Remembering our colleague Jane Colechin

It is with deep sadness that we share the news that our much-loved colleague Dr Jane Colechin, Deputy Director of Evidence and Evaluation, passed away earlier this year.

Everyone at Youth Futures Foundation is coming to terms with this huge loss and our thoughts are with Jane’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time.

Jane believed in making things better for people and she was a passionate advocate for the power of evidence to improve young people’s lives. She dedicated her career to leading research and evaluation projects across welfare, labour market and education policy. She advised national and local policy makers on the design and delivery of effective employment, skills and welfare programmes.

Jane was one of the first people to join Youth Futures Foundation and she was a tenacious driver of our journey, from start-up to What Works Centre, to shaping our strategy to take us through the coming four years. Jane spearheaded our evidence generation efforts, including both the design and delivery of impact evaluations of youth employment interventions, and the development of guidance and methods for evaluators. She shaped key projects including designing our first Randomised Controlled Trial, the first ever in the UK looking at the impact of a therapeutic approach for care experienced young people on their employment prospects.

Jane was hugely well liked and respected across our sector and has made an enormous impact on it, and on young people. Jane was instrumental in Youth Futures becoming an accredited What Works Centre. She was a main author of our chapter in the book, “The What Works Centres: Lessons and Insights from an Evidence Movement” and represented us at the What Works Summit in Canada to raise standards of evidence generation globally. In 2023, Jane was appointed to the UK Government Evaluation and Trial Advice Panel to support the design and delivery of robust, high-quality evaluation across government.

Above all Jane was a kind, passionate and generous person and colleague, whose commitment to helping young people with the power of evidence shone through. She was the first to offer support to those who needed it, and brought humour to everything she did. The tributes and memories already being shared with us reflect the impact she made upon those she worked with. All of us at Youth Futures feel her loss enormously.

Youth Futures Foundation, CEO, Barry Fletcher, said:

“Jane has been a massive part of Youth Futures since our inception and has been instrumental in shaping the organisation we are today. Jane’s passion, humour and infectious belief in the power of evaluation to change young people’s lives for the better came across in everything she did. She will be sorely missed.”

We know this loss will be felt widely in our community. We are collating memories of, and tributes to, Jane, which will be shared with her family. Please email tributes-jc@youthfuturesfoundation.org if you have anything to add and we will make sure it is included.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we all grieve our colleague and friend.