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Description
The project aims at supporting organisations focused on enhancing youth employment and entrepreneurship to develop tailored impact evaluation strategies. We also focus on creating transnational expert network to increase know-how in the field of impact evaluation, and on encouraging excellence in impact studies among young researchers.
Starting point of our project was to undertake research and draw up a report on existing evaluation standards and practices in partner countries – Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. The work was led by the German expert partner and it served as a foundation for design and development of following outputs: practical tools, e-learnings and workshops created to support the organisations to develop their evaluation competences.
The toolkit „Your leverage to better youth employment projects“ and e-learning “Towards better youth employment projects” are published on the project platform in 4 language versions. The first round of workshops took place with a great success. More than 70 participants underlined the necessity of such activity in the field of impact evaluation and they claimed to learn much more than they have expected.
Currently we are finishing the toolkit and blended-learning under the entrepreneurship evaluation package. We have also started research on how to adjust the tools for organisations working with the specific age group: 25-29 years old. We organise sets of round tables in each country, involved experts are also authors of experts’ studies. This year the Research Excellence Programme was launched – cooperating evaluators will select in total 10 young researchers in each country to lead them in their impact evaluation studies.
Results of the project will be presented during the conferences in every country. Outputs of our project are continuously presented on project platform and promoted via Facebook page.
Summary of project results
Youth Impact project aimed at supporting organisations focused on enhancing youth employment and entrepreneurship by helping them to improve their activities.
As impact evaluation is quoted as one of the weak spots of their interventions and activities organised for young people, the project partners decided to create sets of tools and accompanying methodologies to help them understand better the necessity and advantages of impact evaluation.
Another goal was to support researchers working in the respective field.
Along three and half years of implementation of the project the consortium succeeded in delivering toolkits and accompanying e-learnings focusing on the main themes connected with the impact evaluation. The project focused on organisations supporting employment, entrepreneurship of young people between 15 and 24 years old but also the special group of NEETs from 25-29.
The outputs were tested with cooperating organisations in each country, and more than 150 people were trained to use the tools, familiarize themselves with the impact evaluation, and implement the tools in their organisations.
The project partners launched the Excellence programme and supported more than 30 researchers.
Workshop participants, researchers, beginners, and professionals also had the opportunity to meet, discuss, and share good practices at round tables or conferences in all countries. They could and still can learn even more from the articles, expert studies, or conference publications published on the project platform.
Delivered outputs of the project (reports, guidelines, toolkits, e-learnings and workshops) produced by project consorcium are helping to increase the knowledge of the effects of employment initiatives targeting NEETs not only among organisations cooperating on creation of outputs but mainly among organisations that are taking part in project activities and also among the wide public that is regularly informed via web platform, newslettres and social media of the project. The external evaluation of the project itself shows that the participants involved in the project claim their knowledge growth and skills improvement. Capacity on evaluating effects of employment initiatives was increased mainly in organisations which took part in the blended-learning courses, Their staff attended workshops and e-learning courses. They also had the possibility to consult their evaluation methods with project experts along the organised round tables. Thanks to the implementation of Youth Impact project, the 4 partner organisations are able to work together on the same idea - impact evaluation of organisations focused on enhancing youth employment. Partner institutions are continuously in cooperation also with Evaluation Societies in respective countries and other institutions focusing on the same field of interest.