CLIENT STORY

Become PA Learning Programme Evaluation

Become, the charity for charity for care experienced children and young people, has developed a learning programme for Personal Advisers (PAs) within local authority Leaving Care teams. Participating PAs receive training and work towards a Level 4 qualification that equips them with the skills and competencies required to help young people live the lives they choose.

The Challenge

In its pilot phase, Become was keen to work with a learning partner to ascertain what participants thought of the training, how they engaged with it and the difference it was making to their knowledge, skills and practice – as well as any recommendations for improvement. Insley Consulting was delighted to be appointed to partner with Become to evaluate the programme.

Our Evaluation

Co-production was an important aspect of the PA Learning Programme development and essential to the evaluation. Therefore, we worked with the Become training team, Leaving Care service managers and care leavers to develop a comprehensive evaluation toolkit and approach that would assess the effectiveness of the learning programme.

“We needed a learning partner who could work alongside us from the outset, to help us learn as we go, so we could tweak the programme based on evaluation insights. Insley Consulting delivered on this.”

CHLOE GRANT
Director of Services at Become

The Solution

In the first year of the pilot, Become recognised that changes needed to be made to help PAs, who were already struggling with a high workload, to complete the six-month programme and achieve the qualification. We quickly responded by consulting with participants and local authority partners and working with Become to consider the changes that could be made.

“Insley Consulting delivered a robust evaluation on time but also shared insights as data unfolded, in advance of the deadline, telling us what we are doing well and what hasn’t worked so well, which meant we could respond rapidly and make some changes ahead of the next cohort … The evaluation reports were read by the funder who was reassured that we were not only having an impact, but also changing things based on what we were learning.”

The cycle of learning and improvement continued throughout the three-year pilot, with Become taking evaluation feedback on board at every stage.

“Your rapid feedback, honesty and friendly challenge were important to the programme’s success. Without it we might have missed opportunities to make improvements in the way that we have.”

CHLOE GRANT
Director of Services at Become

The Result

Become now has a more effective programme to deliver at scale, which has become a fee-paying programme – several local authority partners are continuing their commitment to it by paying for their staff to take part.
The team has a set of Monitoring & Evaluation tools that they are using to continue assessing the effectiveness of the programme with their in-house staff.

“With the evaluation in the first and second cohorts, we saw the improvement in participant retention and qualification. Being able to tell that story has helped us to convince Leaving Care services to partner with us, by giving PAs the time to join in the learning and now also committing money to fund their places.

“Local authority partners who have been involved in the programme for some time tell us: ‘It’s really positive to see you’ve made changes to the programme; this is part of why we continue to want to be involved.”

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