ࡱ> gihM Pbjbj== _lWWhLVl$P6JT0h> X0Z0Z0Z0Z0Z0Z0$A2 a4n~0~00vX0X02L.<0 03$(>.<0000/644<0 Evaluation of Rosemount Lifelong Learning Summary Report and Conclusions David Coyne February 2006 1. Introduction This report presents the summary findings of an evaluation of the services of Rosemount Lifelong Learning conducted between December 2005 and January 2006. It takes place against a background of change in the way in which economic and social regeneration are managed and organised in Glasgow. Rosemount Lifelong Learning operates in the north of Glasgow in an area characterised by high levels of deprivation, poor health and poverty. The wider Glasgow North area has a population around 100,000 and within that three smaller areas with a combined population of over 50,000 have been designated as Social Inclusion Partnership Areas. Within these SIP areas: Half of all households had nobody in work. Three quarters of households received state benefits Four times as many people were admitted to hospital for alcohol misuse as the national average. Seven times as many people were admitted to hospital for drug misuse as the national average 2. Rosemount Lifelong Learning Against this background, Rosemount Lifelong Learning delivers a range of Childrens and Family services and Lifelong Learning activities. Rosemount Lifelong Learning is a social enterprise with 51 employees and an annual turnover in excess of 1million. Annually it works with over 1000 clients and is entirely community managed. The organisation grew out of a Save the Children funded project which ran from 1991 to 1997. Rosemount Lifelong Learnings services are holistic in nature in order to meet the needs of each client. Broadly they fall under the categories of Children and Family Services and Lifelong learning. Within each, Rosemount Lifelong Learning offers a range of support to its clients:- Childcare and Family Services nursery and pre-school education, after school care crche services parents groups respite childcare. Lifelong Learning activities guidance core skills, literacy, personal and social development, accredited vocational training, informal education and volunteering. money advice access to Food co-operative and Credit Union services In pursuit of these activities, Rosemount Lifelong Learning is committed to core values of Quality; Equal Opportunity; Community Management; Partnership and Innovation. 3. Context and Objectives for the Evaluation Rosemount Lifelong Learning contributes to a range of policy agendas at a national and regional level. The environment in which Rosemount Lifelong Learning operates is changing. New planning structures are emerging and Government programmes are starting to change local delivery of employability and training services. In Glasgow, the evolution from Social Inclusion Partnerships to Community Planning and the restrictions on budgets from Glasgow City Council will potentially have wide reaching impacts on organisations involved in local development. In addition, European Structural Funds will be restricted after the end of the current programme in 2006. Rosemount Lifelong Learning commissioned evaluations of their services in 2000 and 2003 and this evaluation seeks to build on that work by: Providing information for funders and funding applications Demonstrating value for money and added value Finding out whats working and whats not to improve services Supporting their research agenda 4. Evaluation Methodology The evaluation was carried out with five distinct elements: Review of performance information and project reviews Client survey Stakeholder consultations Staff workshops Client case studies The findings from these are presented below, along with conclusions and recommendations. 5. Findings 5.1 Performance Review Annual Performance - In year one of the review period, Rosemount Lifelong Learning met or exceeded 84% of their activity targets and 90% of their outcome targets. In the second year 2004/05, the performance was improved and the targets were increased by a significant margin. This, combined with a major premises refit and some changes to the ways the targets were defined meant that the achievement against target looked slightly poorer, with around 60% of targets being met. By the mid point of the third year many of these issues had worked through and the reported performance was once again strong, with 70% of targets being met. There remain difficulties in accurately measuring some of the remaining targets and this is commented on later in the report. Three key projects were analysed in more detail as a sample of the range of services on offer. The projects reviewed were the Transitions project, funded by the Working for Families Fund, a group of Literacy projects and the ESF funded training courses delivered during the review period. The analysis found that: Transitions Project - Rosemount Lifelong Learning ran the Transitions project as a pilot funded directly by the Scottish Executive as part of the design process for the national roll out of the Working for Families fund. The Transitions project had allowed Rosemount Lifelong Learning to enhance the delivery of joined up services as it was able to provide both guidance and childcare support. This in turn had helped to attract a client group to the project who were on average further from the labour market than in other Working for Families projects. Despite this, the clients of the Transitions project made significant progress during both the pilot phase and into the national programme with over half gaining a qualification, and 37 moving into employment against a target of 40. In addition Rosemount Lifelong Learning successfully integrated English Language (ESOL) training for those on the project who were not native speakers. The project has been very successful and there is support for continuing its unique approach as an integrated part of the national project. Literacy Projects The study looked at data from three separate Literacy projects which targeted Families, people for whom English was a second language and learners who attended the Flexicentre. The analysis shows that in all of the projects Rosemount Lifelong Learning met the funders targets and went beyond this by assisting students to access other learning opportunities. In addition the learners reported significant improvements in their ability to participate in the community and to access services locally, and in doing so starting to break down barriers and to overcome isolation. ESF Courses Four courses were delivered during the review period, in Life Choices (a basic skills programme) Computing, English as a Second Language and Health and Social Care. The outcomes for the projects showed that beneficiary numbers had been lower than anticipated in some cases and that retention had been difficult for some students. The principal factor underlying this is the complex nature of the barriers facing the client group which makes fitting into structured training much more difficult. Despite these problems, the ESF courses were successful in assisting those students who completed them to achieve very positive outcomes. The wide scope of eligible activity and ability to plan over more than one year were particularly important in maximising the outcomes. 