Evaluating the impact of detached youth work practice

Youth workers commonly cite the need to meet young people “where they are at” as key to forming the connections that can help change lives. But if the “where” is literally in streets, shopping centres and fast-food outlets, then evaluating the impact of youth work presents unique challenges.

The Youth Endowment Fund commissioned CEI and our partners YMCA George Williams College and Bryson Purdon Social Research to investigate whether, and how, it is feasible to evaluate the impact of detached youth work – a form of practice in which youth workers interact with young people in public spaces.

“The ‘detached’ model of youth work is delivered across all regions of England,” says CEI Advisor Amy Hall. “It’s really important to understand how detached youth work can impact young people’s lives, because it often reaches those not connecting with other support services.”

Understanding and defining what detached youth work is (and is not) proved key to determining that evaluation of this practice is feasible – as well as to identifying how it might be done with rigour and in a way that reflects the work’s aims and values.

As detached youth work takes place in young people’s territory, it radically alters the boundaries of interaction between a ‘service’ and the young person. Engagement is driven by the young person’s needs and experiences, is entirely voluntary and in-the-moment – with the specific young people involved changing in each encounter.

“We found this work to be distinct from other seemingly similar models, such as outreach services, open access centre-based youth work and community safety work,” Amy explains.

“Through deep interaction with the youth workers, leaders and funders, our research partnership developed a Theory of Change for detached youth work, and a shared practice model that would bring enough consistency to detached youth work provision to make evaluation feasible, while retaining the flexibility and responsiveness that are absolutely core to the practice.”

An evaluation design was then developed which involves an area-level randomised controlled trial to measure the difference that detached youth work makes, alongside an in-depth implementation analysis, capturing young people's voices and experiences.

“The fluid, non-institutional nature of detached youth work presents significant challenges for traditional evaluation methods, because the level and type of interactions aren’t formalised or pre-set, and can reach into many areas of young people's lives,” says Amy.

“Any evaluation has to respect and preserve the authentic and trusting relationships that youth workers build, which are the heart of detached youth work.”

The feasibility study report notes that youth services have been hard-hit by diminishing national and local government investment, with YMCA analysis showing a near 75% reduction in real terms over the past ten years – a total of £1.1 billion funding loss nationwide (YMCA, 2022 and 2024).

“Robust evidence about the impact of detached youth work for young people will be enormously valuable for decision-makers in weighing up where best to invest scarce funds,” says Jane Lewis, CEI Managing Director in the UK. “We want to see effective investment in services that will make the greatest impact for young people – both in the short and the long term.”  

The report "Feasibility of an impact evaluation for detached and outreach youth work" was written by Amy Hall, Emma Wills and Jane Lewis from CEI; Susan Purdon and Caroline Bryson from Bryson Purdon Social Research; and Lydia Whitaker, Simon Frost, Zunaira Mahmood and Bethia McNeil from YMCA George Williams College.

The full report is available for download HERE