How will Cynefin be evaluated?

We want to be flexible and work with funded projects to co-design appropriate participatory evaluation methods that suit the work being delivered. We are as interested in what ‘comes out’ of project engagement as we are pre-determined/anticipated outcomes. Youth Cymru can draw on their vast range of creative evaluation methods and would love to hear your ideas too! Examples of approaches include storytelling, scrapbooks, journals, digital based and interviews with people engaged in the project. We will regularly monitor progress of funded projects using a simple Results Based Accountability (RBA) approach, asking 3 questions: How much have we done, how well are we doing/did we do it, and who is better off as a result? We will hold regular support sessions with project leads to ensure that everything is on track. Working with applicants, we will ensure that the activities funded are in line with the #iWill six principles:

Be Challenging

We will enable young people to direct the activities through support from youth workers offering them new experiences. By taking young people out of their comfort zones, enabling them to problem solve issues in their communities through social action. This in turn will increase their confidence and self-esteem (subjective wellbeing measures).

Be Youth led

We fully recognise young people as the experts in their own lives and their lived experiences. We subscribe to a rights-based approach to our work within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and give young people meaningful experiences as emerging young leaders to build their social capital (participation standards audit).

Have Social impact

Will develop a Theory of Change with young people and other identified key stakeholders who can influence outcomes and impact of the social action activities undertaken and can demonstrate the causal effects of these to evaluate the effectiveness of delivery.

Allow progression to other opportunities

Delivery partners and other key stakeholders will identify and secure, through brokerage, meaningful and sustainable routes for progression for beneficiaries into employment, education and or training as
well as informal and non-formal community-based opportunities during and beyond the lifespan of the project.

Be embedded in a young person's life

Using the network of stakeholders and others, young people can be linked with community groups and organisations to continue the delivery of place-based campaigns and social action projects. This relationship will also be utilised to recruit young people, upskill them and reintroduce them back into their communities as young activists.

Enable reflection about the value of the activity -

Develop young people as critical thinkers through supported opportunities to explore their interests and needs and those of others around them, consider and challenge what they are experiencing/hearing from others, form evaluative skills to make sense of and articulate this and expose them to others to develop negotiation, problem solving and teamwork skills.