1. Statistics and Stories: Demonstrating impact
Professor Karen McArdle

2. Statistics and Stories Project
Funded by Education Scotland
Involved over 100 people in CLD
Training and action research
Sought to find out how to go about demonstrating impact

3. Impact
It is, I suggest, a strong effect or influence on participants. A continuum
BUT
Harland and Morgan (2006) found that the majority of their youth work respondents felt that youth work could not and should not be measured and Smith (2003) argues that organising youth work around concepts like ‘outcomes, targets, curriculum and issues’ means there is a danger of losing the relationship as a defining feature of youth work practice.

4. Difficulties
The core values and principles of work with disadvantaged groups present tutors and those who work with adult learners with a variety of challenges:
Not only is informal and non-formal learning difficult to plan and implement but its outcomes and impact are notoriously difficult to pin down and measure whether in the short, medium or long term.
Personal development outcomes are often labelled as ‘soft outcomes’, which devalues them.
There is a difficulty with measuring distance travelled. If an informal learning process is used then the endpoint of work will not be known or pre-determined by outcomes. This poses a challenge for measuring change as it cannot be anticipated and measured before it occurs.
We need to consider how we measure characteristics in people who are unique and will acquire characteristics differently. (Stuart et al, 2015).

5. Informal learning involves complex individual and group relationships that are in turn hard to quantify and the impact of these relationships may take time to become clear.
Activities that can be measured are largely dependent on the needs of the individuals who are being encouraged to reflect on self and to create alternative and positive futures.
There are however intended outcomes but these remain flexible and responsive to the needs of the participants and the outcomes are planned from knowledge of the participants and remain a guide to what the tutor hopes to achieve.
This is a highly participative and supportive process and from this perspective measurement is possible. These outcome are negotiated, participatory and open to change and can be rich, multifaceted and complex.(Stuart et al, 2015).

6. How to do it Participatory Flexible Gather complexity
Above all longitudinal

7. Major finding of statistics and stories
Narrative Inquiry:
Consistent with transformatory purpose of what we do – identity and change;
Accessible, flexible, participatory, agenda framed by the participant.
Example of Reach Out – learning, identity, social presence, longitudinal impact.
'My life could have gone one way or the other if it hadn’t been for Reach Out'

8. References
Harland, K & Morgan, A (2006) Youth work in Northern Ireland: An exploration of emerging themes and challenges Youth Studies Ireland 1 (1) 4 – 18
 Smith, M. (2003) From Youth Work to Youth Development Youth and Policy 79, 46-59
Stuart, K., Maynard, L., Rouncefield, C. (2015) Evaluation Practice for Projects with Young People: A guide to creative research. London U.K. , Sage