Stirling Community Learning and Development (CLD) - Stirling Council: Planning the project
This section includes information on the planning process, including roles and responsibilities, governance arrangements and outcomes of the project.
Educational Psychology had the overview of the project and applied for the funding. They also provided in-depth training to all Community Learning and Development sessional staff on themes, such as ‘Ask Tell’ and Suicide Prevention.
The Community Learning and Development (CLD) Youth Participation Team managed the overall running of the project and ensured that staff were present to work with the children every week. They also developed the project’s content and ensured it was evaluated.
Schools determined the focus of the project. They also developed a referral pathway, utilising information from SEEMIS to support the process.
The Community Learning and Development (CLD) team leader planned to promote the offer to all 38 primary schools within Stirling Council. Schools who entered a partnership with CLD began planning how to implement the offer in individual settings. It was agreed to provide 7/8 groups across all schools, running for 6-to-8-week blocks.
The expectation of the project was to provide group work or 1:1 support for specific children and young people. The aim of the interventions was to ensure consistent positive transitions to school and reduce attendance-based issues from developing or worsening. It was expected that those involved would already have difficulties attending school or have social/emotional issues impacting on their attendance.
It took time to explore and agree shared outcomes. The Community Learning and Development (CLD) team suggested using the National Youth Work Outcomes framework as it can be used in a range of youth work contexts to measure the impact and practice against seven overarching outcomes. It also includes a structure for reflective learning conversations with young people on their youth work journey. Importantly, it documents the most significant changes that young people commonly describe, as a result of their involvement in youth work.
Two specific outcomes were agreed by looking at the common themes the schools wanted to improve and how they aligned to those on the framework:
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Outcome One - young people are confident, resilient and optimistic for the future
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Outcome Two - young people manage personal, social and formal relationships
The key areas of reporting were:
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the number of schools worked with
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the number of children and young people engaging with the groups
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data on the two specific national youth work outcomes selected
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measuring attendance for children and young people involved in the project
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self-assessment from children and young people to see how their wellbeing has improved
There was an agreement in each setting that the referring agents for the project would be the school’s senior leadership team and staff from educational psychology. This ensured a targeted approach to all children and young people referred to the wellbeing groups and addressed suitability of the interventions.
Youth work staff would quality control the referrals, ensuring they aligned to the outcomes of the project. They would also provide consistency of the data collected and the evaluation questions used.
Representatives from each school and the Community Learning and Development (CLD) team had regular meetings to discuss the content delivered in the groups to ensure it was meeting the needs of the children and young people. Time would also be allocated within these meetings to raise any successes or concerns. The same staff would also meet monthly to evaluate and implement any changes required.
Termly reports were produced to analyse the evaluations gathered from young people, schools, parents and staff. The CLD team shared a summary of the evaluation data with Educational Psychology. This was shared with Scottish Government colleagues as part of the funding agreement.
