
intensive contact with a core group of young people from the area which sat
within a wider period of engagement which commenced the previous February.
Since the end of the school holidays many of the young people continued to
attend PF open-access or ‘sit-off’ sessions. One sixteen year old girl ‘Allie’
recently described her engagement with the programme and how it had
developed out of the intensive summer programme:
#
1
+
3
6
Although Allie would like to have continued the intensive involvement that she
enjoyed over the summer, it was this which underpinned her ongoing
commitment to the work. Her participation began with the open access dance
classes, then gym sessions, then an intensive PAYP summer programme and
now her participation in the ‘girls evenings’ is less formal. The girls and young
women who have moved down this route do not distinguish between PAYP and
23
PF and viewed their summer programme as part of the wider ‘spiced-up-sport’
scheme of work. Similarly, the core PF ‘lads’ have been involved with formal
coaching such as the ‘football focus’ scheme, the summer PAYP programme and
other informal evening group sessions and none of them would distinguish these
as anything other than PF activities. As such, the Project Co-ordinator describes
PAYP in the area as being embedded in the PF scheme of work:
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It is clear though that there remains a terminological distinction relating both to
the perception of different schemes of work and the wider principles of
diversionary and developmental work which is at times based in rhetoric rather
than substance. At one of our case study projects, which was originally selected
because of its apparently innovative and participant focused approach, there is
an occasional, but significant, contradiction in terms of the way that the lead
agency views and portrays the initiative. Whilst application packs for vacancies at
the project describe the work as ‘diversionary’, literature sent to agencies
promoting the project more clearly emphasise the PF ethos. At another project,
whilst one annual report referred to PF as diversionary, a more recent one
portrays it as a social inclusion project which seems to be more of a reflection of
the location of the project manager at a unit where various agencies working with
young people are based than a shift of emphasis in the work. However, this lead
agency has not so much struggled to come to terms with how PF might be
different from other more diversionary programmes as never having attempted to
do so, viewing it instead as just another youth justice programme.
Key Message PF projects need to mobilise the attractions of sport and the
advantages of engaging young people in positive activities whilst using this
engagement to move beyond the diversionary and into more developmental
styles of work.
2.2 Outside the comfort zone: How Positive Futures influences
the use and perception of neighbourhood spaces
2.2.1 Place, space and the perceptions of young people
In the context of the previous discussion, it is clear that the work of PF is
intimately and inevitably tied up with both the perception and use of local spaces.
Indeed, the very selection and funding of projects is primarily related to the
designation of the nominated target neighbourhoods as being within the 20%
most deprived in the country or their being ‘high crime areas’. As such, and
regardless of the diversionary or developmental ethos of projects, the desire to
24
contribute to the positive transformation of both the perception and use of spaces
within these neighbourhoods is fundamental to what PF projects are about. This
objective is not merely a factor of external practitioner demands and funding
requirements driven by a desire to control urban youth but is wrapped up in the
everyday realities faced by the young people themselves. When talking about
their areas and the spaces they navigate within them, young people often reflect
on them in terms of their own fears of crime and danger. Whilst much is made of
the danger and intimidatory behaviour of young people, what sometimes gets lost
amidst the media representations of the rhetoric of the anti social behaviour
agenda is the likelihood, and fear, that young people themselves have of
becoming victims of crime (Yarrow, 2005; Smith & Allen, 2004).
At one of our case studies we spoke to nine groups of around half a dozen ‘lads’
aged up to eighteen. With the exception of one group, these ‘lads’ were from the
area where the project is based with most travelling no more than a few streets to
attend PF sessions. All of them are ‘Asian’ and predominantly of Pakistani origin
but, despite the externally constructed fears of the threat posed by urban Muslim
youth, even some of the older participants told of how they did not feel
comfortable outside their home patch except as part of a group. The group from
outside the area were similarly parochial and stated that if it was not for the PF
sessions they would not even come into the area where they were delivered. This
pattern seems to hold good beyond the PF activities themselves, with
geographical mobility confined to hanging out in town on Saturday afternoons at
familiar venues such as shops run by relatives or other family members houses.
For these groups of young men, gathering together, rather than being a source of
assertive power and facilitator of crime, was regarded as a necessary means to
establishing some security and safety against wider threats.
Some of their discomfort and fear is based on the perception of the racist
attitudes of people living on nearby estates and their ‘mental maps’ of the town
have a very clear division based on the racial make up of areas. Equally, rather
than fear of the exposure to pressures to use illegal substances, much of the
conversation relating to territory was expressed in terms of the wider criminal
threat that goes with the area’s drug trade which is itself understood as a feature
of this ‘racial mapping’. There is open dealing on the streets nearby and rivalry
between gangs from both ends of the small area in which the project operates,
which seems to have been born of racially constructed territorial battles over the
right to sell drugs in the area. In this context, a local park is described as a ‘no-go
area’ after dark, partly because there is no lighting but also because of its
reputation as being a place where ‘smack heads’ hang out. For one or two of the
younger boys, it is portrayed as being off limits on the basis of their Islamic faith
but mostly, it is avoided, except when part of a large group, because of its
emptiness, or fear of an ill defined ‘stranger danger’.
In an attempt to get a broader perspective on these perceptions of space and
place, both at this project and at others, we asked some of the young people at
25
the projects to carry disposal cameras with them, to take photographs of places
they hang out and have fun; people they respect; places they would like to visit;
and places that are considered off limits locally. Working through the images
produced by the young people, along with conversations with staff and the young
people, enabled us to build up a richer sense of the backgrounds and every day
lives of the young people we have been working with, as well as making links
between PF activities and how they might impact on experiences outside of the
project and vice versa.
What was particularly revealing about these exercises was the extent to which
they further contributed to a vision of disadvantaged young people as
disempowered victims rather than contributors to social disadvantage, crime and
anti-social behaviour. When asked what would make their area ‘better’, Billie
said:
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Notwithstanding the possible exaggeration with these kinds of comments,
reflecting on this lack of things to do Terri added:
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For others, the disposable camera work revealed their affinity with their
environment and great love for friends and family. A number of Sonny’s shots
have beautiful local scenery as a backdrop; shots of the old factory, pen and
scrub land where he plays, his family clearing the garden where he tells of how
he ‘fixes things’ such as his Sister’s bike. Beyond these more intimate revelations
he also included shots of his scout troupe leaders, as well as of himself proudly
holding a certificate he earned with them and, whilst he is not a high achiever
academically, he included a photograph of his form teacher who he described as
‘my favourite - she doesn’t nag’.
Because his Mum is keeping him off the streets due to her fear that he will ‘fall in
with a bad crowd’, Irving’s photographs were limited to home, family, pets and
PF. Discussing his pictures, he told how he does not hanker after going out at
night and that he is enjoying his alternative school provision, PF and spending a
short time at school each day. He does miss being able to hang out with Sonny
at school, as he is on a partial timetable, and he asked for a picture to be taken of
26
himself and Sonny in the PF project worker’s car, as he said he doesn’t have a
picture of both of them together.
In this sense, the young people’s stories and outlooks revealed through these
techniques might be seen as rather more sensitive and banal than is typically
associated with the dominant discourses surrounding socially disadvantaged
youth. Indeed, even amongst those young people who might more readily
correspond with the image of anti-social youth such as the young women
involved at one project who regularly drink alcohol on the streets, their behaviour
might be read in alternative ways. Although we had the perception that to drink
on the streets may put them at increased personal risk, the teenagers reported
how they regarded drinking indoors as more risky since ‘in a house ‘lads’ take
advantage of you more so we are safer on the streets.’ For these young women,
the streets of their area are regarded as a comfort zone. Unlike the pressure
placed on many of the teenage ‘lads’ in the area, they do not feel the effect of
territorial boundaries so strongly. The only reason they tend to avoid certain
areas is due to the high police presence, the imposition of Section 30 Dispersal
Orders6 and the tendency for them to get ‘moved-on’. The Area-Development
Worker highlights the girls’ views of gang related territory:
.
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Key Message Young people involved with PF have local ‘knowledges’ of the
neighbourhoods in which projects operate which is based on their own
experiences, as well as stories from peers and parents and which can contrast
with dominant perspectives on contemporary urban youth
2.2.2 PF projects and the negotiation of territorial boundaries
Danger and risk are clearly defining factors in how space is negotiated by the
young people involved with PF and projects have often designed their
programmes of activity accordingly, whether this is to accommodate young
people’s preferences or to challenge the associated territorialism.
In one area, where tensions are sometimes played out in racialised terms, the
bulk of project funding is allocated to an agency working with the YOT driven
‘Top50’ which consists of almost exclusively white young men, while the local
authority Youth Service is given a much smaller share of funding to deliver
6
In areas authorised under section 30 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act police officers and
community support officers are given two distinct powers. The first is a power to disperse groups
and direct them to leave the area and the second is a curfew power to remove anyone under the
age of 16 who is in a public place between 9pm and 6am, if they are not under the effective
control of an adult.
27
football to a broader constituency. Whilst the Youth Service is keen to point to the
fact that it works on a cross community basis, the bulk of those who come to their
sessions are Asian males. As such, the overall project is delivered,
predominantly, to different groups by two distinct agencies, with the Asian
participants accessing a much narrower band of activities. Despite the rhetoric of
cross community provision then, in this setting, young people have up to now
rarely taken part in activities on each others ‘turf,’ or in mixed ethnic groups.
Encouragingly, in the face of the tensions that the previous balance of provision
was creating, a residential bringing together a small number of young people of
white and Asian origin has now taken place and a football team established to
bring together players from both communities continues to operate. The two
delivery agencies are now working together more directly and initiatives are
underway to address the segregated patterns of provision. However, the previous
approach highlights the difficulties that projects face in terms of the PF
programme’s wider commitments to both ‘widening horizons’ whilst also providing
opportunities within a ‘supportive and culturally familiar environment’ (Home
Office, 2003).
In the main though, across the programme, project staff are keen that young
people should access both provision and venues which might normally be out of
their reach in order to widen their realm of experience:
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However, at one project whilst there is a similar willingness to broaden the range
of provision through use of the varied geographical landscape, which includes
beaches and woods, this approach might also be seen to be contributing to an
organisational comfort zone. Here, the PF staff do not perceive any of the areas
in which they work as ‘no-go-zones’ and feel safe working in them. Rather than
being a product of familiarity, this easiness is a consequence of a lack of
engagement with street based work and an associated isolation from local
territorial disputes and a lack of willingness to address territorialism when it
arises. When asked to comment on the ‘no-go zones’ and how the team handle
them the project co-ordinator responded by stating that:
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28
No attempt is made then to overcome the territorialism which underpins the
reluctance to use facilities in a neighbouring area. Rather, an appeal is made for
more facilities which might re-enforce the lack of cross community contact. The
physical environment is presented here as an obstacle which cannot be
overcome by human action. This contrasts with the approach at a neighbouring
project where staff have spent evenings walking around so-called ‘no-go zones’
attempting to engage with and familiarise themselves with the young people of
the area. One Area Development Worker detailed his experiences of engaging
with young people on an estate which is notorious for gang related gun crime and
drug dealing and is in direct rivalry with another estate positioned half a mile
away where PF also deliver services:
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Having established these relations the longer term challenge for the project is
that the young people are now constantly battling with the dilemma of staying out
of trouble and territorial disputes on the one hand whilst not being seen as ‘soft’
or disloyal to their areas on the other. PF is able to navigate a path through this
tension by providing the young people (especially the boys) with an arena to
discuss their concerns in an open and non-threatening environment. Whilst the
spaces used for the delivery of activities can and do become a locus of ‘trouble’,
the project offices themselves are seen by the young people as a hub and the
area in which it is located is territorially neutral.
However, whilst the project base and the activities the project delivers are
considered to be safe spaces, what is more important is the relationship the
young people have with PF staff which enables the creation of spaces which are
not only ‘physically safe’ but also ‘emotionally safe’. The staff have built up a
good level of trust and respect with their core groups and this has created an
environment in which the young people are able to discuss ‘risky’ subjects
relating to drinking, sexual activity, crime, violence and substance misuse. The
project deals with these ‘risky’ issues through education and personal guidance
29
in the face of ‘real’ incidents rather than punitive measures, thus maintaining
involvement and participation.
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Whilst it is clear that this PF project is not able to wave any magic wands and
incidents of conflict continue outside of their activities, the project has attempted
to aid the process of conflict resolution through a determination to stay engaged.
Indeed one of the principle aims of the PF programme is to provide young people
defined as being ‘at risk’ with safe space in which to develop.
30
In some contexts this is about finding spaces which lie outside conventional
notions of geography and territory and merely provide ‘room’. Several of the
projects we have been with provide neutral spaces for participants to use simply
as a ‘chill out’ zone, where participants can ‘sit off’. In some contexts this can go
together with the spaces used for project activities. For Frankie, who has
responded positively to her local project’s provision of boxing sessions:
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At a day-to-day level the provision of a safe space for participants more typically
involves the assessment of session venues in terms of Health and Safety factors
so that spaces are appropriate for the activities being delivered. In terms of the
behaviour of their peers, projects also often employ Codes of Conduct which
young people sign up to before participating. These typically cover appropriate
language and behaviour, as well as clarifying the prohibition of drugs, alcohol and
weapons from sessions. Perhaps demonstrating the limitations of these kinds of
programme, young people who do not adhere to the codes, which we have
generally found to be broad brush and ‘sensible’, can be banned from projects for
periods ranging from the rest of the session in question, to permanently.
However, we have come across few instances of young people becoming
involved in serious verbal exchanges or fights. The relationship between staff and
young people means that the mood of participants can generally be read and
interventions made if young people are having disagreements. One project
spends time trying to place new referrals into groups where they think there will
be less likelihood for conflict and, in one instance, they switched a young person
to another group. This approach is based upon the avoidance of conflict, rather
than tackling behaviours in situ.
In the following example, this more strategic, reflective and non-authoritarian
approach is identified in relation to an incident of racism. For this worker racism is
not made a disciplinary issue since this can be deeply counterproductive in an
area where white young people are brought up with an ‘unfairness discourse’ that
is quick to see white people as victims of ‘politically correct’ multicultural values.7
Reflecting on the comments of participants in an educational session the worker
explained how:
7
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See Roger Hewitt The Routes of Racism Trentham Books 1997
31
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Key message In the face of racialised and territorial conflict PF projects can
provide safe spaces. Their capacity to do so is related to their willingness to enter
‘danger zones’ and to build relationships with young people that enable the
creation of spaces which are not only ‘physically safe’ but also ‘emotionally safe’
2.3 Beyond sport: Positive Futures and the diversification of
provision
The Cul-de-sacs and gateways strategy document states that PF is ‘not
concerned with the celebration, development or promotion of sport as an end in
itself’ (Home Office, 2003:8). In this sense, in recognising that the principle
attraction of sport for the programme is its capacity to engage young people,
rather than some intrinsic developmental quality, projects have long been free to
utilise alternative engagement tools as reflected in the Key Elements findings
presented in Part One of this report. Nevertheless, whilst a variety of activities
have been made available by our case study projects it is clear that the provision
of something ‘different’ provides no better guarantee of success than the use of
conventional sports.
We have previously raised concerns about one of the projects reliance upon
‘unusual’ or ‘special’ activities in the context of their use within a fixed-term
course made up of unusual sessions which took place outside of the participants
neighbourhoods access to which was ultimately unsustainable (Crabbe, 2005:
87). This scheme of work was finally abandoned during the summer of 2005,
although other alternative educational schemes of work have maintained a
degree of diversity within their timetable. The PF Activities Development Worker
who delivers the majority of these sessions describes the development of the
programme:
32
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This point may be particularly pertinent for girls and young women which led one
project to develop the ‘Spiced-Up-Sport’ programme in order to maintain regular
engagement within this target group by responding to their interests and
lifestyles. The programme now enables participant access to yoga, dance, gym
and fitness as well as non-sporting sessions such as hair, manicure and beauty
evenings. Just as with sport, these activities are viewed by the project as
secondary to the relationships built and involvement with the young people. One
of the project’s Area Development Workers described the purpose of these
activities as:
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When sport is neither appropriate nor valued by young people then the project
alters its programme of work and provides sessions which are more suited to
providing a platform for relationship building. This has been a significant factor in
ensuring that many of the older teenage girls at the project, who are aged fifteen
and sixteen, have participated since the project’s creation. The girls began their
involvement through the open-access street dance classes. The dance was (and
still is) a popular and well attended session but as the girls have grown older and
their lifestyles have changed, the staff noticed a need for further developmental
work. This led to the provision of gym sessions, ‘girls pamper evenings’ and the
intensive PAYP summer scheme. In addition to the regular timetable, there are
occasional residentials, trips out, family group outings, links to PAYP activities
and school transition work.