5.2 Client Survey 70 completed questionnaires were returned from 217 distributed, representing a response rate of 32%. The survey profiled the clients and amongst the key characteristics of the sample were the following: The respondents were 90% female and 10% male 53% were aged between 30 and 44 Half were UK citizens and a quarter were asylum seekers Two thirds of clients have children under 16 81% had been a client for a year or less When asked about the services: 90% were satisfied or very satisfied Most clients used more than one service Computer training at the Flexicentre was the most commonly used service And when questioned about the impact of the services on them, clients responded that: 83% had increased in self confidence 80% were more motivated to improve their position The proportion in employment had doubled The proportion in full or part time study had doubled Almost one third had experienced an increase in household income 5.3 Stakeholder Consultations A programme of interviews was conducted with funders and partners of Rosemount Lifelong Learning and the overall feedback was very positive. Rosemount Lifelong Learning is a valued part of the network of local development organisations in the city and has much to offer in practical and policy terms. Stakeholders identify some critical external issues for Rosemount Lifelong Learning to monitor, in the funding and policy environment, including changes to the output monitoring framework which would be required and changes to the operating context caused by the roll out of Community Planning mechanisms. In addition, the key strengths of the organisation, in its values and ways of working were highlighted as well as areas where some further development work should be undertaken such as tracking client destinations. The interview programme also identified a number of opportunities for future development. Principal amongst these were a desire that Rosemount Lifelong Learning explore new funding sources, set up local practitioner networks and look for opportunities to expand the reach of their services. 5.4 Staff Workshops Three staff workshops took place at the beginning of the evaluation process. The objectives were to explain to and engage the staff in the evaluation, to refine the client survey methodology and to collate the client case studies. In addition, the staff were asked to complete a variant on the SWOT matrix, to identify any underlying areas for service development. In the event, the staff were very positive about the organisation and the quality of the services provided. The staff also expressed a desire to play more of a role in the planning process in the organisation and this is picked up in the recommendations. 5.5 Client Case Studies Five short case studies have been developed to illustrate the ways in which the services provided by Rosemount Lifelong Learning combine to assist clients to address and overcome some of the barriers faced in considering work or training. The case studies are: Victoria a lone parent with three young children who has undertaken some training courses and is being supported in her Jobsearch activity by guidance staff while her children attend the Nursery. Victoria has benefited from support from Working for Families and ESF funded training. Sophia who left school early with no qualifications and came to Rosemount Lifelong Learning as a young lone parent. Sophia completed the Social care ESF funded course and had support from the Nursery and guidance staff and is now a student at University. Wendy a widow who wanted to change career and who completed the Health and Care course and who subsequently found employment with a work placement provider in the area. Wendy has since found a promoted position outside the area and has undertaken further training. Celia was an asylum seeker who was very isolated and depressed in the local community. She was referred by her health visitor and undertook voluntary work at the Millburn centre. She benefited enormously and when her permission to work was granted she was able to find work which used the experience she had gained as a volunteer. Donna was suffering from post-natal depression when she approached Rosemount Lifelong Learning. After initial advice, she completed the Computing course and went on to complete other studies at Central College. She is currently on maternity leave from the Student Loans company and hopes to return to work as soon as she can. 6. Conclusions Rosemount Lifelong Learning is meeting and in many cases exceeding the funders expectations in delivering projects. Where operational issues arise, Rosemount Lifelong Learning are proactive about making changes to projects to ensure they continue to deliver good value and to make a real impact on clients. Overall the organisation is very effective at matching up clients needs with services delivered and this is reflected in the year on year improvements in performance during the reporting period The feedback from the interviews with Stakeholders was very positive. Rosemount Lifelong Learning as an organisation is providing a highly valued service to a client group who are very distant form the labour market. Stakeholders were very positive about the core values of the organisation and there was consistent mention of the merits of the organisations client centred approach. Rosemount Lifelong Learning is seen as a unique organisation in Glasgow, and there is a desire to try and replicate or expand