Inspiring Futures: Impacts of Covid-19

Summary

Youth Futures Foundation and BBC Children in Need funded Cordis Bright to independently evaluate the Inspiring Futures programme.

Evaluation approach

The evaluation focused on:

1. the implementation of Inspiring Futures and how it responded to the needs, challenges and opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic
2. the differences made by Inspiring Futures
3. learning for the future.

The evaluation was launched in December 2020 and final evaluation outputs were produced by March 2023.

Insights on the impact of Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic:

• exacerbated existing challenges for children and young people on their pathways towards employment, at all stages of the journey, and posed new challenges, with education, employment and training opportunities reduced and harder to acccess.
• negatively impacted children and young people’s personal wellbeing and social skills.
• presented some opportunities for young people and grantees realted to use of digital technology in support delivery and in daily life.
• made VCS organisations vulnerable due to disruptions, restrictions and economic uncertainty – this was particularly true for community-led or smaller organisations that, stakeholders suggested, may disproportionately cater to groups who face
  the poorest employment prospects, for example, ethnic minority-led and/or supporting organisations.
• forced grantees to be adaptive and responsive in their delivery, which was ultiamtely seen as a key strength, allowing them
  to respond to different needs and provide highly personalised support.

Learnings

Looking to the future, grantees agreed that funding will be key to enable them to continue to support children and young people, with longer-term funding a priority where possible.

The full evaluation report contains specific recommendations for funders, policymakers and practitioners.

Further outputs

This report can be read in conjunction with the following outputs, which provide more detail on the findings included in this report:

• Full evaluation report
• Technical appendix – presents the analysis of secondary monitoring report data collected by BBC CIN and YFF as part of Inspiring Futures.
• Deep-dive case studies
• Tailored summary reports for: (1) practitioners and frontline
  organisations; (2) strategic stakeholders, funders, commissioners and policymakers; and (3) children and young people.