This degree of sensitivity to the issue of gender difference is not uniform across
the programme and, as such, even where the percentage of young women
participating at the projects has risen the figures can mask a relatively poor
quality of engagement. For whilst as we have argued previously that gender
boundaries have been seen to be collapsing in many social arenas (McRobbie,
1993) the type of activities provided at several of our case study projects do not
fully reflect this shift. To not consider ‘softer’ activities, in the light of
conversations with participants about their preferences, is to force them to
engage with a perceived ‘male’ norm of lusty outdoor pursuits, whilst to enforce a
soft menu of activities based on stereotyping, rather than consultation, runs
contra to the spirit of the programme and is unlikely to engage and retain young
women. However in the face of the perseverance of obstructions to female
participation shifting approaches can be challenging and can lead to unexpected
33
outcomes.
In order to create a space for young women to express themselves via dance,
rap and drama, one of our projects ran a residential, with follow up sessions
continuing in the project area until Christmas which were to culminate in a public
performance. However, reflecting a previous era of ‘top down’ ‘correctional’
approaches, the residential centre selected was quickly dismissed by the
participants as ‘a dump’, prompting some of the young women to declare that
they wanted to go home. The fact that it was cold, grey and pouring with rain did
not help but the lack of empathy amongst the centre staff for the group was more
significant. The manager had given the party a lecture when they arrived about
how he was ‘brought up in the slums of Stoke’ which backfired on account of the
in-authenticity of his ‘posh’ accent and approach. The group was completely
disinterested in what he was saying and chatted amongst themselves whilst other
staff demonstrated a similarly clumsy approach.
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For others, alternative spaces and residentials have proven successful in
allowing young people to shed their ‘tough’ street exterior and behave like
children in a safe and neutral environment. These spaces have included fishing
expeditions and day trips to the sea-side. Allie described the residential trips as
her favourite Positive Futures activity, ‘I love just being away with all the girls
having a laugh and doing the activities.’ Being away from their local areas and
homes helped some of the girls relax and forget about family and other disputes.
Whilst on one residential trip in Snowdonia, Rose noted that, ‘We don’t want to
leave here because it’s great all us being together.’ The feeling of closeness and
solidarity which was forged whilst on the trip has helped the core group maintain
their regular and consistent attendance at activities ‘back home’. Whilst the
preparation and delivery of a residential is extremely challenging, time consuming
and costly they can act as a catalyst for forging meaningful and long-term bonds
with the young participants. As Dyck has argued in relation to the benefits that
the experience of travel and young people’s participation in sport can generate,
when young people’s ‘sport activities begin to be pursued beyond the local level,
the logistical and social arrangements that such undertakings necessitate are
likely to be compounded with new sets of encountered cultural definitions and
distinctions out of which more elaborated senses of similiarity and community…
may be fashioned’ (Dyck, 2002: 118).
For the most part though, despite the shifting winds of fashion and what is
regarded as ‘cool’ in young people’s lives, it is football that continues to have a
particular hold on the young people we have observed. Both of our London case
studies began as football projects and the glamour of their association with major
football clubs has been a key hook for the projects in reaching young people. In
one scheme of work based at a local professional club where football is the main
sports activity, the research team observed attempts to widen what was offered,
including the use of weights and playing other gym based games. This required a
lot of persuasion, as the young people, who were mostly boys but included a
number of girls, actually just wanted to play football.
Whilst there are undoubted problems associated with the hegemony of football
within this field of work, this example also raises questions about the benefits of
diversifying activities for its own sake and illustrates that this is not always the
most appropriate course of action. Where alternative activities are offered there
needs to be clear reasoning to support this relating to the availability of staff with
the appropriate skills as well as the interests of particular target groups. For
instance, the boxing sessions delivered by one of our projects are very attractive
for particular young people who may not be interested in football. This is
evidenced by the fact that not only is the gym well used and busy every
35
weeknight, but that young people will travel a considerable distance out of their
own areas, to attend.
Key message PF projects have been willing to diversify their provision to attract
a broad range of participants across different gender and racial boundaries.
Where ‘alternative’ activities are offered this should not be done for its own sake
but should be related to the availability of staff with the appropriate skills as well
as the interests of particular target groups.
2.4 Appropriate styles of delivery
In the First Interim Case Study Research Report Getting to know you we focused
on the ways in which projects had sought to engage and build relationships with
young people. It was clear then that the PF programme embraces a variety of
styles of delivery which reflect the different projects organisational contexts,
personnel and interpretation of the PF approach.
With the strategic development of the programme, which has embraced the
production of strategy documents, workforce training and accredited
qualifications for young people, it has become increasingly clear that PF is
concerned to offer more than the simple provision of ‘things to do’. Indeed PF
describes itself as a ‘relationship strategy’ whilst acknowledging that this does not
simply involve ‘getting on’ with participants. Ultimately, it involves using the
relationships established with young people to aid their personal and social
development. Our work has revealed great variation in the extent to which
projects have consistently achieved this objective.
In keeping with the long term engagement strategies espoused by PF one of our
case studies has been running a year-long scheme for excluded school children
in the Borough. The young people attend a PF session all-day every Monday as
part of an alternative education programme. This provided us with an opportunity
to observe and reflect upon the development of relationships with young people
over the extended period of the 2005/06 school year. Interestingly this scheme of
work sits in contrast with the projects wider tendency to focus on the delivery of
short term activity programmes.
The staff have sought to build bonds with the young people and staff do reflect
upon the best ways to achieve this with different members of the team taking on
different roles but they have still struggled to develop substantial, meaningful
bonds with the young people which has been put down to the inconsistency of
attendance. As the head coach revealed:
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There is no doubting the challenging nature of the group in question who are
reluctant to attend and many of whom engage in habitual cannabis use which
appears to extend to periods around the sessions themselves. However, PF
projects’ purpose is to break this kind of cycle of alienation and disconnection.
Whilst the staff appear to have sought to identify appropriate strategies and have
had some success in building relationships they would also appear to be
restricted by their own cultural expectations and wider inflexible working
practices.
The agency leading the wider scheme of work to which PF contributes provides
one of their members of staff to accompany the young people on the Monday
sessions. Between September and January Jodie, a bubbly young woman who
had earned the trust and respect of the young people, occupied this role. She
often gave the young people lifts to and from places, bought them drinks and
snacks and sat with them during the lunch break chatting and socialising.
However the project manager removed her as she was felt to be ‘getting too
close to the young people.’ The removal of Jodie has been to the detriment of the
scheme as she provided a more credible source of authority in times of disruption
and bad behaviour. In the context of attempts to build relationships with ‘hard to
reach’ young people, the idea that a youth worker can get ‘too close’ might be
seen as contentious and sensitive. In this instance, there seemed little doubt that
the closeness was interpreted as ‘friendliness’ and ‘mutual respect’ and therefore
the workers removal from the programme seemed unwarranted and has had a
negative impact. It has reinforced the ‘distance’ between the project and
participants through the formalisation of relationships associated with attempts to
‘professionalise’ work with young people which contrasts with the more engaged
approach employed at other projects.
Phil’s role has developed over the last twelve months and he has gone from parttime sessional football coach to full-time development worker and angling coach.
Phil’s love of his job is obvious to everyone he meets and he often goes above
and beyond his duties. Indeed, he recently became concerned over the welfare
of one of his regular ‘footie lads’ and on one cold rainy evening he received a
phone call from him on his mobile, ‘he rang me from a street corner and blurted
out that he wanted to kill himself because all he wanted was to be a kid without
all the stress and responsibility at home.’ Disturbed by the call, he drove the
streets looking for the lad and eventually found him soaked to the bone and very
upset. This extra attention is commendable but it is difficult to know when it is
appropriate and necessary to draw the line and bring in other welfare services in
a context where those services are often a source of much of the young people’s
alienation. As his colleague Richard pointed out:
37
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In this sense, part of the success of this project in engaging young people relates
to the fact that whilst the staff display certain characteristics which are present in
most relationships between friends or ‘buddies’ including:
•
•
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Interest in their wellbeing
Concern over their future plans
Co-receptive trust and respect
Familiarity and knowledge of personality traits
Warmth, joviality and humour
They also express additional characteristics which relocate their relationship with
the young people from that of a pure ‘buddy’ to one of ‘buddy/mentor/coach’.
These characteristics include:
•
•
•
•
Consistency and reliability
Setting of appropriate boundaries relating to language and behaviour
Written or unwritten codes of conduct
Purposeful and developmental aims to the relationship
Through our observations we have identified how these characteristics relate to a
three-step model of engagement.
Three steps to heaven…
Step 1: Initial engagement and relationship building phase
- Use of sport or another activity as a ‘hook’
- Use of initial relationship building tools including humour and conviviality
- Allowing ‘risky’ language/behaviour to go unchallenged to avoid ‘distance’
Step 2: Maintaining engagement / Developmental phase
- Development of a mutual bond with each young person
- Distinguishing young persons needs and interests
- Signposting to appropriate schemes of work
Step 3: Purposeful & tailored engagement
- Maintenance of a consistent level of engagement and familiarity
- Challenging inappropriate behaviour with links to sanctions and repercussions
38
- Accreditation of activities
- Person specific advice and signposting to specialist agencies
While the three stages of engagement presented here are not applicable in all
cases, the sequential stages are desirable and provide a progressional basis for
building meaningful relationships. For Richard, his ability to navigate a path
between ‘buddy’ and ‘mentor’ roles relies upon the establishment of appropriate
boundaries. Describing the process he noted that:
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Therefore, although the ‘lads’ do have a joke and a laugh with Richard, he is at
the same time educating them about appropriate social boundaries and
acceptable behaviour. In contrast, one sessional worker employed by PF had
displayed encouraging signs of being a good ‘buddy’ to the young people and
was very well liked. However she lacked the discipline or authority to engage in
any meaningful developmental work. The characteristic which she displayed
which prevented her from being an ideal worker was ‘vanity’. She wanted to be
liked, admired and looked-up-to by the young girls but this was at times to the
detriment of their personal progression. Her over attempts to be ‘street’ with the
girls, with her passing references to her own ‘risky’ lifestyle and inability to set
appropriate boundaries, made her an inappropriate ‘role-model’. The Coordinator of the PF project acknowledged this and subsequently discontinued her
involvement. Other more successful workers are clearly not phased by appearing
‘un-cool’ and this in turn demonstrates to the young people that they also do not
need to be ‘cool’ at all times, leading to a more relaxed and youthful environment.
The young people need to know the parameters of the relationship with the staff
and when it is perceived as a purely friendly relationship then the ‘line is a bit too
blurred’. While humour and joviality are very good tools for creating a sense of
trust and comfort, there is clearly a need to extend beyond this and apply
professional distance. In some contexts it is the ‘sport’ that appears to have the
power to enable work to be done with young people and for a sense of mutual
respect to emerge. Indeed Leroy’s style is that of a very professional coach. He
does not try and be one of the ‘lads’. He does work on behavioural, lifestyle and
nutritional issues, but always in the context of the sport, and developing the
sportsman-like behaviour of the young people. His professionalism gives him a
natural authority since he is recognised as having a job of work to do, in a way
that a youth worker might not be. This leads to a sense of a contract between him
and the young people which means he simply has to be firm, rather than
39
disciplinary, in order to ensure good behaviour. In return, he always reinforces
positive behaviour.
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Where Leroy’s sporting professionalism does not work is on addressing issues of
the young men’s life aspirations beyond sport. Whilst the undoubted engagement
of these young men could easily be used as a springboard to work with them in a
way that encompasses wider life options, in interview, very few of them had a
sense of what they could do with their lives in terms of jobs or careers apart from
football. This is a sharp contrast, with the work of other projects which take a
more holistic youth work approach, consistently emphasising the life choices the
young people are facing.
At one project, the jovial, friendly and warm relations which the staff have with
young people clearly facilitates the building of bonds and relationships which
does not preclude their efforts to improve the life chances and development of
participants. Chris is a long-term participant with the project and although he has
had many ups and downs whilst being engaged, he recently reflected upon his
progression, ‘We’ve all improved as people. I’ve learnt like who to go with on the
streets and who not to go with and we’ve all got better at football as well and
we’re more fitter’ (Chris, Aged 16). The project paid for Chris to undertake his FA
level one coaching certificate which marked a significant step towards his
personal aspiration to be a football coach and reflected his own wider
commitment to the wider philosophy of the project:
40
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The consistently long term, engaged and developmental approach of this project
has enabled project workers to influence participants in a whole variety of ways
which might be seen as beyond more conventional approaches. A year into her
work with girls and young women in the area, one of the Area Development
Workers is still engaged with a large number of her ‘original’ group and has been
able to:
•
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reduce their alcohol consumption
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As one of the participants put it:
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Equally, at another project, when Serena was interviewed for the third time, the
researcher asked her about her approach to developing relationships with the
young people, she offered similar conclusions:
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Ultimately, projects have to strike a, sometimes precarious, balance which
involves the employment of a youth work style characterised by the construction
of both ‘buddy’ and ‘bounded’ personalities which it seems young people are
frequently able to respond to, precisely because of the mix of the two. The
creation of a respectful relationship which acknowledges both similarity and
difference enables mutual exchange whilst also allowing staff to challenge young
people and, if necessary, enforce rules.
Key message In the context of PF’s attempts to aid the personal and social
development of participants, projects need to adopt a staged approach towards
engagement that establishes social outcomes as an end point rather than a
starting point
2.5 Maintaining involvement
In the previous section, we touched on the issue of the retention of workers and
participants. If PF is to achieve its aim of ‘developing’ both practitioners and
participants, there must be a recognition of this as a long term endeavour,
requiring, in the case of maintaining engagement with young people, imaginative
and supportive working by front line staff, backed by a strategy which supports
long term engagement and supportive lead and delivery agencies who see the
value of investing in practitioners.
Certainly, with regard to participants, retention has long been regarded as a key
outcome as reflected in the data collected by the Key Elements monitoring
instrument. The most recent impact report produced by Positive Futures (Home
Office, 2006) revealed that 26,586 of the 46,674 young people engaged in PF in
September 2005 had been engaged since at least February 2005. Amongst our
case study projects, the figure was 2419 out of the 4773 currently engaged.
42
These statistics are significant in the context of the growing numbers of new
participants in the programme over this period which might not capture the
‘turnover’ of young people which we have observed at some projects. Clearly this
is often beyond the control of projects as some participants move out of the area,
develop other interests, move on to play with local, mainstream sports clubs or
are forced to disengage through detention, illness or other external pressures.
The key is to establish the extent to which projects facilitate the maintenance of
young people’s involvement.
A principle factor here might be whether projects have been successful in
maintaining low levels of staff turnover. However, whilst the team at one of our
local authority led case studies have experienced very high levels of staff
retention, with only two of the eleven posts being vacant in the past two years,
participant involvement has been less stable. This appears to be because of the
failure of the project to mobilise its work around a close engagement with
participants. Rather, the project manager views the high staff retention levels as
a result of the good working relations between staff and the security provided by
the mainstreaming of positions into other council directorates.
At another project, which does not benefit from this kind of security, to date no
staff members have left their posts since the creation of the project in the spring
of 2004. The stability of the workforce, allied to the commitment to building longterm relationships with young people and partners, has been a principle factor in
securing high participant retention (105 of the 175 participants in September
2005 - 60% - having been retained from February 2005). For despite the rapid
recent growth of the project they have managed to maintain their grass-roots,
developmental approach to delivery. This has been managed through the
assignment of staff to small, dedicated areas whereby each worker is responsible
for a specific geographical location maintaining the ‘community outreach’
direction as one of the Area Development Workers explains:
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In this way the staff are fully accountable and responsible for their own schemes
of work and are known by many of the local young people and residents.
