![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.gif)
The BIG Lottery Fund’s Realising Ambition project in the UK seeks to build the evidence base for what works to prevent youth offending by replicating interventions with either proven or preliminary evidence of impact. It involves a £25m investment over five years in 25 interventions designed to divert 8-14 year olds away from pathways into crime.
Methods
As part of Realising Ambition, the Social Research Unit is supporting the programs through intervention refinement, advice regarding replication, and rigorous evaluation. Four interventions have been selected for evaluation. These include two mentoring programs (delivered by Chance UK and YMCA Scotland), a parenting program (delivered by Malachi Community Trust) and a school-based multi-media resource (designed by Ariel Trust).
Trial protocols have been established for two of the evaluations; both are two-arm, randomised controlled, parallel group, superiority trials. Intervention refinement and evaluation design are underway with the other two programs. This paper describes the work undertaken to date and critically reflects on the challenges encountered and lessons learnt about how they may be addressed.
Results
As well as contributing to the evidence base of early intervention programs in the UK, the project offers the opportunity to demonstrate that using RCTs to evaluate social interventions in the real world is both achievable and valid. However, there are many challenges. In this project these have included: securing buy-in to an RCT from relevant stakeholders; articulating the intervention logic model to ensure that appropriate outcome measures are selected; refining and testing the intervention to ensure it is feasible and has the potential to achieve desired outcomes; aligning the sample size needed to provide confidence in results with the organization’s operational capacity; fitting randomization into operational procedures of the organization; and managing the expectations of all involved.
Conclusions
Despite the challenges, the project demonstrates how voluntary organisations can be helped to improve the standard of evidence supporting the impact of their programs on child outcomes.