What is Positive Youth Foundations (PYF) Mission?
“Helping young people achieve their full potential.”
Positive Youth Foundations mission is as clear as is it ambitious.
The Positive Youth Foundation (PYF) is one of the great success stories of the Home Office Funded Positive Futures national programme. Originally a Coventry Council managed initiative, the staff responsible for its success set up the PYF charity in 2011, in order to generate even bigger impacts in the most socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods across the city. Over the last ten years PYF has grown to be one of the most effective and innovative sport and youth charities in the country, positively affecting the lives of thousands of young people.
Currently, PYF delivers work across 6 different strands, all of which contribute to young people realising their potential:
Krishan Singh, originally a participant in the Positive Futures programme, but who has now graduated to the Senior Manager at PYF explained:
“The work we deliver is continuously being reviewed and developed so we can remain ahead of the game. We believe that our work within the youth sector needs to continually adapt and be responsive to the changing needs of young people.”
One example of PYF’s adaptability is their ‘Staying Safe’ programme, initiated in 2019 as a response to the rising incidents of youth violence and knife crime in Coventry and its surrounding areas. The programme brought together PYF with The Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office, Coventry City Council and Street Doctors to deliver day-long sessions in schools to support youngsters in making positive life choices and avoid the dangers of getting involved in knife crime.
The programme was subsequently delivered in 26 schools to more than 200 participants, with over 90% agreeing the sessions had helped them to better understand the consequences of youth violence.
Why Did Positive Youth Foundation Approach Substance?
The Positive Youth Foundation is now entering its 14th year using the Views system! As one of the most successful Positive Futures agencies in the country, the organisation were keen to pilot new ways of capturing key information about programme participants and the work they were involved in. The senior staff saw the need to generate good outcome and impact data in order to build key strategic partnerships across the city. This approach has paid off as they are not only recognised locally as an organisation that delivers value, but also by other charities across the country who seek to emulate their success.
Substance have long since recognised the importance of the PYF to the sport and youth sectors and continue to hold them up as an example of what can be achieved when an organisation has a clear mission, dedicated and skilled staff and a commitment to collecting and managing outcome data.
How Substance Helped?
As one of the first organisations to use Views, PYF is one of the best placed to offer feedback and provide examples of the benefits the system has made to them over the last 14 years.
Krishan stated:
“For me, having a system that helps us easily collect and access data from anywhere has been critical. It has not only improved our reporting but also improved the efficiency of our team, giving them more time to focus on working with the young people.”
PYF are confident that they have collected good data on almost every one of the 17,000 young people who have attended the various projects they have delivered since their inception. Furthermore, they believe that the flexibility Views offers has allowed them to create bespoke data structures for each of these projects. This in turn helps staff meet the funders reporting requirements, which are essential for building credibility with other partners and stakeholders. Krishan suggested:
“Not only has Views allowed us to produce great reports for funders, staff and the agencies who refer young people to our projects, they know the data is safe and secure, which is really important in building trust. Last year, for example, we collected, analysed, and reported on more questionnaire data than ever before. We expect this to continue in the future, as the demands from funders and partners on the impacts their support is generating, continues to grow. However, it’s something we welcome as we try and stay ahead of the game”.
For more information about Positive Youth Foundation and their projects, why not visit https://www.positiveyouthfoundation.org/