Maintaining good relations becomes a matter of personal pride and integrity as
another worker explained, ‘even if I walked away from this job tomorrow, being
the sad person that I am I’d still go and drive on that estate looking for those kids
to see how they are’ (Richard, June 2006).
However, whilst the project aims to provide long-term engagement for their
participants and to widen their life skills and opportunities, to date they have been
43
better at engaging than developing. The project has managed to retain many of
their existing participants, with a large number of young people being involved for
over a year. The next hurdle is to develop the capacity, resources and skills to
provide more accredited training and qualifications for these young people. A
variety of accredited schemes are in the pipeline. The project has had its initial
ASDAN screening and visit and they are awaiting their registration number to
enable them to be ASDAN providers. The ‘Spiced-Up-Sport’ module is currently
being assessed by the Open College Network, in order to receive accreditation
and the Get-Hooked on Fishing modules are also receiving formal accreditation.
The Co-ordinator hopes to attract funding to recruit a full-time trained teacher to
concentrate on the accredited-educational aspect of their work. In the meantime,
the staff use pragmatic approaches to widening access to education and
employment.
At another voluntary sector led project, where there is a long term commitment to
developing engaged outreach modes of contact with young people, the approach
has been undermined by high rates of staff turnover. During the research period
3.5 members of staff have left despite this being the maximum staff compliment
for the project as a whole. The project has also lost sessional staff and, after the
cessation of partnership working with the YIP, it lost access to their workers.
Changes to the structure of the host agency have also contributed to the loss of
administrative support to the project. The reasons for the high rates of staff loss
are multiple and complex. With a Manager who accepts the inevitability of the
situation and who, having himself made the transition from front line delivery, has
not always managed to delegate effectively leading to the perception of an
abrasive, micro managerial style, coupled with structural changes and
demanding workloads this trend may well continue. This is of concern, since PF
is about relationship building and if young people do not have a familiar face at
sessions, someone who has a feel for their personality, engagement and
development, they may more easily drift away and their story be lost. Indeed, it is
precisely the building of close personal relations with participants that is most
likely to retain young people’s involvement, as in the case of Mary, at one of our
projects that has been more successful in retaining participants.
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Ultimately, whilst some staff in the sector have their reservations, we are largely
convinced that the best approach towards retaining both staff and participants is
provided by a progression model which has been employed at varying stages of
development by a number of projects. One of these has had a policy of recruiting
young people who started off as volunteers or users at sessions, alongside
specialist staff who are recruited through more traditional means which we review
in more detail in Part Three of this report. It is striking that at this project the
greatest success in retaining staff over many years has been amongst those who
are ‘homegrown’. It is also striking that specialist staff recruited in from ‘outside’
have tended (with significant exceptions) not to remain with the organisation for
particularly long periods. This relative lack of retention of specialist staff has at
times created problems for the project, as skills crucial to delivering the wide
range of schemes the organisation has committed to can be lost, and
‘homegrown’ staff are often thrust into positions for which they are still developing
these skills. There are many who see this as a strength though, as many staff
members need fresh challenges after a few years whilst the subsequent arrival of
new staff can bring an impetus of energy and new ideas.
The situation is only really problematic if nobody stays very long. However this is
most likely to reflect a wider problem associated with the priorities and values of
the lead agency. If an organisation can retain a clear and powerful sense of its
values and commitment to the young people it is working with it will be likely to
make good progress and to retain and recruit good staff. Indeed in the context of
this case study the successful retention of ‘homegrown’ workers has enabled the
project to retain its ability to reach out to and maintain the involvement of the
young people they target.
Amongst users there are inevitably young people who come and go, some
because they did not feel confident in their own ability or felt marginalised by the
competitive atmosphere, there are also a significant number who carry on using
project services year in year out. Many of these people spoke of ‘growing up’ with
or within the project. Indeed, many spoke of it as a ‘family’. Although most felt
45
that they would eventually leave to pursue a career in youth or community work
or a related area, many found it difficult to imagine making this step. ‘I still have
so much I can achieve here’ was a common statement. ‘It’s a place where I’m still
developing and growing.’ ‘I can imagine a point when I have progressed enough
to leave, but it’s a long way off.’ Only one expressed a definite sense that they
welcomed entering a world beyond the project. While this is an enormous
testimony to the project’s ethos – the way it creates a sense of family amongst
workers, which is passed on to users – it also marks a limit to the model. If
progression routes are provided, but no exit routes, they either have to constantly
generate new work, by finding new funding opportunities and delivering in new
areas, or it stifles its staff, stopping their horizons from expanding naturally.
This tension can also extend to participants, particularly where friendship
networks build up around steady involvement in a team. Since while getting
young people involved is something to be done ‘with the grain’ of their social
worlds, and people will keep coming if all their mates do too, this can be limiting,
and in extreme cases can reinforce an insider/outsider view of the world. As
Eddie says, it can get too comfortable, making it hard to make the next step to
something different.’ Why go off to a new team, where you don’t know anyone,
when you can keep with this one?’ As such, senior management have been keen
to continue opening new pathways / exit routes by forging relationships with other
companies and organisations willing to take on their young people. They are also
aware that while many are interested in youth / community work and sports
coaching, there are others who are not and want to pursue careers in creative
industries such as music.
Key message Projects’ capacity to retain young people’s engagement is a factor
of both the maintenance of staff stability and a clear set of values which
prioritises the needs of participants
2.6 ‘Keepin’ it real’: Managing growth and protecting project
integrity
As PF has grown as a programme, it has evolved both in terms of scale and
strategic direction. Where once it was purely experimental, with the learning that
has emerged, it now demands much of the agencies that lead projects. It asks
them, at a delivery level, to engage with young people whom a number of
mainstream agencies have failed to engage or keep engaged, and then to draw
them gradually back to the mainstream. They are asked to do patient,
incremental work with young people that may only yield small and unquantifiable
outcomes, against a political backdrop which continues to propagate myths about
the power of such projects to impact directly on crime. At a strategic level, it
emphasises its difference from other programmes of work whilst, simultaneously,
making itself a non-threatening enough proposition to engage mainstream
partners. This has had implications for individual projects, some of which have
46
seen the programme shift away from their initial interpretation of its ethos and
others of which have embraced new agendas more enthusiastically.
The longest standing project has been operating for nearly a decade, initially
outside of the auspices of PF. As such, in that time it has evolved its own identity
and ethos that stands alone from the programme. It has developed models of
working with young people that are seen to be successful, are being replicated in
new areas and adapted to new activities. This model, whereby engagement
leads onto development, is essentially congruous with the official PF approach.
This means that PF is in many ways an ideal funder. However, PF is only one of
the organisation’s funders, which means that the organisation needs to perform
to other agendas. Whilst having greater resources and possibly greater future
security this also means that it isn’t shaped by a single funder, and has its own
identity.
Indeed, the project has grown in ways that would have been unforeseeable ten
years ago when its first employee ran football sessions on estates from the boot
of his car. It now employs over 30 staff and has spread geographically miles in
every direction from its ‘home’ on a housing estate. Today some of its first users
are experienced members of the staff team. This growth and expansion has not
always been easy, and has required a willingness to balance the project’s own
ideals with the requirements and expectations of partner organisations.
In part, these tensions also relate to the particularities of working in a major urban
conurbation whereby although young people’s geographies can be very
circumscribed and pinned down, the education system means that young people
might be travelling several miles to go to school; there are high levels of
residential ‘churn’, with people moving in and out of inner city areas; intense
physical regeneration schemes mean that estates are being demolished and their
residents ‘decanted’ over long distances. All of this means it can be very hard for
locally based programmes to identify stable groups of young people to work with
over a sustained period. Our observations suggest that it is possible, but only by
starting off very small and working very deeply in a tightly defined area,
incrementally increasing the delivery area, estate by estate.
In this context the organizational growth of the project has led to the need for new
staffing structures in order to manage the expanding number and reach of their
various schemes of work. This involved the creation of a middle strata of
management with specific responsibilities and new staff members who have not
necessarily been as committed to the organisation as those who had come up
through it, and therefore there has been a higher turnover of staff. This has
resulted in less consistency than is desirable, but the situation appears to have
found a level of stability again and overall, while project growth has presented
new challenges, the actual work with young people across venues and areas,
continues to maintain its primary focus.
47
Interestingly, this pathway contrasts with that of projects which joined PF during
the second phase of development and that are hosted by statutory sector
agencies. These projects have been influenced and moulded by the very early
PF strategic thinking, which in some contexts utilised the idea of Top-50 and
targeted referral based models. At these projects there has been a reluctance to
move away from a referral based system of identifying young people. There has
been some movement towards longer-term, sustainable programmes but the
conceptualisation that the work of PF is to work with ‘identified at-risk young
people’ has been taken quite literally. As such, they have been reluctant to
engage in the kind of outreach work that has been demonstrated to work in other
contexts. Indeed, the expectations placed upon one of our projects by the range
of funders and partner agencies beyond the central PF team are very much in
line with what the project delivers - that is to provide sports-based, developmental
activities for at-risk referred young people. As far as the wider partnership is
concerned the project is not expected to deliver outreach, street-based sessions
or to engage with wider regeneration or family concerns. As such, there is little
reason to innovate or to go the extra mile that PF has sought. Another has
preferred to regard the whole PF initiative as just another youth justice
intervention to be shaped and monitored according to familiar principles and
bureaucracies.
At another second phase project, led by a voluntary agency which sees its work
as being ‘different’ from that provided by other local agencies, the pressure of
commissioners can still bring a heavy influence to bear. Whilst front line workers
may converse with young people about their needs and desires, at a more senior
level, the decision has ultimately been taken to widen the focus of the project,
geographically and in terms of its content, to focus on IT and new media. With no
steering group to guide or constrain the project, the lead agency is now more
susceptible to the desires of powerful commissioning agents and the wider
agencies own strategic priorities, rather than those of PF.
Perhaps surprisingly, the most significant organisational developments and
change have been witnessed at the newer third wave projects. Organisational
tension played a big part at one of the projects which was initially conceived as a
partnership between a local drug service and a professional football club’s
community department. In the end, the partnership collapsed as a result of
seemingly irreconcilable differences of approach and financial management.
Now, instead of the drug service receiving the PF funding on behalf of both
partners, they are each given a direct share. In many ways this hasn’t changed
the ways in which the work is delivered but it has meant that there is less
negotiation and less shared work.
Over time the elements of the project delivered through the football club have
tightened their focus, with a move away from schools-based sessions to estatebased sessions where the football coaches deliver high quality football sessions,
and partners deliver educational workshops to the same young people on the
48
topics that affect them – drugs, weapons, careers, etc. Young people engaged
through this intensive estates work are then opened up to a variety of exit routes,
including football-based exit strategies within the football club’s community
scheme, and other exit routes through partner agencies. Within this model then,
the football, and the glamour of the Club brand, are used as a hook to engage
young people in a further education programme which has helped to develop
wider programmes of partnership working within the Borough.
Our final case study has perhaps embraced the PF approach as articulated in
Cul-de-sacs and gateways most fully. Their approach has from the start been to
engage with young people by going out on to the streets and delivering open
access events and then, through that engagement, building wider programmes of
activity and provision. This approach has led to the rapid growth of the project
and the achievement of the initial long-term aim of having a dedicated worker in
each of their target six wards. Indeed, the project now carries a heavy weight of
expectations on its shoulders. These expectations come from local partners,
community groups, parents, young people and most notably, themselves. For the
project has transformed itself from being a provider of sports-based social
inclusion schemes for young people into a conduit for channelling funding
streams into the area for a variety of other social regenerative purposes.
The rapid growth has resulted in the emergence of local tensions whilst also
revealing the redundancy of more conventional approaches to this area of work.
Whilst PF staff regularly engage with young people living in the so called ‘no-go
zones’ of the city and have a policy of operating during evenings and at
weekends, at a recent ‘Strategic Implementation Group for Young People’
(16/05/06) a worker from a local community centre openly criticised the Youth
Service for their lack of presence. The Youth Service representative defended
their stance stating that, ‘The police won’t go in there so why should our team?’
Adding, ‘we only work until 6pm.’ In this context, it is increasingly the PF project
that is helping to establish the strategic direction of services targeted at
disadvantaged youth in the city. The capacity to perform this role, whilst
maintaining the delivery of high quality engaged provision, is wrapped up with a
managerial style which allows the Area Development Workers to manage their
schemes of work with a degree of autonomy. This enables the Co-ordinator to
devise and lead the strategic direction of the project, secure additional funding
and remain involved in the wider partnership structure whilst keeping a handle on
internal project developments by attending delivery sessions without
responsibility for their content.
Key message Projects capacity to retain a commitment to the core values of PF
relies upon a managerial style which devolves authority to front line delivery staff
and which enables them to manage their schemes of work with a degree of
autonomy
49
Part Three: Rethinking progress and achievement
3.1 What’s the ‘problem’?
If we are to disregard conventional measures of success for programmes like PF
and better understand their impact, it is first of all necessary to gain a clearer
perspective of what they are trying to achieve and the nature of the young people
they are targeting. For the most part, in order to attend PF, even those who self
refer must fit a certain criteria, one which defines them as being marginalised or
‘at risk’ in some way. This terminology which extends across the field of work
focused on tackling social exclusion should remind us that, rather than
necessarily being ‘the problem’, participants are themselves vulnerable, potential
victims of circumstance and according to government sponsored research are
often the principle victims of violent crimes (Yarrow, 2005; Smith & Allen, 2004).
Indeed research (Furlong & Cartmel 1997) has found that through a variety of
social changes not only have young people’s lives become increasingly complex
and insecure, but that the period of transition between dependent ‘childhood’ to
independent ‘adulthood’ has lengthened. Furlong and Cartmel say that young
people are particularly susceptible during these delayed transitional periods as
they are ‘being denied a chance to become ‘stakeholders’ in their society and in
turn they look for alternative sources of satisfaction, some of which carry health
risks or make them more vulnerable to police surveillance and arrest.’ In this
context adolescence can be seen as a ‘window of risk’ in a society where rapidity
of change and risk have become integral to the functioning of social institutions
and processes (Beck, 1992). Furlong and Cartmel suggest that ‘individuals are
forced to negotiate a set of risks which impinge on all aspects of their daily lives,
yet the intensification of individualism means that crises are perceived as
individual shortcomings rather than the outcome of processes which are largely
outside the control of individuals’.
Indeed, it is often easier for such institutions to identify and understand social
problems through the construction of pariah figures who are located ‘out there’
and away from mainstream ‘respectable’ society. This approach enables ‘us’ to
reduce criminological problems to classifications of people or ‘categories of
menace’ which invokes the tacit assumption that the world ‘out there’ is unsafe,
making it necessary ‘to continuously scan and assess public and private spaces
in terms of potential threats by other people’ (Lianos & Douglas, 2000:111). The
difficulty with such perspectives from our position is that it is not possible to make
direct connections between the impact of sports based social interventions such
as PF and reductions in crime or substance misuse precisely because so many
other factors are at play than the young people themselves.
Chris provides us with a good example of the casual way in which young people
can become involved in seemingly innocent illicit criminal activity in the absence
of more ‘legitimate’ avenues to financial success. As Chris’s time-line below
50
demonstrates his engagement with PF has been long standing and consistent.
Having initially been engaged on his estate by the outreach worker, he is a well
mannered and friendly young man who has an excellent relationship with the PF
team. It is not unusual to see him just ‘hanging-out’ in the PF office and through
this involvement he has voluntarily established his own ‘mini PF’ programme of
work with young ‘lads’ on his estate. Yet the entrepreneurial skills he has
developed have more recently been put to less legitimate use through his
involvement in selling counterfeit football match tickets. With little understanding
of the potential consequences of being caught he explained that, ‘there is this
guy we know, this smack head, [who] makes up the tickets, we sell them. We
make up to £75 per ticket. You just hang around outside [the stadium] and sell
them to Chinese people and Swedish people. We buy them for a tenner. He’ll
make fifty and we buy however many we can.’
