Burrowes, who said he has been following and supporting the work of the charity for around six years, praised its solution-focused approach of ensuring a ‘step-change in behaviour’ of children with conduct difficulties.
The charity aims to help children with conduct difficulties to improve their behaviour over the course of one-to-one mentoring, with a view to reducing antisocial behaviour and youth crime in the longer term.
In its 18th year, the Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate explained that like all 18 year olds, Chance UK is now “standing up and looking to be counted as an adult”; something a new report illustrating just how valuable its work is will help with.
Produced by Pro Bono Economics (PBE), the report examines the charity’s work and sets out the cost-benefit analysis of its outcomes.
The analysis shows Chance UK would have to reduce negative outcomes by only 2.5% more, on average, than would occur naturally in children who do not receive its service, for the benefits of the programme to equal the costs.
Put another way, the benefits of Chance UK’s work equal the costs if it is successful in ensuring that one in 42 children avoid the negative outcomes and costs associated with conduct problems, as a direct result of the mentoring programme.
Chance UK is doing a “pretty remarkable job” said Andy Haldane, Co-Founder of PBE and Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England.
He stressed that the benefits of Chance UK’s mentoring go far beyond simply improving the individual child’s life, with a wide-ranging array of social costs also reduced in the long term.
Therefore, even through the narrow criteria that PBE was able to use in its analysis, “the returns on this type of activity are very high indeed.”
Burrowes agree, saying the the report demonstrates how the charity’s mentoring work “stands the test of objective analysis.”
To further its evidence-based approach, Chance UK also will be operating a randomised control trial (RCT), funded by the Big Lottery Fund, to provide data on the actual impact of its mentoring programmes. This data could then be used to inform a fill cost-benefit analysis.
New Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund, Dawn Austwick, praised the charity for putting itself forward as a “guinea pig” for the RCT experiment, which she said will help with the BLF’s efforts to both identify and subsequently share the most effective preventative work.
Gracia McGrath, Chance UK’s Chief Executive, welcomed both the PBE report and the RCT:
“Ever since its inception 18 years ago, Chance UK has been keen to ensure our work makes a real difference in the lives of the children we work with and so has always welcomed evaluation by independent organisations.”
“The more evidence we gather, the more we will learn how to make our service even better and so benefit even more children.”