What Works
Amber Foundation Impact Evaluation
Exploring what works to support young people experiencing homelessness to access stable housing and good work
The challenge
Young people facing or experiencing homelessness experience significant marginalisation within the labour market.
Common barriers to employment include disrupted education, instability, and mental and physical health issues.
The opportunity
Through our continued partnership with the Amber Foundation and independent evaluators, we aim to learn more about what works to support young people experiencing homelessness into good work.
What are we doing?
We are conducting a theory-based impact evaluation of Amber Foundation to understand how its support model affects the employment, education and training outcomes of its residents.
This is the first project using this methodology that we have funded.
Aims
By evaluating the programme, we aim to build the evidence base on the interaction between complex-need stabilisation and positive employment outcomes for young people experiencing homelessness.
The research will explore how the programme contributes to these outcomes, and other conditions which support achievement and sustainment.
What are theory-based impact evaluations?
Read more about What are theory-based impact evaluations?Theory-based impact evaluations (also called small ‘n’ impact evaluations, or qualitative impact evaluations) are less common than randomised controlled trials or quasi-experimental designs.
This evaluation will use methods such as process tracing and qualitative comparative analysis, which allow us to understand more about the complex and variable relationships between the outcomes that young people achieve and their drivers of these.
This approach will give us a more complete understanding of the programme’s impact.
Building on previous work
We awarded Amber Foundation a Development Grant in November 2020, as part of our What Works programme.
The initial phase included:
- a process study to develop and test the programme’s Theory of Change and understand more about residents’ outcomes
- a feasibility study to explore the feasibility of delivering an impact evaluation of the programme
The findings indicated potential but concluded a “traditional” economic impact evaluation of the programme – such as randomised controlled trial – would not be appropriate due to ethical and practical considerations.
Instead, the programme presents an opportunity to use alternative, theory-based methods. This approach is suitable for a small-cohort programme serving young people with complex individual needs and facing multiple systemic barriers to good employment.