Figure 3: Chris’s Time-Line
Richard begins
work on estate
and sets up
footie team
January 2005
Starts
intensive
PAYP
programme
(Jan – Oct)
July 2005
Removed
from
mainstream
school
October 2005
Passes FA
Level 1
coaching
badge paid
for by PF
Becomes
involved
with
counterfeit
football
ticket touting
Begins to
partake in
lads ‘social
evenings’
with PF –
life skills
course
March 2006
Violently
attacked by
rival estate
lads
June 2006
Sets up own
’coaching
course’ for
younger kids
on the
estate
Sits 1 GCSE
– in PE
The journeys young people make are not just complex but often non-linear. By
this we mean that participants will engage, drift off and then perhaps re-engage.
Also they do not necessarily follow prescribed routes, and therefore adaptability
in working with them and longevity in trying to analyse or chart any progress is
vital. It is often only with hindsight that real impacts are revealed, and the
51
multifarious routes become apparent, complete with dead ends, bridges, blind
alleys, and sudden gateways. As we have seen with Chris, the story is often
complex and apparently contradictory. Since his involvement in the project he
has engaged well, earned new qualifications and taken on community leadership
roles. Alongside this ‘progress’, he has been excluded from school and become
involved in violent inter-estate conflict and the counterfeit ticket trade. As such,
he can be viewed through many different lenses which might offer up rather
different conclusions as to the kind of young man he is and his future potential.
Within this range of perspectives it is clear that PF provides a stabilising and
purposeful influence.
The bulk of those who engage with the principle service provider for another of
our case study projects, which is led by a statutory criminal justice agency, have
already had their ‘status’ at the project defined by external agencies. By the time
PF is considered as an option, the young people are usually already known to
these agencies. PF becomes something of a last resort providing a service they
find hard to define, but which is intended to make the ‘targets’ more
‘manageable’. In this sense there is the danger that what interventions of this
type are attempting to do is to ‘reclassify’ participants in accordance with moral
and cultural norms more in tune with the ‘mainstream’.
Although a more informal street dance session has recently been established, at
this project disciplined and conventional variants of music and dance activity are
more typically made available to female participants. The sessions are strongly
driven, in terms of their curriculum and staff attitudes, by traditional ideas of
femininity and female appropriate behaviour, because these participants wider
conduct has been defined by external agencies as problematic. Alongside a
viewing of them as vulnerable then, runs a strong ‘disciplinary’ element, based
around the desire to create ‘nice girls’ and address this problematic behaviour. In
this context, for these participants PF is not an arena of freedom and negotiation.
It is one which is restrictive and which encourages them to comport themselves
against standards defined not by the cadences of their lives and the values of
their localities, but by agencies who have identified their neighbourhoods and
behaviour as problematic.
Girls at these sessions are frequently encouraged not to swear and not to dress
in a boyish or provocative manner by staff who, whilst expressing sympathy with
their often chaotic and challenging lives, feel the girls need to ‘learn the occulted
ways of the clan of the middle class’, (Foote, 2003:4) or at least the ‘respectable’
working class with which they have more affinity. Their behaviour, their dress,
their manner of speaking is deemed by practitioners as not ‘classy’. Project
workers here are revealing their own dispositions, evaluatory mechanisms and
anxieties about values, choice, agency and personhood. The sessions are an
example of how behaviour and activities are sometimes not respectfully
negotiated. In this context participants are ‘physically inhibited, confined,
positioned and objectified' (Real, 1999:139) by the project. Whilst there is
52
sympathy for the young people’s vulnerability, there is little respect for the ways
in which they cope with their difficulties. The focus here is not on how remarkably
modest and mundane the aspirations of these young women are, or how their
coping mechanisms allow them to live in a world far removed from that of some
practitioners; the aim of this project is to achieve change, nominally negotiated
with the young people, but within a framework which is not of their lived world.
In this fashion, community sport might more easily be recognised as a product of
the mainstream rather than a celebration of the cultural achievements of the
disadvantaged. It is seen as something which is capable of educating ‘flawed’ or
‘illegitimate’ consumers in ‘our way of doing things’ (Bauman, 1998) which has
increasingly proven beyond the community youth worker, probation officer and
educational welfare officer who lack the cache of social and cultural capital that
goes with contemporary sport. In this sense, part of the attraction of these forms
of community sports work, which are popularly regarded as inculcating a sense of
self-discipline, routine and personal responsibility (Crabbe, 2000), is their lack of
any ideological critique of wider social formations. Rather, it is hoped that, acting
as ‘cultural intermediaries’ (see Crabbe, 2006a), front line staff can help to imbue
a mutually negotiated sense of respect and responsibility in participants.
Key message It is not possible to make direct connections between the impact
of sports based social interventions such as PF and reductions in crime or
substance misuse precisely because so many other factors are at play than the
young people themselves
3.2 ‘Alternative’ pathways and distance travelled
3.2.1 New visions of success
In the context of the complexities suggested here and the methodological
challenges discussed previously it becomes extremely difficult to determine the
‘effect’ or ‘impact’ of a programme such as PF. Historically there seems to have
been little in the way of attempts to understand the transformations of young
people involved in such programmes beyond the assessment of success as the
attainment of X number of qualifications, or Y% school attendance. Accordingly,
there is now growing interest in the identification of new ways of capturing
notions of ‘impact’ based around alternative concepts such as ‘journeys’ and
‘distance travelled’.
The relatively new nature of this terminology means that there are few definitions
of the term, but Dewson et al (2000) and Lloyd & O’Sullivan (2003) suggest that it
is the progress made by individuals in working towards achieving longer term
objectives as a result of participation in a particular project or programme. The
point is though that the idea of distance travelled is never going to be uniform and
nor are the ways in which it is captured. Given that every young person embarks
on their journey through PF from a different starting point, we should expect their
53
travel paths to be diverse with varying destinations, timescales and experiences
along the way. It should be appreciated then that whilst some young people
sprint to their destination, others will meander, possibly not ending up at the
originally intended end point. Others will head back to where they came from and
some will disappear or get lost along the way. Indeed, if projects are encouraging
personal development and the widening of horizons, we should not be surprised
that journeys change along the route. As such this is why it is important that the
progress of young people is not measured on the basis of conventional fixed
outcome indicators since participants engage with PF precisely because it is
different from mainstream provision and the assessment regimes that are
associated with it.
In this context it was encouraging that when, at one project meeting, a worker
suggested sending an email circular to referral agencies, flagging up the
quantifiable achievements of young people, a worker from a local school said he
would find it more useful to receive news about ‘softer’ outcomes, something he
reiterated in a subsequent interview:
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Of course, on its own, such a perception is as simplistic as any statistical
correlation and progression is rarely this straightforward. However, what this
perspective reveals is a more insightful vision of the range of factors and
indicators that can help to illustrate somebody’s progress.
Key message What is important is to capture participant developments over time
and the ways in which they relate to or are hindered by project activity. In this
fashion it becomes possible to identify aspects of good practice through the
tracking of participant journeys
3.2.2 The spectacle of the ordinary: Young people’s stories
As we suggested above, the justification for the type of interventions associated
with PF relies upon the ultimately mistaken belief that the reason why the clients
are ‘at risk’ or ‘problematic’ is that they have somehow become detached from
the values and aspirations of ‘mainstream’ society. However, consideration of the
many young people we have followed through the course of this research would
54
suggest that far from being at odds with the ‘mainstream’, their values and
dreams are largely a reflection of convention. Whilst many participants have
merely been ‘visitors’, with fleeting contact with projects as they pass through on
their wider journey, those that have ‘hung around’ and developed appear to have
benefited from a level of support which is quite simple and straightforward in its
conception.
In many ways Andrew’s story might be regarded as a spectacular example of
project success. Through his contact with one of our case study projects he
moved from the position of a problematic homeless alcoholic to becoming a star
of the England homeless 5-a-side football team and a project volunteer. Indeed
PF staff and project team mates had travelled to watch him play in the
tournament in Edinburgh and made a film to celebrate his achievements.
In understanding Andrew’s progress though it is important to obtain a fuller
picture. Before becoming involved with the project as one of the older
participants, he was studying at College and working full-time in the construction
industry. Indeed the image of ‘normality’ was apparently complete with a wife and
child on the way. Perhaps he had done ‘too much, too young’ though, for the
image of domestic bliss was shattered by his regular drinking which ultimately
became problematic. Eventually, he ended up losing his home and his wife left
him, as did many of his friends.
Whilst this story does not suggest the characteristics of a career criminal or
subversive, after becoming homeless he soon got caught up in petty crime and
became known to the police. He was referred to the agency which hosts the PF
project in January 2005 by a hostel worker, after he had recognised his problems
and sought support to stop his heavy drinking and other substance use. Andrew
felt that if he concentrated on his health and fitness, his music interests and work
training, he would be able to address the problem. He registered with PF so he
could get involved with the football sessions and began to play in local 5-a-side
leagues with the project.
As a result of his involvement, Andrew joined a local team and went on to attend
trials for the England Homeless 5-a-side football team. He even hitchhiked to
Manchester United’s training ground for the trials to make sure he didn’t miss out.
He was selected and played in the team during the 2005 Homeless World Cup,
where the team won the third place play off.
Subsequently, he has become more confident and self-assured as a result of his
experiences with the national squad and PF and this has given him the
momentum to help him to get his life to where he wants it to be. However, his
journey through the project has not been a smooth one. Whilst he is a volunteer,
and PF has agreed to support him through a Community Sports Leaders Award,
so that he can achieve his ambition of finding employment in the sports and
leisure industry, his attendance has been sporadic. Perhaps in keeping with
55
earlier episodes of his life initially, he was too enthusiastic, wanting to attend
more sessions than workers thought he would be able to handle, and he has
recently found himself in a position where he might not actually be able to
complete the CSLA. Whereas non attendance at PF is something that staff can
work with him on, with regard to more formal courses, the process is less
forgiving and the ultimate sanction is a ‘fail’.
It is in this context that the supportive approach of PF proves vital. Where in other
contexts such a setback would be regarded as a failure, what was significant for
PF was the very desire to take on the CSLA in the aftermath of the ‘spectacle’ of
the World Cup. In this context, conscious of the fragility of any landmark
‘successes’ they have continued to offer Andrew the chance to volunteer, with
the option of gaining other alternative accreditation. They have also engaged him
in a drama project, after which he may restart the Performing Arts Diploma
course which he previously had to abandon. The project is appreciative of the
issues outside its control that impact on his attendance at the project and
continue to support him, offering alternatives to sport and assisting him in his
faltering journey. The point is that whilst Andrew has achieved success in an elite
sporting event, the project’s engagement with him is not focussed on high level
sporting skill, but on helping him towards achievable qualifications and a
sustainable career.
In some senses projects need to curtail participants enthusiasm for the routines
of work and tendency to go with whatever opportunities are presented rather than
to take the first option that presents itself in their enthusiasm to be accepted and
‘part of something’. Bry, an attender at another project’s multi sports group, has
shown a great ambition to gain employment. He believes the construction
industry to be an area where there is ‘good money’ to be made and does not
mind the idea of the hard work that would accompany this. His enthusiasm has
led to him being offered ‘dodgy work’ by a local builder and Bry is keen to take it,
preferring the prospect of early starts, bad weather and aching limbs to school.
In this situation staff face a dilemma. They are presented with a young man who
has an enthusiasm for something, is willing to work, and who is aware that he will
be seen in his community as a ‘success’ if he is ‘earning’ and engaged in
productive labour. Indeed, at one session he was trying to recruit a friend for the
venture, showing an engagement with the kind of word of mouth recruitment
based on tight localised networks which can help to secure jobs in socially
disadvantaged areas. At the same time it is precisely these closed employment
networks which can form cul-de-sacs and lead to a lifetime in low paid and
precarious work.
However, where there is less focus on the progression of young people amidst a
concern to modify their behaviour so that they become more capable of attending
school it is harder to sustain the progression of a participant’s journey. The
workers at this project have little space in which to explore Bry’s career choices
56
with him or to help him gain work experience so that he can see the realities of
the trade and possibly raise his aspirations above labouring to, perhaps, learning
a trade, something which would require a sound grasp of figures, perhaps
making school seem a little more real for him. Rather, because of the way the
project is structured, the staff can only offer Bry what they offer, rather than being
able to adapt to help continue his positive development. He may be lost to the
programme not because he is a lost cause but because the project has not
opened the appropriate pathway.
For some participants though it is the project that can provide the stability that
young people are otherwise denied merely through its presence. Monica who is
now 15, has been diagnosed as suffering with ADHD and was excluded from
mainstream school aged 14 due to her ‘violent and aggressive behaviour towards
staff and peers’. However, having internalised a perception of her ‘condition’, she
feels that her ‘flip outs’ are often beyond her control, although when asked about
the cause of her violent attacks Monica frequently defends her actions and
stresses that she was morally right to intervene or act in such a way even if she
had not considered the consequences of her actions at the time.
Figure 4: Monica’s Time-Line
Age 14
Permanently
excluded from
mainstream
school due to
anger
management and
violence against
teacher
July 2005
Attends session
with hand in
bandages
following fight at
the weekend
September 2005
Begins attending
BIP course
PF staff note
improved manners
and behaviour
Receives an
ASBO for violent
attack on ‘goths’
December 2005
Praised for 100%
attendance on
BIP course
Dad rewards her
with a puppy for
improved
behaviour at home
February 2006
June 2006
Age 15 Receives
police reprimand
and faces charge
of ABH after
attacking Aunt for
injecting heroin in
front of her
younger nephew
On first view her developmental time-line suggests a young person whose
behaviour has steadily deteriorated over the course of her involvement with PF
leading to the imposition of an ASBO, a reprimand and a possible charge for
57
ABH. However, this would miss the small shifts in her personality including better
manners, improved family relationships, development of ethical and moral
responsibility and her consistent high levels of attendance at PF sessions which
all contribute to some degree of progressive developmental change.
In this sense it could be argued that PF could engage with a young person in
high quality relationship building work and record developmental progressions
whilst flashpoint incidents out of the realm of PF’s influence continue to occur.
Therefore, PF projects should not necessarily see this type of fractured and
inconsistent progression ‘story’ as a failure but as the context in which work with
participants necessarily occurs. In such circumstances the continued involvement
of participants throughout these periods of disruption is a success in and of itself.
Indeed for Monica, like Chris, exclusion from school has in some ways been a
positive experience, enabling her to engage fully in the alternative curriculum
provided by PF without the ‘baggage’ that went with her experience of school.
Given that social problems and manifestations of problematic behaviour often
occur in collective contexts, the story of PF is often better told in terms of the
collective experience rather than that of the individual as illustrated in the story
told to us by one project worker:
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From this kind of engagement wider developments and community impacts
become possible as revealed following a relationship building day one of our
projects had with their football team in a neighbouring city which was aimed at
breaking down the deep-rooted rivalry between the two urban centres. On the
day of the event itself the ‘lads’ had been so enthused by the prospect of the
outing that they had all turned up at the PF offices an hour and a half earlier than
instructed at 8.30am on a Monday morning. The tournament itself was a great
success and the local newspaper covered the event, including a photograph of all
the participants with the story.
However, this simple measure of success initially hid the fact that when the
article was made public the PF team faced a series of angry phone calls from
local partners including the police. They had been surprised to see the faces of
these locally ‘notorious’ ‘lads’ being rewarded in such a manner and used as a
demonstration of community cohesion and peacemaking. They subsequently
8
NB: Transcribed from notes, no recording.
58
provided the Project Co-ordinator with detailed descriptions of examples of the
persistent and serious anti-social behaviour that they believed the ‘lads’ to have
been involved in on their estate.
This was a particular concern in the context of the tensions which have
characterised relations between young people and the police in the area. Many of
the participants come from white working class families who operate according to
a set of cultural norms which at times runs in open contrast to the formalities of
the law (Hobbs, 1988), prompting the corresponding suspicion and distrust of the
local police. They feel victimised as a result of frequently being ‘moved on’ and in
their eyes ‘harassed’. The dilemma the project faces then is to retain the trust
and respect of the young people while maintaining close links with their local
partners and criminal justice agencies.
