What is MyEnds?

MyEnds is an ambitious programme funded by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU). It promotes highly-local, place-based approaches to reducing violence in London neighbourhoods which have experienced high and sustained levels of violence.

What did the evaluation do?

The evaluation team worked closely with London’s VRU and local areas to understand and capture the MyEnds model in action. We investigated delivery, emerging impact and promising practice in local areas, using review of programme-wide monitoring data combined with depth interviews with programme leads, site visits, focused case studies and consultation with providers and young people to get under the skin of different local approaches. Through interviews, workshops and progress meetings with London’s VRU colleagues we explored successes, challenges and development areas in implementing the programme, generating learning for designers and commissioners of future similar programmes. Throughout the evaluation, we adapted our methods and approaches to respond to the priority research questions emerging for London’s VRU and to the needs, interests and expertise of local stakeholders and communities.

What did we find?

MyEnds showed the power of collective approaches in action, working towards and contributing to more sustainable approaches to violence reduction in the local areas taking forward the programme. For example:

• The programme encouraged areas to bid for funding and deliver programme activities as a consortium of local voluntary and community sector organisations. This helped to produce stronger local networks and community-based interventions to prevent and address violence.
• MyEnds activities and the VRU’s support and promotion of this way of working began to increase the presence and status of VCS partners in planning and delivering violence reduction approaches alongside statutory partners.
• The injection of resource and energy into MyEnds has produced some sustainable relationships and activities, and supported the sustainability of organisations involved.

MyEnds therefore likely put local areas in a stronger position to work together to understand, address and prevent violence in their communities. In addition, MyEnds achieved the following impacts within each of its activity strands:

• Strengthening community networks and community and youth-led co-design and engagement: Partnerships between local organisations increased, communities became more involved in shaping plans and activities, and stronger foundations were created for collaborative, community-based approaches to violence and its reduction. Examples of activities in this strand included using strategic boards made up of local stakeholders from voluntary and statutory organisations to track the progress of MyEnds, and recruiting young people to deliver cultural competency training to new police recruits.
• Supporting and building capacity in the grassroots sector: More grassroots organisations became involved in delivering MyEnds activities, thereby broadening engagement with target community members. As a result, grantees’ credibility and sustainability to deliver activities into the longer term increased. MyEnds onwards grants programmes also promoted systems change in favour of the grassroots sector, supporting its contribution to violence reduction. This took place through activities such as capacity building support for recipients of onwards grants, and networking to build relationships between grassroots organisations and other potential funders.
• Targeting hyper-local interventions: Sites delivered a range of activity types, ranging from intensive, bespoke and holistic mentoring and advocacy for young people at risk of or involved in violence, to an in-school play and corresponding workshops exploring issues relating to young people’s risk of involvement in violence. In delivering these activities, MyEnds areas reached more young people than would have been reached without the programme, and contributed to a range of positive outcomes for the young people who participated.

What learning did we identify for future implementation of similar programmes?

By working closely with the VRU, we helped to create useful learning for future implementation of similar programmes, such as the need for:

• Bespoke support to local areas. This includes using capacity building and community needs assessments to identify existing skills, resources and development needs and offer tailored support in response.
• Honing approaches to strategically collecting and using data. This includes identifying priorities for strategic use of data at programme and local level. It also involves supporting local programme partnerships to engage statutory partners in providing data to identify need and strategically plan a response to violence.
• Facilitating opportunities for a range of people (e.g. young people, their communities, representatives of grassroots organisations) to be involved in sharing learning, planning and setting strategy for violence reduction.
• Embedding sustainability within planning from the outset across all activities. For example, this includes seeking opportunities for match funding grassroots grants and increasing the evaluability and replicability of interventions.
• Using data from community needs assessments to cultivate strategically informed intervention profiles. This includes tailoring the local offer to the characteristics, experiences, needs and preferences of local young people , and ensuring that it involves a balance of universal prevention activities, early interventions with those at risk, and targeted interventions with those closest to violence.

What outputs were produced from the evaluation?

The evaluation team produced a range of outputs for London’s VRU across the three years of the evaluation, including:

• An impact report from the first two years of the programme, which highlight promising practice, strengths and supporting factors, areas for development and recommendations for future delivery of MyEnds and similar initiatives.
• Thematic reports from the extension year of the programme and evaluation, which detail the MyEnds model in practice, distinct approaches local areas took in their delivery of key activity strands and successes and learning from their local work, and lessons and implications for future place-based interventions to violence reduction.

These reports have been published by London’s VRU and are available here.

What did the client think of our approach?

“The team were incredibly useful in bringing together huge amounts of information from multiple sites, activity strands and stakeholders into a comprehensive evaluation and developing a coherent and nuanced model. The recommendations were instrumental in developing the second iteration of the programme. The team was always looking for creative ways to capture the broad range of activities happening and delivered a really complex suite of reports and learnings.”

London VRU stakeholder

For more information…

…or to discuss your own programme and evaluation needs, please contact Hannah Nickson, Project Director.