Launch of the University of Worcester Independent Evaluation

It is always difficult to measure the impact of a service like KOGS. As a prevention service the idea is that the work that is invested in the service users will stop them being groomed or understand where to seek help if they have been involved in an unhealthy relationship or have the confidence to speak out. This awareness raising and confidence building is all well and good but when it comes to actually measuring the impact it has had it is very tricky. Feedback from service users can be a data nightmare and could be seen to be biased or only come from those who will give positive feedback. Self evaluations are something which KOGS use often and do indicate the shift in behaviour or feelings of participants but can sometimes be weak if not fully explained.

But despite the difficulties in evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the service it is something which is absolutely essential in order to secure funding and help services like KOGS to understand and evidence their need. It is understandable with the competition for funding amongst causes being so stiff and a lack of funding streams out there. If you are asking a funder for thousands of pounds to support a project the least you can do is provide some stats to show what you do is working right? The question is how!

Last year KOGS were awarded funding from GMP to run a project, an element of this was to have an independent evaluation of the impact of the project. Building this into the cost of the overall project meant that KOGS did not have to use precious reserves to evaluate but also was a funding requirement so an element we had to complete in order to satisfy the grant.

KOGS Commissioned Dr Peter Unwin from The University of Worcester to conduct the evaluation and over the course of 2018 Peter set about collecting data, statistics and client statements and feedback via questionnaires and a series of focus groups. The report was launched at the end of 2018 and gives KOGS a great foundation to build on for the year ahead. A copy of the report can be found here KOGS Evaluation Report (SEPTFinal) and we would like to extend our gratitude to Dr Peter Unwin and his team at Worcester University and also Daniel Inglis and the whole of GMP for their continued support.