In many ways the situation represented something of a test of the projects claims
to be contributing to community development through its developmental
approach of engaging young people which necessitated a response. Things
came to a head one evening when the ‘football lads’ met in the office. The two
Area Development Workers were listing all the activities the project had made
available to them when Kate, the Project Co-ordinator, made a calculated
interruption. Armed with the project partners concerns she told the ‘lads’ that they
wanted all their futures to be really positive and full of opportunity but that it would
be difficult for them to remain involved with if they continued to cause anti-social
and criminal disturbances in the area. She went on to list sensitive descriptions of
their ‘alleged’ activities, demonstrating the extent of her knowledge of what went
on in the area before pointing out that this was disappointing after she had
specifically hired Daniel to work with them and develop activities in the area. Kate
followed this up by asking one of the longest standing participants to comment
upon his relationship with Daniel. To her astonishment he replied, ‘I'd take a
bullet for him'.
Whilst perhaps just being a figure of speech, at one level this comment did
illustrate the extent to which violence and gang culture had penetrated the ‘lads’
street vernacular but at another level it provided a fantastic verification of the
extent to which the worker had become embraced and respected by the ‘lads’ so
early on in his employment. The ‘lads’, who had appeared a little shocked that
the team new so much about their activities, were then invited to reflect on the
fact that all was being asked of them was to avoid this kind of behaviour. They
made it clear that they did want to continue their involvement with the project and
made commitments to stay out of trouble in the future. In the weeks that followed
the disturbances on the estate almost completely stopped and this was noted by
local partners and fed back to the PF team. The ‘lads’ continue to be engaged
with the PF team and have to date kept their promise.
Indeed the extent of the project’s engagement with this group has helped to
break down the barriers between the police and participants. An eleven-a side
59
football match was organised with the police where both sides gave as good as
they got but the game remained good spirited. After the initial success another
match was scheduled and this led to one of the ‘lads’ playing on the police team,
a huge gesture from his perspective. Richard described the events,
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The fact that this lad was flattered instead of horrified to be (jokingly) mistaken as
a police officer is a good sign that some barriers have begun to break down
between some of the young people on the estate and the police. The ultimate
illustration of this for Richard was when the ‘lads’ were bundled off into the back
of a police van in the city, not as detainees but as friends receiving a lift home:
0
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Not only have the young men grown and disregarded some very deep rooted
prejudices but this was a huge step for the officers as well who previously
‘wouldn’t stop on the estate’ as Richard explains:
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This story also points to the ways in which the journey of PF projects can enable
a kind of layered progression which involves the development of participants,
staff, projects, partners and neighbourhoods rather than merely being limited to
individual stories. The development of the girls boxing at one of our projects is
also illustrative of this kind of success.
Frankie was one of the first girls to ever enter Dave’s boxing gym. She hadn’t
particularly wanted to take up boxing but when she and some friends showed
some interest in an opportunity to take up kickboxing through the school they
decided to give it a go, only discovering it was actually boxing at the last moment.
60
Dave was also unsure. He didn’t really want girls in the gym. Not because he
thought they couldn’t box, but because he feared that they would distract his
male boxers. The local PF project persuaded him to give it a go and encouraged
attendance through locally targeted schools.
At first, Frankie found it hard declaring that she ‘hated sports, hated PE, hated
exercises. But once I came up here I just got into everything. Just liked it.’ Of the
initial group of about 10, Frankie was one of three that continued to box after the
school taster sessions. In fact she got so into it that she went most nights after
school, often until the gym closed at around 10pm. Her skills improved fast and
she began coaching some of the younger boxers, getting them skipping, doing
circuits, shadow boxing, and on pads with her in the ring. With her friends Cheryl
and Dawn she soon became an established fixture at the gym.
We were interested to establish what it was that boxing and the gym environment
gave to those who entered into it, above and beyond the direct benefits of
physical fitness; what made it so important to the participants’ lives? It seems that
by attending regularly they became a part of something, and belonged. Their
acceptance into this ‘family’ meant that they developed relationships with others,
including both coaches and boxers. As Frankie suggested:
"
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Cheryl adding:
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This sense of family also came out in the language used by both the coaches
and the young women to describe their relationships. Dave suggesting:
3
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The girls described their relationship with the coaches in equally loving terms:
%
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The use of this familial terminology appears to denote the importance and
closeness of the relationships formed, and how these relationships extend well
beyond the focus on the activity in question. Vitally, for his own part, Dave sees
his role as something more than that of a boxing coach. While his personal
passion is boxing, when he talks about the young people he works with, he is
clear that the sport is a tool of engagement, and it is through the activity and the
arena in which it occurs, that he is able to support and guide the young
participants. They won’t all become boxers, in fact only a few of them might, but
they can all gain a positive input from their involvement.
The boxing gym is presented as a self-sufficient microcosmic world with its own
rules which those who enter are compelled to take on. It provides a sense of
stability and certainty through its promotion of self discipline and mutual respect
which sits in blissful contrast with the confusion and chaos of other aspects of
peoples lives even in terms of changes in the physical environment. Dave is
continually improving and adapting equipment but this is more to do with
practicality than aesthetics. Some renovation has begun but there seems to be a
huge amount of politics and tension about this. Dave really doesn’t want
‘improvements’ made to the gym as he is happy with how it is. Others want the
showers and changing area moved upstairs but he fears he won’t be able to keep
an eye on things. This ‘keeping an eye’ is something Dave does continually and
subtly. The impression is that the gym almost runs itself in a smooth unspoken
way. But in reality this is due to the years of presence and experience Dave has.
He clocks things continually and quickly pulls young people up if their behaviour
slips. However, even this is done in a quiet, undramatic way, so if you were in
another part of the gym you wouldn’t even know.
In this sense young people attend, and are offered training and support in
exchange for their commitment to the club and its ethics.
B
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6
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6 !'
6
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Whilst over the past year their attendance at the gym has waned, and it seemed
as if other aspects of their lives had taken priority, Frankie and Lisa didn’t see the
boxing as something they had moved beyond. Rather, in the face of outside
stresses including school and exams and the pressures associated with turning
18 and legally being termed adults, the gym is seen as a sanctuary, a constant,
62
secure and unchanging thing that will always be there for them. For the last two
years the gym and those in it have had a special and important part to play in the
lives of Frankie, Lisa and lots of other young people who use its facilities. It has
given them, individually, a multitude of benefits, some of which are harder to
capture and won’t be accounted for by a funders’ tickbox. Whatever choices
Frankie and Lisa make now, and whether they continue to be regular gym goers
or not, it is clear from their own observations that it has contributed positively in
their lives, and that without it, they would be unlikely to be where they are now.
Indeed, beyond her own personal development Frankie’s legacy is that the allmale world of the club has been reconfigured. Although Dave still carries a
gendered perspective, clearly thinking that girls should not be fighters, he
accepts them in this space. This transformative potential was previously
illustrated through the accommodation of black young men in an earlier period
when the area was seen as deeply racist and there were few places black and
white young men interacted. This history is traced on the walls of the club, in the
photos of past champions. Now, the space has opened up to young women, an
opening again reflected in the pictures of Frankie and her peers on the wall. The
unifying power of the love of boxing and its tight discipline allows differences to
be brought together in a space of respect.
The key point that emerges from these stories is that whilst the young people
involved with PF have aspirations that might be regarded as in some respects
mundane and ordinary, this does not mean that they do not require assistance in
achieving them. Just as more advantaged children reap the benefits of those
advantages and progress and achieve because of them so those young people
with less opportunity and lower expectations should be supported. The provision
of opportunities and access to facilities by PF helps them to achieve their
potential and entirely realistic aspirations, as opposed to taking them beyond or
avoiding their presumed negative potential for youth crime etc. The challenge is
to find ways to support that journey.
Key message PF projects should not necessarily see the fractured and
inconsistent progression of participants as a failure but as the context in which
appropriate work necessarily occurs. In such circumstances the continued
involvement of participants is a success in and of itself. From this kind of
engagement wider social and community impacts become possible
3.2.3 Project structure, progression models and participant journeys
If the challenge for PF projects is to support disadvantaged young people and
communities in making the kinds of journeys articulated above, then it is worth
reflecting upon how projects have themselves made a journey in learning how to
best support young people. We touched on this process in section 2.4 of this
report in terms of the most appropriate styles of delivery and engagement but
here we want to reflect upon the evolution of the specific progression model
63
developed by one of our case study projects. This model dates to 2001, when the
Millennium Volunteers programme was used as a formal framework for creating
volunteering opportunities for the projects users. The key principles put in place
at this point were that young people need to be:
•
•
•
formally recognised for their contribution, through accreditation and
awards
informally recognised through having the same status as staff
supported through a volunteering action plan and supervision
At the project there are clear systems in place so that when a young person first
attends a session they sign a membership form. One of the things this covers is
what other areas they might be interested in or any needs they may have. One
worker spoke of going into a new estate where there was very little going on:
5
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6 !
!
.
J
Staff members also complete a ‘Debrief Recording’ at the end of sessions which
covers concerns as well as any discussions or ‘personal and social skills
progress’. It seems then that whilst some volunteers become involved through
partner agencies, many become involved through the example and
encouragement of the staff they have contact with.
Once a young person is engaged in an activity, they are given small
responsibilities, usually at the sessions they are attending as users. Often this
means helping the staff on an ad hoc basis, building confidence before making
the volunteering a more formal responsibility. Perhaps illustrating the limited
nature of participants confidence and aspirations, once established, the first
volunteering experience can be transformative as one young person revealed, ‘I
was ecstatic after my first session. I went home and told my mum about it. I
phoned up [my supervisor] and told him. I was full of myself.’
The ideal for this project is to then provide credit of some sort for this basic
volunteering. Firstly, there is the informal recognition that goes with positive
reinforcement from supervisors, a Volunteer of the Month award that all
volunteers get to vote on and the wider sense of being part of the project team.
Secondly, there are basic awards and certificates, such as the Millennium
Volunteers and Junior Volunteers Awards. Thirdly, volunteers are encouraged to
take up short training opportunities, e.g. in health and safety, child protection, or
skills relevant to their interests with accreditation, such as through the Open
College Network, pursued wherever possible. Finally, the project supports
volunteers and sessional staff on to more structured courses, culminating in a
Diploma and then a Degree in Youth and Community Studies. Those who are still
keen to learn are identified to be particularly nurtured within the organisation.
64
This process fits into a wider ‘action plan’, based on a social work ‘case’ model.
As soon as they are registered, volunteers are encouraged to develop a personal
action plan, with clear goals both within and beyond the volunteering period. A
Membership Agreement is completed on first contact with the project, then a
Personal Development Plan as soon as a young people identifies a need (e.g. a
desire to take up DJing). Volunteers are inducted through a formal interview, and
then a Volunteer Action Plan is developed at subsequent supervisions with
appropriate review dates when a move to a new level of volunteering might be
suggested. The step from ad hoc volunteering to a regular commitment can be a
huge one for young people, which can transform their image of who they are and
what they are capable of, as another former volunteer recalled:
3
6
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6
6
!
6 B
70
6
!
!
!
But if this can be daunting, the subsequent step to paid work was viewed by
some interviewees as a moment of great pride, a fulfilment of their hopes.
Others, however, minimised its significance in the context of doing a job that had
already been learned, that they had been well prepared for. ‘I was still doing
exactly the same thing, but more hours and more responsibility and pay’, said
one interviewee. ‘You’re made to feel like a real staff member when you’re just a
volunteer, so it doesn’t feel much different’, said another.
In any case, with the process well established at the project, as young people are
taken along this developmental pathway, there are always figures slightly further
along the line who can act as role models – young people from the same estates,
who were initially recruited in the same way, who have been given slightly more
responsibility. Because of these role models, the progression route is very clear
to young people due to the shared set of experiences.
This process of young people moving through and progressing to become
employees of the project, thus delivering in the ways in which they have been
delivered to, is eminently sustainable and self-renewing. It ensures that real
learning is passed on, and utilises the enthusiasm and example of the
‘converted’. The staff themselves can, therefore, become aspirational role models
for the next generation. Workers are also very aware, not just of the people just in
front of them on the pathway, but also of those just behind them. This means that
they are able to spot when a volunteer is getting into any difficulties and provide
the support needed. It also means they are constantly on the ‘look-out’ for talent,
identifying young people who could be developed and brought into the team.
Key message In order to support young people’s progression it is vital that
projects provide access to both informal and formal recognition of their
65
achievements and well structured and signposted pathways into volunteering and
employment
3.3 Every Child Matters
This focus on facilitating young people’s progression through an emphasis on
support rather than coercion is now a cornerstone of government policy following
the publication of Every Child Matters (ECM): Change for Children. This policy
document suggests a ‘new approach to the well-being of children and young
people from birth to age 19’ the aim of which is for every child to have the support
they need to:
•
•
•
•
•
be healthy
stay safe
enjoy and achieve
make a positive contribution
achieve economic well-being
In this context an elaborate outcomes framework has been developed in order to
facilitate the ability of children’s and young people’s services to evidence their
success. Clearly their capacity to do so will require more sophisticated modes of
monitoring and evaluation than have typically been associated with this work
sector and a new monitoring and evaluation framework has been employed by
PF to support projects in this endeavor, which we review in the following section.
From our observations though it is clear that PF projects are exceptionally well
placed to address this agenda. At a structural level, they are all involved in the
kind of collaborative working and information sharing that ECM demands whilst at
the delivery level, PF projects meet a whole variety of elements of the ECM
outcomes framework criteria.
3.3.1 Be Healthy
All of the PF case study projects, and by implication all projects within the
national programme, offer a range of opportunities for involvement in structured
physical activity. In the context of Government guidance for good health
suggesting that young people should be involved in at least one hour of
moderate intensity sport and physical activity five days a week, at the most basic
levels PF projects are making a contribution. One of our case study projects has
also offered cookery classes for younger participants, based on the promotion of
healthy eating and teamed up with a local rugby league club to take a group of
young people through a fitness challenge, building up stamina and co-ordination
over a number of weeks. The day long nature of activities, such as outdoor
pursuits, means there is greater scope to improve fitness whilst ‘leisure
passports’ are offered to participants so they can use local facilities outside of
their time with PF.
66
However, their contribution extends well beyond the encouragement of such
activity. The Girl Empower scheme, which has a small number of PF participants
from one of our projects, encourages healthy eating, runs a drugs education
session and deals with issues of grooming/sexual health. At another project,
teenage boys have learnt how to cook through their attendance at the socially
oriented ‘lads evenings’ where Richard combines ‘having a laugh’ with learning
important life skills in their transition to adulthood. Healthy eating is also flagged
up at a number of sports sessions, but whether the message is received and
embraced beyond the PF environment is questionable, since participants at
another project rarely bring lunch and fluids to sessions as requested, favouring a
snatched diet of pop and crisps when food is not provided.
At a more fundamental level, one of the key founding objectives of PF was to
have an impact on young people’s substance misuse. Whilst all of our case study
projects have addressed substance misuse issues in different ways, two are
based within ‘substance misuse’ agencies, employing staff who on a day to day
basis are able to offer young people assistance and guidance in this area. Older
clients from these services also participate in PF as part of wider programme for
addressing their own more established substance misuse issues.
3.3.2 Stay Safe
Whilst PF projects are not ‘crime prevention’ initiatives, as we suggested in
earlier sections of this report, time spent with projects does, for the most part,
provide a safe space in which young people can operate, in that they are being
engaged in structured activities under adult supervision providing protection from
external pressures. Beyond the activities they provide, many of the projects now
provide spaces which are viewed as a hub for young people where they can
come and feel safe. At one project, which works with ‘lads’ whose activities are in
some ways bounded by local territorial rivalries, the office base has created a
neutral space and potential point of contact.
Through their contact with vulnerable young people, projects are also able to
make more targeted interventions aimed at reducing the risks facing participants.
