Assessing the goals of outreach work

Established ten years ago, SAFC Foundation uses the power of football to involve, inspire and educate young people and their families through a variety of programmes.

Last year it helped improve the lives of more than 40,000 people across Sunderland, South Tyneside and Co. Durham through advancing literacy and numeracy, improving confidence and aspirations as well as raising awareness of citizenship issues and enhancing employment skills.

Its vision is to inspire those taking part to achieve their goals and drive up the aspirations of the local community.

Now academics from Northumbria University are putting the work in the spotlight to assess the benefits of the club’s wider family learning programmes and find out what real social impact the work is having on the local community.

The evaluation will focus on three of the Foundation’s programmes: Family Learning through Football Coaching, Family Values and Football Fitness.

The research will result in a set of social impact indicators which will measure the value of the programmes in relation to issues such as social inclusion, increasing wider participation and raising standards in schools.

Dr Lynne McKenna, Programme Manager for the Integrated Children's Workforce in the School of Health, Community and Education Studies, said: “This assessment of the Foundation’s wider family learning programmes will identify the key factors which make a difference to children and young people, parents and families and the wider community, alongside an examination of the social impact of that learning.

“This analysis will enable the Foundation to measure their impact by focusing efforts on what really makes a difference and, as a result, will in turn stimulate continuous improvement.”

Dr McKenna added: “Football is part of the fabric of North East culture so it will be interesting to see what impact the SAFC brand has in this type of activity.”

Lesley Spuhler, SAFC Foundation Chief Executive Officer, added: “One of the things that has made us so successful over the last decade is our commitment to measuring and assessing the effectiveness of our programmes on the community.

“This evaluation by Northumbria University will expand on that work and contribute to the continuous improvement that SAFC Foundation is dedicated to.”