Blogs

Economic Value(s)

10/7/2019

This blog is co-authored by Bethia McNeil, our Chief Executive, and Ed Anderton, our Acting Director of Practice Development. In it, they share some reflections about the use of cost-benefit analysis in the youth sector, with reference to programmes such as the National Citizen Service, and the Youth Investment Fund.

Why proof is not enough

3/4/2019

This blog was written by The Centre’s first Chair, Thomas Lawson, who stood down last month in order to focus on his new role as CEO at Turn2Us, part of the critical fight against poverty in the UK today. In it, Tom shares his reflections on the need for a culture of practice that focuses on learning how to make continual improvements to our work.

Everybody counts or nobody counts: striving to get recruitment right at the Centre for Youth Impact

29/3/2019

The Centre for Youth Impact is recruiting…. again. The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that we appear to have been doing a lot of recruitment recently. We’re not looking to expand the Centre to the size of a couple of 11-a-side football teams though; it’s just that we haven’t got it quite right yet. We’ve been out to recruit twice since December, and on neither occasion did we make an appointment. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever know the precise reasons why (always a frustration for a researcher!), but we’ve spent a fair bit of time reflecting as we prepare to go out to recruit again.

Evaluation as a Pedagogy of Discomfort

6/2/2019

In this blog, Sydney Church (the Centre’s Research and Learning Officer), focuses on the concept of a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ to explore how disruptive feelings and emotions can offer valuable insight into evaluation across the youth sector.