the service offering to a wider client group. Rosemount Lifelong Learning are highly successful at understanding their clients needs, at designing services to meet them and at responding to the challenges in individuals lives to help them develop. Rosemount Lifelong Learnings clients significantly improve their chances of success in life and attribute this directly to the quality of the services they have received. Many have come from seemingly desperate circumstances to playing a full and positive role in their family, their community and wider society. There are many clients for whom attending Rosemount Lifelong Learning has been a life changing experience. These clients could not have made the progress that they have done if Rosemount Lifelong Learning had not been there. Other providers of employability and training support would not have been able to provide the combinations of services, or the informal pre-engagements which were required to develop the relationship which allowed the client to fulfil their aspirations. 7. Recommendations Throughout the evaluation process, in the interviews and in looking at the data and drawing conclusions from it, a number of areas for development of Rosemount Lifelong Learnings operations and services have been commented on or have become apparent. In this section these are pulled together into subject areas as follows Monitoring Framework In 2004/05, Rosemount Lifelong Learning adopted a much more ambitious monitoring framework which sought to capture a wide range of activity and outcome information. Some areas of the framework have proved more difficult to manage than other. In particular, the outcome measures have been problematic. The reasons for this seem to be in four main areas: The Client Database this has been a very difficult system to implement and it has not been capable to date of providing reliable information on individual clients. It is understood that this is being redeveloped and that improved reporting will be possible from 2006/07. The Scope of the Framework with over 90 separate measures, the framework is large in proportion to the number of clients and courses on offer. Serious consideration should be given to simplifying the framework to focus on core measures of performance. Soft Indicators The client survey reports very positive results in the soft indicators of self esteem, confidence and motivation, but systems should be put in place to capture this progression on an ongoing basis. Consideration should be given to adopting one of the established toolkits as part of the guidance process in Rosemount Lifelong Learning. Tracking it is notoriously difficult for practitioners in employability and training services to conduct effective tracking of clients who have completed courses or taken up employment. Rosemount Lifelong Learning is however better placed than many with a tighter geographic area and a tradition of clients staying in touch with staff. Systems should be put in place which trigger follow up contact with clients at specified times as a follow up to service provision. Local Practitioner Relationships Rosemount Lifelong Learning enjoys a strong reputation amongst partner organisations, but the evaluation process revealed a small number of examples of partners who would like to collaborate more with Rosemount Lifelong Learning than they currently do. Glasgow North Limited, Social Work Department, Jobcentre Plus and NHS Glasgow were amongst organisations who expressed a desire to share more information, and to contribute more to Rosemount Lifelong Learning than they currently do. Consideration should be given to ways in which the local Stakeholders can be engaged more in the sharing of referrals, information and ideas. Individual service areas at Rosemount Lifelong Learning might consider establishing mechanisms to bring together relevant partners on a periodic basis. Strategic Links and Marketing Rosemount Lifelong Learning is an innovative organisation which has contributed directly to the formation of projects and policies in its areas of expertise. Whilst time consuming, and often of no tangible benefit in the short term, the value of this role for the organisation must not be underestimated. Several references were made by Stakeholders to the valuable role Rosemount Lifelong Learning had played by developing and implementing best practice, and there was a desire for Rosemount Lifelong Learning to continue and increase this role. Research, policy development and speculative activities are difficult to fund out of project finances, but consideration should be given to creating some capacity in the organisations budget to undertake this activity. Activities which might be considered would include further research to extend the work done by the Scottish Poverty Information Unit in 2003 and the organisation of small practitioner events to disseminate best practice lessons from recent projects. Increasing the reach of Rosemount Lifelong Learning There is a strong desire on the part of the Stakeholders to replicate the kind of services which Rosemount Lifelong Learning offers in other areas. The combination of services is felt to be of enormous benefit to those individuals and families who require a greater deal of pre-vocational support, delivered very close to the target community than is currently available. Geographic expansion can be difficult and expensive and Rosemount Lifelong Learning should be cautious whilst recognising their expertise and responding to Stakeholders. A number of mechanisms are potentially available including developing partnerships with existing organisations which might allow the spread of the Rosemount model to other places. Rosemount Lifelong Learning should invest some time in further scoping this issue out and should seek the support of one or two key stakeholders in doing so. Internal Planning Cycles There is a desire on the part of the staff of the organisation to play a more active role in the internal planning processes. The workshops revealed a desire to contribute to internal communication and to share knowledge and ideas. Rosemount Lifelong Learning should review the internal planning processes to design in a formal role for Board, management team and staff teams in the preparation of annual operating plans and service reviews. 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