EVALUATION
Evaluating NEXUS: A Journey of Growth and Impact
The NEXUS programme, a five-year journey of creative arts and dance for children and young people in Cheshire, isn't just happening- we're actively learning from it every step of the way. Our evaluation isn't a one-off event; it's a dynamic and ongoing process that helps us understand what's working well and where we can improve.
This is a long-term evaluation, designed to give us a comprehensive picture of NEXUS's impact over its full five years. Beyond just tracking progress, we're actively looking for areas where our understanding can deepen. Our goal is to share what we learn not just with our immediate partners, but with the wider creative and youth sectors, ultimately contributing valuable insights and recommendations that could influence policy and practice more broadly.
At its heart, this evaluation is about collaboration and reflection. We're constantly checking in with our project partners and the young people involved, building new connections and strengthening existing ones to make sure Nexus reaches as many young people as possible.
A big part of this involves supporting our facilitators – the people leading the sessions. We're dedicated to helping them develop and refine their skills, especially in trauma-informed practice.
This means they're equipped to create a safe and supportive environment for every young person, understanding and responding to their unique experiences with sensitivity.
We're taking an "iterative" approach to delivering the programme, which simply means we're learning as we go. We reflect on our experiences regularly, using what we discover to adapt and improve NEXUS continually. And critically, the young people themselves are at the very core of this process.
They're not just participants; we’re working to involve them as active decision-makers, helping to shape not only the content of individual projects but also the overall direction of the entire programme.
We're finding creative and innovative ways to hear their voices, asking them about their experiences so their insights can directly guide how NEXUS grows and evolves.
To help us with this, we're working with Artist-Researcher Nic Winstanley, who specialises in participatory art and develops creative tools and techniques to gather feedback.
Nic has led our reflective journey so far, and has adapted some tried and tested evaluation tools and techniques for the children and young people we’re working with, including developing ‘My Little Evaluation Book’- an illustrated journal, inspired by the Arts Council England’s Impact & Insights Toolkit.