Impact Measurement for Crime of the Century Projects.

  Diary entry

Had a great deal of debate and discussion about the impact measurement tools we are using for Crime of the Century Anti- Gang violence impact measurement. The tools are Questionaires and assorted practical guidance we have received from National Philanthropy Capital (NPC) over the last year where Chickenshed have paid for this training. We are piloting the materials and process in our projects at Capital City Academy Brent and Northumberland Park School Haringey.

 The Questionaires are long and quite involved. There are questions we have rejected such as " Do you consider yourself to be good looking" and "Do you jiggle and wiggle with objects while you sit on a chair ". And also rejected has been "Do you for most of the time consider yourself to be worthless."  In the impression of the team delivering the project these questions will hugely potentially unsettle the very complex and challenging groups we work with and potentially disrupt the entire questionaire process.

With these questions being carefully linked in pre-project and post- project form to externally validated mental well- being scales NPC are not in agreement that we are rejecting them but are happy if we can look at alternatives which mean the same thing or as close as can be. So we are working with ideas to enable this to happen convinced that we are correct.

We don't want the process itself of the questionaire to either contribute actively to lowering of self- esteem or to cause laughter or ridicule which will disrupt the whole process.

This one will run and run I feel and I feel a great sense of responsibility to help get this right for the target group and Chickenshed.

Joelyn Morrall Chickenshed.

Impact Measurement Planning.