In the context of awareness of the ‘binge drinking’ culture amongst the girls and
young women at one project, appropriately delivered advice on ‘safer drinking’
and the links between drinking and personal safety have been provided.
At another project work, with older clients includes efforts to use PF as a means
to help ‘fill the void’ created when participants leave the risky ‘world’ of substance
misuse. However, outside the context of more heavily engaged work with
individual young people, the fact that most participants’ time is largely spent in
local environments where projects have no presence clearly limits the capacity to
have an impact. For some participants though, PF represents a lifeline. An Area
Development Worker at one project recently provided one of his core group,
67
Chrissy, with a mobile phone, paid for with PF money. Chrissy is a twelve year
old boy who lives with his two younger siblings and his parents who are both
habitual heroin and crack users. It was decided that in order to ensure regular
contact was possible the most appropriate method was to provide him with a
mobile phone. Chrissy has made use of this to keep in contact and to arrange
attendance at sessions as he welcomes the ‘relief’ that the project brings from his
daily chores and responsibilities in his more chaotic domestic setting. In this
sense, the project represents much more than an activity scheme; for Chrissy it is
seen as a respite, a safe haven.
3.3.3 Enjoy and Achieve
Perhaps more than any other aspect of the ECM outcomes framework PF
provides an opportunity for young people to ‘enjoy and achieve’. The fact that
such large numbers of young people have remained engaged with the
programme, many of whom were not formally referred but became involved
voluntarily, points to the attractiveness of the environments, atmosphere and
activities made available. In this sense, whilst other issues must be factored in,
the varying capacity of projects to retain participants may well be reflective of
their capacity to provide an enjoyable experience. We have, for instance,
observed contexts in which the activities provided for young women have been
driven more by the cultural expectations of practitioners than the desires and
cultural frames of reference of the young women themselves. In such contexts it
has been harder to retain participant interest and, in turn, to influence outlooks
and aspirations. Overall though it is clear that projects have demonstrated great
flexibility in delivering a wide range of attractive options. Indeed the last PF
Impact Report, End of Season Review, reveals that there are now over 24 sports
and activities being delivered across the programme which have over 600 young
people regularly participating (Home Office, 2006:18).
As the programme moves forward and places a heavier emphasis on
volunteering, accreditation and qualifications, projects have also become much
more active in ensuring that young people have some measure of their
‘achievements’ in terms of coaching badges and ASDAN training. In the best
cases, this process of development is reflected in the journey that participants
take through the roles of participant to volunteer to sessional worker and onto
full-time employment. There are a growing number of examples of this process
from across our case studies and at one, half of the current workforce has
successfully traveled down this pathway.
3.3.4 Make a Positive Contribution
In many ways, at least in terms of the best exponents of the programmes national
strategy statements, one of the principle concerns of PF is to make a positive
contribution. On the one hand, in terms of projects making a positive contribution
to young people’s lives rather than employing punitive measures to control their
68
behaviour, and on the other hand in terms of encouraging and facilitating young
people’s opportunities, aspirations and achievements. The desire to serve the
community, to ‘give back’, is a key aspect which emerged from several of our
case studies. We see the progression model highlighted in the previous section
as fostering a very strong sense of active citizenship and public service among
young people. The idea of doing ‘good’ for the community is deeply embedded in
the activities young people are engaged in. The fact that young people see great
value in youth and community work, a value equal to or greater than the
monetary value associated with other career paths, is evidence that the public
service values that have traditionally characterised the voluntary sector can be
embedded in the youth culture of the inner city.
Indeed, one of the third phase projects amongst our case studies has embraced
this vision with added zeal, itself taking on the role of a wider facilitator of
community development focused around its work with young people. The
projects’ commitment to engaging young people within this process is reflected in
the contributions that a range of participants have made since they became
involved with the project. One of the participants in the ‘football focus’ sessions
has, on his own initiative, now created his own ‘young kids footie team’ and is
working with the project to search for sponsorship to turn the project into a
credible community scheme. Other participants have joined together through
their love of music to create a community DJ company and hope to become a
social enterprise with links to the PF project. Other participants from a local
estate have joined with PF to approach the registered social landlord in order to
acquire an abandoned piece of land. The young people want to turn the space
into a ‘City Oasis’, for themselves and the community to enjoy.
3.3.5 Achieve Economic Wellbeing
Aside from the provision of subsidised access to a range of activities, in terms of
achieving economic well being it is quite clearly a major challenge for projects to
demonstrate a significant impact particularly in light of the relatively small
proportion of work with older participants across the programme. Nevertheless, a
small number of participants from our case study projects have moved into
employment as a result of their involvement, including those former participants
who now work for projects. The move towards accrediting young peoples
achievements and providing volunteering opportunities will help to bring some of
these benefits to a wider number of participants by strengthening their personal
profiles and CVs. Indeed some projects have also assisted participants with the
search for employment more directly by helping them to prepare CVs, letters of
application and accompanying them to the local Connexions office. However
limited, the link at one of our case studies to the host agency’s adult service
provides something of a model for older participants, as through it they are able
to access a service which helps them to locate training and work.
69
Key message PF projects are perhaps uniquely placed to achieve the objectives
outlined in the ECM Outcomes Framework
3.3 The final score: A new M&E framework for PF
Despite the diverse impacts of the programme, until recently PF was served by a
monitoring and evaluation framework which was based upon periodic and largely
quantitative surveys. This approach limited projects’ capacity to ‘tell their story’
and, more importantly, failed to empower projects to make use of the ‘data’
collected at a local level. The surveys did represent the breadth and reach of
projects’ work – information which helped to secure continued commitment from
government and other funding bodies – but they did not reflect the complex and
evolutionary nature of both participants’ and projects’ journeys. Furthermore the
surveys were not focused specifically on the relationship between PF and
government agendas such as Every Child Matters.
As a result of these shortcomings, and following the lessons drawn from earlier
case study research reports, in summer 2005 the PF programme began piloting a
new M&E framework developed by Substance.9 The framework, which was
piloted with nine projects including two from the case study research, was
designed with a number of principles in mind. These included a belief that any
M&E framework adopted by PF should be more participatory in nature and
should seek to achieve fresh and inclusive ways of assessing and learning.
There was also a belief that any new framework should reflect both the process
of change associated with PF and the views and aspirations of those most
directly affected by it. In terms of reporting, it was felt that the new framework
should, wherever possible, ensure compatibility with project partners’ information
needs. To achieve this, Substance placed the Every Child Matters Outcomes
Framework at the heart of the project reporting mechanism, as well as embracing
wider youth work oriented models of assessing participant progress.
The piloting of the framework generated useful debates between Substance and
the nine projects, and ultimately contributed to the development of a
comprehensive new M&E framework for PF which has been rolled out from
summer 2006. The framework is organised according to a number of ‘tiers’ and
an online reporting mechanism.
3.2.5.1 Tier 1: The Log Book
The framework first embraces a project Log Book (a paper-based folder) which
has replaced the Key Elements survey as the primary source of quantitative data
collection. Used by staff involved in frontline delivery, it provides both a means to
9
www.substance.coop
70
record basic session and attendance data, as well as a method of tracking
participant progress and significant incidents.
The Log Book contains three main proformas for the recording of information: the
‘Scheme Profile’ which documents the activities being delivered; ‘Participant
Details’ which facilitate the recording of young people’s key information; and
‘Session Registers’ which help to monitor attendance. Together, these generate
essential baseline evidence for projects.
In addition to the three main proformas, the Log Books contain ‘General
Comments’ sheets on which staff can record more detailed and critical
observations of activities and young people’s engagement with them. The
‘Session Registers’ also include a facility to record ‘Engagement Level’ notes for
individual young people (see below).
3.2.5.2 Tier 2: The Engagement Matrix
Based upon learning from youth work progression models and the engagement
matrix developed by darts, a community arts project in Doncaster,10 a number of
‘levels’ of engagement and achievement, characterised by a range of behaviours,
have been identified which are designed to help PF projects capture and reflect
the ‘pathways’ which participants may follow.
Table 3: Engagement Levels
Level 1
Disengagement
Sit out and ignore
activity
Encourage disputes
Level 2
Curiosity
Watch activity
Dip in and out
Distract others
Ask questions
Walk out
Listen to staff
and peers
Make negative
comments
Comment on
activity
Destroy/damage
facilities
Talk to others
about activity
Try activity on
own
10
Level 3
Involvement
Join in with
others
Respond to
instruction
Talk about
experiences
Enjoy good
relations with
others
Share facilities
Handle conflict &
confrontation
with maturity
Attend regularly
Level 4
Achievement
Complete tasks
Level 5
Autonomy
Initiate ideas
Communicate
with staff outside
of activity
Make positive
statements
Celebrate work
publicly
Help plan and
run activities
Make
connections
beyond project
Gain
accreditation and
qualifications
Manage conflict
between others
Advise and
educate peers
Praise work of
others
Volunteer
Make ‘career’
choices
Gain
employment
See Hirst & Robertshaw (2003)
71
By way of illustration, it is instructive to consider the example of one young
person whose engagement was monitored using the engagement tool during the
piloting of the new M&E framework. Irving’s ‘progress’ has rarely been linear, but
as a broad trend he moved from Level 2 (Curiosity) to Level 4 (Achievement) in
recent months, and has even exhibited some elements of behaviour which could
be classified as Level 5 (Autonomy). Despite this, if Irving was to be ‘monitored’
in more conventional ways, it would be almost impossible to discern any
progress. He is still on a partial school timetable and is soon to be transferred to
a Pupil Referral Unit. This information does not mean, however, that one should
dismiss Irving’s increasing engagement with PF as evidence of progress. On the
contrary, it is from this ‘success’ in the context of the project that further small
and incremental changes in Irving’s life may follow. Irving’s engagement with the
PF project will hopefully demonstrate for him a different way of connecting with
life – a new way of ‘being’ – which could open up a range of new possibilities. By
any standard, this should be considered a ‘success’.
In should be noted that the engagement tool also has a developmental purpose
for projects as well as for young people. Rather than just being a means of
recording outcomes, the tool is designed to encourage staff to be more proactive
in their work with young people, helping them to identify different stages of
development and to tailor support accordingly. At one of the projects where the
new M&E framework has been piloted staff are already discussing individuals
and sessions and their progress more often, and are holding end of month young
people’s review meetings which all core and sessional staff attend. At a recent
meeting, it was agreed that all young people who had disengaged from the
project would be contacted to discuss reasons for their non-attendance and how
they could be re-engaged. Also, following a session where young people had
scored relatively poorly on the engagement matrix, staff told us they intended to
consult with the young people about making changes to the session content in
the hope that this would encourage the girls and young women who attend to
engage more enthusiastically. In line with these experiences, it is envisaged that,
in addition to providing a new means by which to monitor and record the
development of young people, use of the engagement tool will provide a new
mechanism which invites projects to continually reflect on the practice and
experience of their work.
3.2.5.3 Tier 3: Qualitative Evidence and Every Child Matters
In order to enable projects to more fully represent their journeys, ‘impacts’ and
‘successes’, it was felt that the new M&E framework should embrace imaginative
and participative approaches which would generate qualitative case stories and
multi-media representations of projects’ work in action. As such the third tier of
the framework embraces a new ‘toolkit’ which is focused specifically on enabling
projects to evidence achievements against the Every Child Matters Outcomes
Framework .
72
The toolkit is designed to provide projects with suggestions for how they can
evidence their impacts in interesting, useful ways which do not require a great
deal of time and frequently can be built into project activities. Indeed the intention
is that this more participatory M&E activity should be viewed as an integral part of
PF projects’ programmes of work. The toolkit points out that there are various
innovative methods which can act both as activity sessions and as forms of M&E
evidence. In addition, it is also noted that there are other formats of data
collection which projects probably already utilise without recognising them as
M&E activities. The suggestions in the toolkit are organised against the subcategories of the ECM Outcomes Framework, and details are provided for the
variety of ways in which projects can generate ‘evidence’ of such activities. In the
final pages of the toolkit, detailed ‘How To’ guides are provided on the types of
M&E ‘evidence’ (documents, audio-visual material, maps, etc.) which can be
generated from everyday project activities, and how these can be stored
electronically and used in annual and other reports (see below).
The collection of this tier of information has been designed with various purposes
in mind. It will enable projects to capture and report young people’s voices and
detail their experiences on various schemes of work. It will also facilitate projects’
abilities to demonstrate the full range of their activities and the stories of their
development. Furthermore, as with the engagement tool, it is envisaged that the
third tier data will provide projects with information which enables them to reflect
on practice and the individual needs of young people. It will also provide them
with a whole range of materials which can be used in communication with
partners and potential funders.
3.2.5.4 Reporting – The Substance Project Reporting System (SPRS)
The three tiers of the new M&E framework are supported by the online
Substance Project Reporting System (SPRS). This is used by individual PF
projects and the Substance team to record, store and analyse baseline,
engagement and qualitative evidence linked to the ECM Outcomes Framework.
The ‘inputting’ functions of the SPRS are organised according to the same
principles as the three tiers of the M&E framework. The system allows projects to
transfer and process session details, attendance registers and participant
information which may have been gathered using the project Log Books. With
reference to participant information, projects have been instructed that they are
not required to gather all details in the first instance, but rather should see the
collection as a process which might reveal something of the emergent
relationship between the project staff and the participant. The system also
enables projects to record engagement levels for young people as well as to
monitor the history of their engagement over time.
In terms of information which is additional to that recorded in the Log Book, the
system allows projects to record details of various ‘outcomes’ and qualifications
73
which might have been achieved by young people during their time with projects.
It also enables them to record details of court orders which might be pertinent in
situations where young people have had restrictions placed on their movements
or associations. Furthermore, the system has a facility which helps projects to
record 1-2-1 sessions with young people (either formal or informal) and any
‘action points’ which might have developed from such discussions.
The final inputting element of the SPRS is the ‘Files’ function which enables
projects to upload documents, websites and audio-visual files. To categorise this
evidence, projects are asked to classify files in various ways so that they are
easy to search for and organise for use in reports.
The reporting functions in the SPRS are currently three fold: Statistics; ‘Tag
Clouds’; and Reports. The Statistics function produces instant, ‘live’ numbers on
young people associated with projects which can be classified by any category or
time-scale deemed pertinent or appropriate. These statistics can be exported for
use at any point. The Tag Cloud function provides a visual representation of all
the ‘key words’ associated with the ‘Files’ in the system. The more often a word
or phrase has been used, the larger it will appear in the ‘cloud’. The Report
function is a user-friendly rapid reporting mechanism which enables projects to
put together annual and other reports quickly as long as data in the system is
fully up-to-date.
All three report functions have been designed with a range of purposes in mind.
Most obviously, they enable projects to report back to Substance which is
responsible for programme-wide M&E activities for PF. Maybe more importantly,
however, they are also intended to be useful at a local, project level in terms of
providing projects with valuable information for discussions with funders and
partners, but also in terms of encouraging projects to reflect on their practice and
delivery, as well as on the development of young people. The tag cloud, for
instance, is useful not only in terms of telling the story of a project to an external
party, but is also helpful in encouraging project staff to periodically scrutinise
what it is their project is actually doing. Equally, the statistics section provides
projects with instant information on the gender, geographical, age and ethnic
profile of participants on different schemes, thereby encouraging comparative
analysis of different types of work.
This approach to making M&E activities useful and even indispensable for
projects is almost without precedent. Far too often in the past, projects have
viewed M&E as a distraction and a distinctly troublesome activity which was
experienced principally via the act of sending information off to people who did
not report back anything of any local value. With the new M&E framework in
place, and with positive initial feedback from the pilot projects, PF is now in an
excellent position to generate the first comprehensive, useful and verifiable
programme-wide assessment of the impact of a sport-based social intervention.
