Lincolnshire Health and Wellbeing Board: programme evaluation
Because of our work, two organisations merged to ensure the programme’s continuing viability.
The Lincolnshire Health and Wellbeing Board supports organisations across the county to develop and explore innovative approaches to community led-health improvements. Although volunteering is often an effective way of boosting people’s self-esteem, health and wellbeing, it can often be difficult to recruit and retain volunteers. The Wellbeing Board provided funding to evaluate a Volunteer Programme delivered by the Involving Lincolnshire consortium.
Stage one: including all partners. We met first with Lincolnshire County Council, the accountable body for the programme, with whom we discussed our approach to the study. It was important that all 10 partners had the opportunity to discuss key issues such as partnership working, outcome measurement and sustainability. We agreed to be an independent assessor of each group’s impact and to identify potential areas of support for the group.
Stage two: listening to all partners
- All voluntary groups took part in an initial workshop in which we explored current approaches to volunteering in Lincolnshire.
- We then we interviewed each group separately to understand their projects and progress. We analysed available data to develop an overview at a programme and project level.
- We interviewed 12 external stakeholders from the Local Authority, Community Care Group .and other key agencies to understand their perceptions of volunteering and the part it plays in health and wellbeing. We also sought to understand their views and experience of the Volunteer programme.
- We conducted focus groups with the beneficiaries to discuss the impact that each project had ion their lives.
- Finally, we surveyed of all projects and partners to inform our final report.
Stage three: building on strengths and social value. We delivered interim and final reports to the Wellbeing Board and recommended that it amend the programme to build on areas of strength. We identified opportunities for the organisations to strengthen their ability to work with statutory partners, specifically around social value. We delivered a further two workshops on social value.
Reinvigorated to restart capturing data relevant to self-evaluation… capturing stories…. identifying ‘most significant change’. Very useful preparation for a funding bid. There were many new aspects within this presentation which will be beneficial