The evaluation and monitoring of our bullying prevention programmes is absolutely crucial to Beatbullying’s effectiveness as a charity. It provides the solid factual basis that ensures we only continue to implement programmes that are proven to work, and adapt our programmes to respond to the needs of those we are working with.
Across all our work, young people are asked to fill out questionnaires before, after (and with the longer programmes, during) the programme. These enable us to understand the initial understanding, experience and needs of the young people, against which we can measure what they gain from our programme. At the same time, surveys are also completed by the teachers and professionals who work with the young people, rating the programme according to a range of criteria and measuring actual outcomes against hoped-for objectives. Professionals’ surveys are distributed at 3, 6 and 12 month intervals after the original programme to measure the effectiveness of the programme over time and how the work is being sustained.
Whilst we work towards quantifiable outcomes, bullying is a difficult issue that can’t always be measured just by numbers. All our monitoring and evaluation processes include ways for respondents to give us their feedback in more detail, either in writing or by recording audio/visual responses. We also use panel groups, observation and real-life case studies where appropriate.