1. Social Return on Investment (SROI) Evaluation and Impact Manager
Joelle Bradly
Evaluation and Impact Manager
Barnardo’s

2. Why use SROI to evidence impact?
Based on principles
Involves service users and others affected by change
Focuses on understanding change
Gives indication of positive, negative, intended and unintended value
Captures financial and social outcomes
Addresses risk of over-claiming
Encourages accountability and transparency
Can apply different levels of rigour

3. SROI Principles Involve stakeholders Understand what changes
Value the things that matter
Only include what is material
Do not over-claim
Be transparent
Verify the results

4. Stage 1.
Establishing
scope and
identifying key
stakeholders

5. What is the scope of activity?
XXXX
Who is affected by the activity?
Directly:
Young people at risk of CSE
Young people experiencing CSE
Indirectly:
Parents / family members
Social services / local authorities
Health services
Perpetrators
Schools
Housing
Young people not identified as at risk
Police
DWP
Courts
Volunteers

6. Stage 2.
Mapping
outcomes

7. Open questioning
What changed for you as a result of XXX?
What does this change look like or what did it enable you t do?
What contributed to the change?
Who else helped?
What would have happened anyway?
Who else was affected?
How long does change last for?
Develop a Theory of Change
- Does this differ by sub groups?
Age / gender / ethnicity / type of need
Involve stakeholders

8. Support to build resilience and awareness Police referral
“The police referred Rachel when she was found heavily under the influence of alcohol and in the company of an inappropriate adult. Rachel said that she felt isolated. She also identified that she had trouble assessing appropriate friendships and the motivations of others. Our support focused on helping Rachel to improve her ability to identify and form healthy, safe friendships and relationships, and to recognise abusive behaviour. To build Rachel’s resilience, her foster carer and social worker helped her engage in her community through sport. As work progressed there were no further missing or alcohol-related incidents. After eight months, we assessed Rachel as showing no indication of being at risk of harm”
No longer going missing
Able to form healthy friendships
No longer at risk of CSE
Support to build resilience and awareness
Police referral
Reduction in alcohol related incident
Engaging in community
Understand change

9. Young people at risk of CSE
Able to form healthy relationships
Engaged in the community
Young people experiencing CSE
Improved emotional wellbeing
Parents
Feeling more supported
Increased family conflict?
Police
Reduced time dealing with missing young people and alcohol related incidents
Only include what is material

10. Evidencing outcomes and giving them a value
Stage 3.
Evidencing outcomes and giving them a value

11. Stakeholder
Outcome
Indicator
Source
Quantity
Young person at risk of CSE
Ability to form healthy relationships
Improvement in ‘ability to identify abusive behaviour’ score
Barnardo’s Outcomes Framework
XXX
Understand change

12. Value the things that matter
Stakeholder
Outcome
Quantity
Value
Total
Young person at risk of CSE
Ability to form healthy relationships 40
£10
£400
Police
Reduction in Missing cases 80
£800
Parents
Increased family conflict 20
-£100
-£2000
TOTAL
-£800
Value the things that matter

13. Stage 4.
Establishing
impact

14. Stakeholder
Outcome
Total
Deadweight
Attribution
Impact
Young person at risk of CSE
Ability to form healthy relationships
£400
50%
£100
What would have happened anyway?
Who else contributed to the outcomes
How much does the outcome drop off over time?
Do not over-claim

15. Stage 5.
Calculating
the SROI

16. SROI Ratio: For every £1 invested a value of XXX is returned….
Inputs = £XX
Costs of the activity
Time from volunteers
SROI Ratio: For every £1 invested a value of XXX is returned….
Sensitivity Analysis
TOTAL Value = £XXX
Young people at risk
Police
Young people experiencing CSE
Local Authorities
Be transparent

17. Examples
Community Safer Sex Project (£6,000)
A Social Return of approximately £7 and £9 for every £1 invested. Young people were the primary beneficiaries of the project (56%), followed by savings to health (19%) and DWP (17%).
Twenty Twenty: Young People’s mentoring project (at risk of ASB/school exclusion) (£67,000)
A Social Return of approximately £5 for every £1 invested. 82% of this value was to young people and 14% to the police
Substance Misuse Work – Youth Offending service (£67,000)
A Social Return of approximately £4 for every £1 invested, within 2 years; 46% to health, 30% criminal justice system and 14% young people
Building Bridges: Young people’s mental health (£90,000)
A Social Return of approximately £2 for every £1 invested. 46% of value benefited other services (social care, criminal justice system, mental health services), 28% benefited services users and 10% benefited peer mentors.

18. Stage 6.
Reporting,
using and
embedding

19. Can results be verified with key stakeholders?
Can the report be assured?
Do stakeholders benefiting contribute to the activity?
Can any negative outcomes be minimised or resources reallocated towards positive activities?
What are the key enablers and barriers and can they be addressed?
Do systems need to change to continue to measure key outcomes?
Are there opportunities to compare SROIs for existing service models?
Are there opportunities to forecast SROI ratios for different service models / service re-design?
Verify results

20. Top SROI Tips for measuring what matters
Don’t assume outcomes are only positive
Recognise the contribution of other services and informal support
Don’t rely only on existing data if other outcomes are important
Apply the appropriate level of rigour
Look for opportunities to learn as well as ‘prove’