74
Part Four: Conclusion
In the publication On the Eastside (Crabbe & Slaughter, 2004), which focused on
the estate based social inclusion interventions of Leyton Orient Community
Sports Programme (LOCSP), an attempt was made to re-think the ways in which
outcomes are assessed by drawing on Andrew Scull’s famous essay, Community
Corrections: Panacea, Progress or Pretence (1983). By adapting and refining
Scull’s questioning framework, an initial typological assessment of the claims that
could be made of the work of LOCSP in particular, and sporting interventions
more generally, was developed. Ultimately, the three ‘claims’ (panacea, pretence
and progress) were considered with reference to various factors or potential
outcomes, namely:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sport
Community
Clients
The State
Social inclusion
Evidence
Whilst recognising that none of the characterisations fully reflects the complexity
of the project’s work with young people, a preference was suggested for the
‘progress’ perspective in a context of the fruitlessness associated with measuring
‘success’ and ‘failure’. Funding partners and evaluators may seek a ‘panacea’ for
social problems on the basis of assessments which are total, fixed and uncontentious, but ultimately this very process is itself a ‘pretence’. It is our
assessment then that, given the complexities involved, any honest evaluative
framework will necessarily be partial, contingent and subjective. As will be clear
from the preceding part of this Report no one example of work or life history fits
neatly with any of Scull’s three ‘claims’. As with the examples from LOCSPs
work, each of the stories we have followed here are characterized by clashes,
which enable them to be simultaneously advocated and refuted, illustrated and
contradicted.
What is different about our findings here though is that whilst the work on LOCSP
suggested the organisation had ‘produced a range of tactics, approaches and
styles that can broadly be characterised as compatible with the progressive
model’ (Crabbe & Slaughter, 2003:104) we are less convinced that this applies
across the sector or even to the PF programme as a whole. As such, we are
drawn to the ways in which Hylton and Totten (2001) have invoked Raymond
William’s (1977) work in relation to considerations of community sports practice.
According to Williams, at any given moment within a culture, there is a ‘dominant’
culture, an ‘emergent’ culture, and one that has past, but still leaves its ‘residual’
marks on the current forms of culture.
75
Hylton and Totten used this model to develop a taxonomy of influences within the
‘culture’ of community sports development which distinguishes between the:
•
•
•
‘Dominant’ - ‘Sport for All’ model
‘Residual’ - ‘Action Sport’ model, and
‘Emergent’ - ‘Best Value’ and ‘Active Sports’ models.
What they seem to be arguing is that within the field of community sports practice
we have moved from an approach characterised by grounded community
interventions (Action Sport) to a catch all panacea approach (Sport for All) and
now towards a marketised model (Best Value). Leaving aside the difficulties
associated with the dubious claim that the Action Sport model was ever
‘dominant’, for the purposes of better understanding the PF approach and its
impact we would suggest an alternative interpretation on the basis of the cultural
disciplines which underpin various models of community sport practice. For us it
is possible to distinguish between a ‘Dominant’ approach characterised by a
sports development perspective and a ‘Residual’ approach whose legacy derives
from the Victorian Rational Recreation and Muscular Christianity movements,
leaving the social inclusion and community development approach previously
associated with the ‘Action Sport’ model and now espoused by PF as a new
‘Emergent’ force.
Table 4: A new taxonomy of community sport practice
Category
Dominant
Residual
Emergent
Approach
Characteristics
Sports
Performance led
Development Highly structured/standardised
Fixed term
‘Expert’ driven
National/regional programmes
Institutional
Victorian
Authoritarian moral and social development
Commitment to Rational Recreation perspective
Disciplinarian approaches and values
Social
Addressing social disadvantage
inclusion
Personal and social development approach
Flexible, long term participant focused work
Local
Of course the whole point of Williams’ work is that rather than these cultural
influences being distinct and separate, the dominant, residual and emergent
forces are seen to straddle one another, denying each a final sense of
hegemonic authority. In this sense, the categories cannot be applied to specific
programmes or periods in the way that Hylton and Totten suggest. The sports
development model cannot be seen in isolation from the influences of the
Victorian sports project just as much as it is now getting pulled in new directions
76
by the Government’s social inclusion and community regeneration agendas.
Similarly, it would be absurd to categorise any individual sports programme as
some kind of vestige of Victorian influences, although it may be possible to
identify stronger traces within some programmes and sports - such as boxing than others.
As such whilst we are inclined towards the representation of the social inclusion
perspective of PF as an emergent influence within the field of community sports
practice, which is increasingly likely to assume a dominant position, this cannot
be claimed in any complete and uniform sense. Rather it may be possible within
the PF programme to identify a further range of broad influences which may help
to determine the future direction of the programme and, in turn, community sports
practice more generally.
Table 5: Taxonomy of PF project approaches
Category
Dominant
Approach
Crime
reduction
Residual
Sport
development
Emergent
Social
inclusion
Characteristics
Highly targeted
Criminal justice agency led
Focused on the control and management of
disruptive behaviour
Focus on development of mass participation
Activity driven
Led by conventional sport providers
Focused on personal and social development
Flexible, outreach approaches
Community based and led
Whilst we have included a ‘crime reduction’ approach here as the ‘dominant’
category, this is based upon the original designation of the PF programme rather
than the models of practice that have developed from it. From our observations it
is clear that the social inclusion or community development approach, epitomised
by two of our case studies - one from the first phase and one from the third phase
- is the emergent and increasingly dominant influence. It is these projects that
have most clearly and un self-consciously demonstrated their success in
retaining young people’s engagement, contributing to their personal development
and impacting upon their wider patterns of behaviour. Indeed key personnel from
these projects have become instrumental in helping to inform and manage the
new strategic directions for the programme over the life term of the research.
What these projects also represent is a form of social enterprise which is seen to
be attractive because on the one hand it speaks the language of ‘community’,
whilst also representing a social policy intervention which can be managed on
market lines. Indeed through their more entrepreneurial approach they are far
more effective at doing this than the more conventional sports and social welfare
providers who have embraced models of working characterised by concepts of
77
‘best value’. In this sense the more innovative elements of the PF programme do
not challenge the ultimate dominance of market forces but are fiercely committed
to finding ways to redirect resources to those who have been the principle victims
of those forces. Whilst hardly revolutionary and undoubtedly underpinned by
wider societal fears of social breakdown, crime and disorder, this does represent
a fundamental break with the overt social control agendas of the Victorian sports
project and the sports for sports sake approach which was dominant during the
late 20th century.
78
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80
Appendix 1: Research Activity, Positive Futures
Case Study Research Project, 2004-2006
Number of days spent with projects
475
Number of activity sessions attended
396
Approximate number of days spent at project offices
282
Number of ‘events’ attended with project staff
27
Number of social contacts with staff/young people
2011
Number of ‘residentials’ attended
7
Number of research exercises – mapping, questionnaires, etc – 33
conducted with young people
Number of interviews with staff (NB: Some staff interviewed more 82
than once)
Number of interviews with project partners
53
Number of formal interviews with young people
3012
11
Not including informal time spent during lunch breaks etc.
Due to the problematic nature of formal interviews with young people we preferred to engage in
more informal discussions and activity based research exercises to ascertain young people’s
views. Informal contact and discussion was maintained with young people at all activity sessions
as well as in project offices and social locations
12
81
Appendix 2: Summary of Participant Journeys
Project Participant
1
Jane
1
Ronnie
1
Rod
1
Sonny
‘Journey’
Jane ran away from home in 2004 and a Connexions worker quickly referred her onto the PF
one-2-one and a female only scheme. Jane really enjoyed the sessions and over time
progressed on to become a mentor to the other participants. However despite this success Jane
is no longer involved in the project and the staff have now lost touch with her. In this sense on
the basis of the project’s failure to maintain contact Jane has moved through an engagement
pathway characterised by curiosity leading to involvement but ultimately to disengagement.
Ronnie was 14 at the start of the research and was engaged in a multi sports group. He gained
accreditation in snow boarding, despite saying that he is not the most enthusiastic of sportsmen.
He was referred onto the programme by his school as he had been excluded 3 times in one year.
In the summer of 2005, Ronnie had a major operation and, because the programme’s activities
are invariably physical, this meant he was unable to maintain his involvement. He recuperated
and is now back with the project. However, he is being ‘moved on’ from PF shortly, ‘not because
[he’s] done anything wrong, but [because he doesn’t] need to be here any more,’ reported a
member of staff. Ronnie’s commitment to maintain engagement throughout disruptive periods
including moving house and illness make it even more disappointing that the PF project can no
longer maintain his participation and provide an onward pathway. Ronnie is therefore now
involuntarily disengaged from the scheme.
Rod was 14 at the start of the research and lives with his extended family. Project workers have
noted that ‘his family gets a lot of stick because they’re noisy and their ‘different’. They’ve had a
brick through the window.’ He was referred on to the project through his school. He had an
ASBO, but this has now expired. The project has since noticed a change in his behaviour
commenting that ‘he had no eye contact; but he’s not so shy now!’ Rod was working towards his
JSLA with the Youth Service but disengaged with PF in the summer of 2005. His decision to drop
out coincided with his brother deciding he did not want to join and staff have not pursued him
since. Like some of the others at this project Rod’s engagement has then moved through stages
of curiosity and involvement but ultimately to disengagement.
Sonny was referred to PF by the Junior YIP due to his frequent fighting and his sister has also
82
1
Irving
1
Rachael
been engaged by PF. Sonny is a great teller of tales and interacts easily stating that his ambition
is to be either a scrap metal dealer or a policeman. His teachers report that he is a good attender
and he talks enthusiastically about a digital photo project he is involved with. Sonny remained
with PF through his transition to secondary school. His behaviour remained good and he enjoys
the sessions, participating in all activities and suggesting others. He still has literacy problems
and, although his confidence has improved, he lacks the social skills to deal comfortably with
formal settings, being best suited to small group work. He loves cars, and joined a PF associated
motor project, and would like his Estate to be improved. He reports that he’s less involved in
fights now and retains his love of animals, fishing and camping. Whilst Sonny’s engagement has
been consistent and developmental and he has managed to improve his violent outbursts he has
not yet gained commensurate accreditation.
Irving has low self esteem, communication problems, moderate learning difficulties, and has
been diagnosed as suffering from ADHD and ‘borderline Aspergers.’ He bullied and was
excluded from primary school and is now at Secondary school. He was referred by Social
Services who feared he was in danger of becoming involved in ASB on his Estate. An internal
assessment reports that his behaviour at PF is now greatly improved. He hates football, but
loves fishing and outdoor pursuits, which the project can offer him. Although he is now much
more sociable at the project, he is about to go to a PRU. He is a regular attender and, when
towards the end of the research, Social Services tried to persuade his Mother to involve other
agencies in his 'package', she told his social worker that she considered that strong, enjoyable
relationships with adult neighbours and involvement with PF to be sufficient for Irving. Irving is
keen to remain involved with PF after his transfer to a PRU and he chats enthusiastically about
hobbies and part time work.
Rachael was referred to PF in mid 2004 and has taken part in female only sessions. She was
referred by the YOT when she was on a final warning for causing criminal damage at school,
where she was frequently on report. She went on to attend Haley’s evening group, before its
demise where she enjoyed the arts and crafts on offer. Since engaging with PF, she has not
been on report and attended school regularly. Her mood swung from bubbly and loving to sullen
and distant, but she was well liked by other participants and said that, although she found PF
sessions hard going at times, because of the demands to attend regularly and to engage in
accredited work, she felt she had ‘come on’ during her time with the project, in terms of building
83
1
Mary
1
Samuel
2
Monica
her patience and getting along better with others. She was recently ‘dragged off the street’ and
into a dance session by a worker, but has now disengaged.
Mary is deemed to be a high risk by the project. She was referred by the YOT in mid 2004, after
an offence of criminal damage. She had difficulty interacting with adults and peers when she
came to the project, but now works well with staff and participants of both sexes. Project workers
have traced some of her anger and insularity to the death of a close relative; her Mother had not
been able to make the link but now, the two of them have worked through the issues. As well as
being part of the multi sports group, Mary also took part in female only football sessions,
facilitated by the Youth Service. She has remained with the group throughout the research and
staff feel that her behaviour has improved, although she still causes ‘problems’ in the
neighbourhood. She still feels a need to develop coping strategies to address her anger and has
spoken of moving out of the area as a means of getting away from stressful influences.
Unfortunately, like others, she will also be ‘moved on’ by the project shortly, although there may
be the opportunity for her to take a JSLA via another project.
Samuel attended the project Youth Club. He has an older brother and lives in the centre of town
with his father who maintains a clean and orderly home which is well equipped with IT and
gaming equipment. He was referred by Social Services who classify him as Looked After.
Because of a fairly isolated, sedentary home life, Social Services were keen for him to have
access to a wider circle of friends, and physical activity. Samuel told how, ‘I only have one mate,
but I have a snake as well.’ He is impeccably polite and immaculately turned out in his school
uniform. Samuel dropped out of PF after only a few sessions. His Dad wasn’t enthusiastic about
him attending, and his older brother did not engage with PF when approached to do so.
Monica is 14 and was referred onto the Behaviour Improvement Programme (BIP) in the summer
of 2005 following a history of involvement in bullying behaviour and lower educational attainment
than her ability would suggest. When noting the young persons’ strengths the referral agent
claimed that Monica ‘enjoys all aspects of sport’. The referral onto the BIP programme was due
to her risk of permanent exclusion from school. Monica has been sent home from school
repeatedly due to her ‘aggression towards staff and her peers’. She currently has an ASBO and
is facing charges for ABH however she has had an excellent attendance level on the PF / BIP
scheme and PF staff have noted much improvement in her behaviour. Therefore Monica’s
engagement can be seen as ranging through disruptive and non-participatory to engaged and
84
2
Davey
2
Joseph
2
Alfie and
Steve
2
Robbie
consistent.
Davey is 15 and is the smallest and youngest looking of the group, he is also slightly overweight
resulting in regular verbal insults from other participants. Davey attempts to be involved in the
sport activities but his constrained ability prevents him from feeling fully included and as a result
he often sits on the side-lines and observes. The diversity of the programme means that there
are other activities, which Davey is willing and able to undertake. For example he was actively
involved in a recent orienteering trip and gave it a go when many of the others decided to sit in
the mini-bus or kick a ball around the car park.
Joseph had been attending the biodiversity and access project (BAP) for around a year
alongside the PF staff. Over the year he grew fond of the rangers and the work he was doing
with them. His troubled family life meant that he was in and out of care and recently his Mum
decided to move away from the area and take him with her. On arriving at his new home, Joseph
kept in touch with the rangers and told them how he really wanted to continue with the BAP work.
The PF manager contacted the local ranger team and provided Joseph with a good reference.
Since then Joseph has been working for the rangers in his new home town and is still in contact
with the rangers at the BAP. His reference, accredited training and his positive attitude all
factored in his new success. Although no longer engaged with the project his involvement led to
a successful outcome.
Alfie and Steve are brothers and were aged 13 and 11 respectively when they were engaged
with the PF XL evening scheme in 2004. They had been referred through the local YOT and
were known to many other welfare agencies due to their parents hard drug addiction. The
brothers were described by one worker as ‘thick as thieves’ and on their last engagement (a
residential trip) they showed great solidarity when faced with the prospect of being sent home.
The lads were a real handful for the project and were not invited back on the XL scheme after
their 12 week placement. Both brothers have a sharp and witty sense of humour and seemed
oblivious to the other lads ‘skits’ at their scruffy and often dirty appearance. Since their nonparticipation they have been suspected of flooding and vandalising the PF building and are often
seen on the local parade skipping school.
Robbie is 15 years old and has been engaged with PF on the BIP programme since September
2005. He is a talented footballer and all round sportsman. He has a manner of aloofness and he
routinely wears his hood up and his baggy long-sleeved top pulled over his arms. While this
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3
Rose
3
Jerry
3
Katie
3
Chris
behaviour can at a glance make him appear an intimidating ‘hoody’ he is in actual fact extremely
self-conscious of his skin which is covered in eczema and psoriasis. Robbie started out as a shy,
reserved lad but has since developed into a popular, entertaining member of the group. Recently
Robbie began to attend sessions wearing short-sleeved t-shirts and he openly chats to staff
about his future hopes. Robbie is still engaged with the project.
