Summative Evaluation of ESF Project

The Learning Partnership for Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly is the Grant Holder for the Atlantic & Moor Working Together project which is part of The National Lottery Heritage Fund Building Better Opportunities programme. The project comes under Priority Axis 1 - Inclusive Labour Markets, Investment Priority 1.4: Active Inclusion.

This £2.1m project brought together 56 Partners to support 750 economically inactive and unemployed adults from the Atlantic & Moor geographical area into education, training, job search and employment. It is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the European Social Fund.

The Partners engaged and supported people with often complex and multiple barriers to work, to improve their health, wellbeing and finances. This included those with mental and physical ill health, suffering sexual and domestic violence, substance misuse, learning disabilities and difficulties, housing needs and being offenders or victims of crime.

In addition to supporting people into training and work the project aimed to have a wider lasting impact on the participants, communities, Partners and stakeholders.

The project has been delivered through the four following activities:

1. Engagement, assessment and planning 2. Support of soft skills 3. Employability and employment 4. Post-employment support

This is an exciting opportunity to assess the impact and effectiveness of the Atlantic & Moor Working Together project on participants and the wider community, which will also contribute to the development of best practice in future projects.

The summative evaluation will need to set a baseline of what would have happened if the project had not taken place, that can be used as a benchmark. Methods should include:

• Desk research of the information provided by the Grant Holder • Online surveys of participants, partners and stakeholders • Face to face or telephone interviews with participants, partners and stakeholders • Focus groups with participants and community organisations

The delivery activity will be complete by December 2020 but some Partners will be completing their work by July and for this reason it will be necessary to interview Key Workers in May to catch them before they leave for other employment.

The evaluation work and resulting report must be completed by December 2020.

Selection will be made using a points-based analysis of a completed application form that will be sent to applicants on request or can be downloaded from this site.

Covid-19

We would expect applications to include alternatives to face-to-face interviews, especially in the early stages of the evaluation when we will still be in a lockdown situation, and a timeline offering face-to-face interaction if and when this becomes acceptable later in the year, again with alternatives if this is not possible.