Aged 15, Rose has been engaged with the PF project since its creation. She frequently hangs
out at the PF offices with her friends and is seen as one of the ‘core group’ of PF ‘girls’. Her
engagement has been constant but at times fraught as a result of her ‘anger management’
issues and turbulent home life. Rose is a talented footballer and DJ and is possibly going to
undertake a work experience placement with PF. Initially Rose was shy and often disruptive but
is now a confident, bubbly and energetic young woman displaying signs of autonomy through the
organisation of her own football coaching sessions.
Jerry was involved with the PF project from the beginning and due to his age quickly moved from
participant to volunteer/sessional staff member. His involvement with the project was a great
success and the young people looked-up to him due to his shared experiences and background.
Unfortunately Jerry is no longer engaged with PF due to a variety of personal issues. His
disengagement was largely caused by his inability to obtain a CRB form and his need for
consistent and reliable income. The PF team have attempted to maintain contact and the last
they heard from Jerry was that he was employed in the construction industry.
Katie is also one of the ‘core group’ of PF ‘girls’. She is now aged 15 and is currently struggling
at school as she feels that the teachers do not appreciate her. Katie often binge drinks at the
weekend which has previously led her into trouble. Katie is a heavy smoker and with the help of
the PF staff has been attempting to quit smoking during the school summer holidays. Her
engagement with PF has moved from interested to fully engaged and her attendance is having a
positive effect on her social life.
Now aged 16 Chris has been engaged with PF since he was 14. He is a keen footballer and has
attended many PF schemes of work including PAYP, ‘football-focus’ and the social ‘lads-evening’
group. During his time on the project Chris has been removed from mainstream school and has
been the victim of a violent gang related attack. He has however remained constantly engaged
with PF and has recently set up his own ‘kids soccer school’. His personal life may appear to
have suffered some set-backs including his removal from school but his engagement with PF
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Danni
3
Ben
4
Annie
4
Emmie
has provided a stabilising influence, proving developmental and purposeful and contributing to
his strive for autonomy.
Danni is an older lad aged approximately 19, although there are rumours that he is older still
having stayed off school for a period. Danni has been engaged with PF for around two years and
is a talented footballer who represents a League Two youth team. He helps out with the football
coaching of the ‘lads’ in his peer group, who all look up to and admire him. Danni has poor
literacy and PF attempted to encourage him to take adult-learning classes although he was
horrified when he learnt that parents of his friends were on the course. However he has excelled
and has become a much more confident and optimistic young man. He has recently undertaken
some formal coaching for PF and is a good example of a participant moving through participant,
volunteer and staff roles.
Ben is a popular lad in the area and is well known to both the young people and other welfare
agencies. He began his involvement with PF on the ‘football focus’ coaching scheme and was
then signposted onto other activities including an audio-visual scheme and the PAYP activities.
During his involvement he has been involved on the fringes of some illicit-income generating
activities, to the full knowledge of the project. The project has maintained their engagement with
Ben and have attempted to offer advice and guidance on generating alternative income. Ben’s
engagement has been far from linear in its development and has fluctuated between periods of
curiosity and intermittent disengagement, although overall he has been involved as an active
participant.
Annie is 16 years old and had taken part in a number of PF activities over the past two years,
including dance, day trips, residentials and trampolining. Staff feel that she does not use
substances, but she often speaks of being drunk. She has been identified as one of the ‘Top 50’
and was referred to PF by the YIP. She attends school on a full timetable and has gained
accreditation through PF. After the death of a close relative, a member of staff reports ‘being in
the group, having friends here, away from home, really helped to pull her through.’ As she
remains with the project, staff hope to introduce her to activities available to the 17-19 age group
and to encourage her to become a mentor. Her Mother said 'she's so much more cheerful since
she started going out with you. She's got more energy. I wish there'd been something like that for
the other ones, when they were younger.’
Emmie is 17 and was referred to PF by a worker at her hostel about a year ago. One worker
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Wayne
4
Serena
remembers their first meeting with her as ‘an anti climax, because her reputation preceded her.
I’d heard that she was loud, brash, in yer face, hard faced and even scary so when I did finally
meet her, I was expecting this big, hard, tough lass but to me, she just seemed cheeky and a bit
too lively’. She regarded anti-social behaviour as one way to gain respect from her peers,
insisting that she only goes out with ‘chavs’ as people who aren’t involved with crime are ‘geeks’.
Since becoming involved she has become less attention seeking and more reflective about her
behaviour. She began volunteering at sessions and in the PF office and enjoyed being given
some responsibility and being with staff’. According to one worker, ‘Jade’s attitude to work varied
from at first being really laid back and turning up when it suited her to being punctual and
regularly attending.’ Her attitude towards others changed dramatically and young people no
longer fear her; they like her being around. She has changed her appearance, making a
conscious effort to smarten herself up for work. When she left the area recently, Emmie was not
far from being 'work ready', but without further positive influence, staff were not sure that she
would continue to follow her newfound path. She returned to the area swiftly, and the project has
now re-established contact with her.
Wayne had just turned 16 when he engaged with PF and was on the ‘Top 50’ list. Referred
previously by YIP, he re-engaged as a self referral. He attended a Behaviour Support Unit, which
he refers to as ‘the bad school’. His sister also attends PF. He was not a keen sportsman,
deciding not to participate in football, but attended the young women’s trampolining group. After
attending a mixed residential, he began to socialise more with male PF participants. By the
standards of many families whose children engage with PF in the area, Wayne is affluent, the
concern being that it is illegal activities which allow his parents to take him on holidays abroad
and to access a range of leisure activities outside of PF. He recently disengaged with the project
and has not been pursued by staff.
Serena is not on the ‘Top 50’ list, but her siblings have been. She is a shy young woman, who
does not socialise with other participants to any great degree and often hangs out with staff when
new members join the group, being nervous of them. Gemma says that it was hoped being in the
trampolining group (she had previously been the only female in a multi sports group) might help
to build her self confidence and interaction skills. However, she remains quiet at sessions and
tells that she doesn’t have many friends outside of PF. She came to the project in early 2003,
having been referred by a worker at a local youth centre where she used to play. She has
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4
Albi
4
Paul
4
Norm
recently engaged with other PF activities.
Albi is on the ‘Top 50’ list. He was attending PF when the research began, having been referred
by school. He was being bullied and was identified as having Special Educational Needs, and
suffered from low self esteem. He had a fiery temper which Gemma says has mellowed a little
during his time with PF. Not a sports fan, he was initially wound up by other participants for his
lack of skill, but he has developed into a competent sportsman and his confidence has increased
commensurately. ‘Come on; you’re on my team. Let’s beat ‘em!’ he said when we were playing
badminton. Albi ‘dips in and out’ of the project, says the Manager but this causes him no real
concern as he describes Albi as ‘more settled than when he came to us; much less aggressive.’
He also causes less concern to staff at another agency and at School. He has a brother who also
attends PF.
Paul has siblings who have been engaged by PF. He was 9 when he heard about PF, too young
to attend sessions, but self referred as soon as he hit 10. He engaged with PF mainly via
football, after the dissolution of the multi sports group. Paul had a seemingly inexhaustible ability
to wind up which ever young person was standing next to him. He invented his own rules for
games and goaded opponents into fighting with him if they disagreed with his scoring system.
Gemma says he loves sport, which is used as a means ‘to keep him occupied’ but Paul, like Albi,
is now only an occasional user of the project, which is linked to the lack of transport to sessions.
Norm was involved with PF since a little after the research began. He, and his siblings, are
known to Social Services and staff at his school also registered concerns about him, in terms of
him bullying and being bullied, and his general health since he has acknowledged that he has
used drugs. There were concerns that he sometimes hangs out with older people and he is
considered at risk of committing crime and ASB. As a result of Norm's behaviour, the family
house has been targeted by local people. He has Special Educational Needs and a reading age
well below his chronological age and attends a project to address his learning needs where he is
progressing well, with the eventual aim of integrating him back into school full time. Since joining
PF, his behaviour at sessions has shown improvement; ‘he knows when to listen to instructions
now, when to listen to the other kids; before he was just’ and Gemma waves her arms around
frantically to demonstrate his dervish like initial behaviour. However, he was prone to outbursts,
both verbal and physical at sessions. After an incident at a football session, Norm was given a
short ban. Unusually, the project’s Manager says that PF is not able to approach Norm to try to
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Michaela
5
Eddie
5
Hasan
5
Lisa
get him to re-engage, that the project can only approach him if his worker makes a referral.
Michaela self referred in 2002, as she wanted to stop using heroin. She was put on a methadone
programme and, despite the occasional lapse, stabilised. Her key worker looked at a number of
issues with her, including drugs education and healthy eating, and helped her to identify a
number of personal goals. Her worker was keen to engage her with PF to plug some of the social
gaps in her life created by moving away from using drugs. She describes her involvement with
PF as ‘the best thing’ and tells how she has much more self esteem and has enjoyed the
opportunity to be creative at dance sessions, helping to select tracks and choreograph. ‘I’ve got
this brilliant track and I’ve just been into town to get the version which I can play at the session’
(the original came with a parental advisory sticker). Michaela has gained NOCN accreditation
via the dance sessions, has also taken part in music sessions, writing and singing, and PF
referred her to the Princess Trust where she enrolled onto a fashion design course. Now 22, she
no longer engages with PF, as she feels her life is back on track. She is still an occasional user
of another arm of the project and has accessed the odd PF dance session. She has a job and is
described by the PF manager as ‘so happy.’
Eddie has been with the football project since he was 10, and is now a 19-year-old university
student about to start his second year. He’s a sessional worker with the project, but tries not to
do too much so he can concentrate on his studies. He feels that if it wasn’t for this sessional
work he’d have to go out and work in retail instead. He thinks he may have gone further with his
football development if he had joined another team but he always comes back to the project
team because this is where his mates are and for this reason he has not joined the university
football team.
Hasan came to the UK as an asylum seeker 5 years ago, and is now 19. Although his family can
stay here, he is still threatened with removal as ‘they don’t believe that my mum is my mum’.
He’s doing his A-levels and keeping himself busy by going to the gym and playing football and is
generally pretty upbeat. He’s not that fit, and is not amongst the better players which can lead to
ribbing from team mates. However, he keeps at it, and is getting better and so when he tackles
someone or gets past someone, now there’s lots of laughter at the other players’ expense
instead.
Lisa started going to the boxing gym a couple of years ago. She is 18 now and has just finished
her ‘A’ levels. A couple of years ago she was really struggling with school, disillusioned, not
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Frankie
5
Liam
really working and getting in trouble for it. The coaches at the gym have really supported and
encouraged her. For example Dave (the head coach) sometimes read pieces of her school work,
and always stresses the importance of education. In the last year she has really turned around.
She decided to really give school a go and started concentrating and working harder. This has
paid off with improved predicted results when before all her teachers were expecting her to fail.
Frankie started the boxing along with Lisa and another friend. A group of them were encouraged
to give it a go by their school, but only these three kept coming. Frankie was really ‘unsporty’, but
now has progressed so much that she helps with coaching the young participants. She has
blossomed with confidence through her involvement with the gym, the coaches and boxers and
has done several show case performances of boxing skills and techniques, and has even had a
degree of media coverage. While she is a hardworking, easy and likeable person this belies her
difficult background. Frankie comes from a white working class family on a Bermondsey estate,
but has grown up with just her Mum. While she is regarded as clever and there are high
expectations of her achievement she is conversely offered little in the way of support. She has
very problematic family relationships and is currently thinking about how she can leave home,
and what housing options there might be for her. However through all her ups and downs over
the past couple of years she feels that those at the gym are always there for her and have
always supported her. She cannot imagine ever losing these relationships, wherever she goes
and whatever she decides to do next. Indeed having received ‘A’ level results which are good
enough to get her into university she plans to go to the gym more regularly now the pressure is
off.
Liam is now 13 and has been attending the project’s combined education and sports days for the
past couple of years. He really likes coming and his Mum has noticed positive changes in him
over this period. He is semi literate but says he gets good support with numeracy and literacy
from the educational staff. The most important thing he thinks attending the sessions has given
him is increased confidence. As he was out of school when not at the ERD (Educational Referral
Days) he was frequently bored, and got involved in activities that are considered anti social and
sometimes illegal, such as driving diggers on building sites. When asked how he viewed his
future he quickly replied “working for London Concrete Pumping” because “they pay good
money”. He currently lives with his Mum but if he had a job he would like to eventually get a
place of his own.
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Tara
6
Rory
6
Ian
Tara is 14 and has also been attending ERD sessions for nearly two years. When the research
first encountered her she was voluble, and sometimes violent. She also talked about her life in
relation to drugs, and mugging, and stressed that her Mum ‘didn’t care’, reinforcing this by saying
that she was often not clothed or fed by her Mum, so she had to ‘sort these things for herself’.
She tells her own story about her contact with the project. “Well how it’s happened is that at
school I was bunking lessons and all that. And then school told me about it. They asked if I
wanted to go. And I thought it’d be a good idea so then I went and I liked it so I stayed.” She also
explains her own progress “Like in class, like at school I was loud, just always disrupting
everyone. But no I don’t think that, I don’t really disrupt others’ learning and my learning as much
as I used to. I just get on with my work... Like before I used to think I had like, I wouldn’t say easy
temper, but some people say certain things like I used to just like shout and cuss and that. But
not anymore I don’t think I’m that bad...as I used to be.” A year on Tara is open, happy, and
friendly. She is far less aggressive, and doesn’t seem to have the same need to dominate the
group and shock with her stories. She is hoping to be back in school full time this September and
is really looking forward to returning.
Rory is now 17 and is studying for a qualification in plumbing at a college of further education. He
is a very articulate and witty young man who was always popular with his peers and the pattern
of his development is striking because of the rapid change in his demeanour. In the first few
months on the project he lacked discipline, his attendance at classroom lessons was poor and he
had very little respect for authority. He was ‘disengaged’ in the sense that he would often remove
himself from the group when the coach was speaking and while doing so, would talk to no one in
particular and make rude comments about the coach and his style. He was sarcastic to his teammates and would curse them for making mistakes. He soon changed though and became a very
positive presence within the group. He stopped criticising and started praising the efforts of
others. He became more serious in his studies and managed to catch up with the work that he
missed. He achieved his level one coaching badge and even delivered some school based
coaching. He has since passed the practical elements of the PF course and seems to be on the
way towards fulfilling his potential.
Ian is also 17 and still in education. He hopes to continue on the PF course for a second year,
although the withdrawal of one of the project partners’ contribution to the practical elements
leaves his future somewhat uncertain. Ian was always a strong character but his strength grew
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Doumba
week by week through his involvement with the project. As the team’s captain he ultimately
assumed the responsibility of leading by example. In the first few weeks being captain did not
come naturally to him. When speaking to his peers his voice would waver ever so slightly and his
movement tended to become restricted. But he grew into the role and by the end of the research
period with the group he was a strong leader. The boys really looked up to him and his praise
really had an impact on them. He used encouraging words (sparingly) to draw the best out of
them and, belying his age, used criticism constructively. Indeed the scheme leader, Errol, always
relied on Ian to help him make his point and demonstrate to the less able in the group how to get
the most out of the various drills and games. He has now passed his FA level one coaching
badge and is hoping to continue to work in football in some capacity.
Doumba is now 16 and is still in education. He recently had a trial for Arsenal FC and got to the
last 16 out of a group of 300. He is a very pleasant young man with a generally laid back
character. Having said that he is capable of losing his temper in competition although only with
the coach. As his involvement with the project developed he became more and more concerned
about life after the course and adopted a very mature outlook regarding his future. He would
often stay behind after sessions and talk with Errol, primarily about football but always touched
on the various options available to him after the course had finished. His parents were very keen
for him to organise a way for him to build himself a career and he took this very seriously. He
accompanied Errol on a few training sessions at other sites and was very successful. Over the
course of his one year involvement with the project he went from being a quiet happy-go-lucky
lad to a focused and ambitious young man.
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Going the Distance: Impact, journeys and distance travelled. Third Interim National
Positive Futures Case Study
WOODHOUSE, Donna <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7140-9423> and BLACKSHAW, Tony
<http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4267-923X>
Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at:
http://shura.shu.ac.uk/17693/
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