Our work has always sought to capture the voices and stories of children, young people, adolescents, adults of working age and older people since we established ourselves as a social research agency in 2007. Here is just a flavour of the different aspects of people’s lives that we have been able to research, evidence and learn from. We use this insight to help our clients devise programmes that can make a meaningful difference to people’s lives whether their health, wellbeing, education, their safety, security, feelings of connection, belonging and personal growth.
Skyblue has supported the development and evaluation of projects that seek to strengthen young people’s life chances through evidence-based interventions. Many of these have been delivered in schools, but some have also been delivered in community contexts beyond the school gates.
Our synthesis review of the North Yorkshire Coast Opportunity Area, monitoring and co-ordinating role for the NYCOA’s Essential Life Skills Fund and investments in Behaviours & Exclusions activity all revealed ways in which young people could develop skills and aptitudes that would more likely support their personal growth and development.
That research experience led to Skyblue being asked in 2020 to help conceive the long-term ‘Achieve Education Programme’ for Anglo American and The Woodsmith Foundation. ‘Achieve’ works with disadvantaged young people in Scarborough Borough and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council localities to improve their opportunities, personal social and emotional development and skills to make good progress in their secondary education. A longitudinal study with the 150 young people engaged with this Programme is showing promise as the intended outcomes are being achieved, and in some cases exceeded regards their motivation to try new things, how they can manage their emotions and how they feel more positive about their future. Participating schools also receive CPD that improves their ability to support all students with academic and emotional resilience as well as their behaviours for learning and specific STEM subject capabilities.
Skyblue has also drawn on lessons learnt from its 5 year independent evaluation of the Inspire Education Programme supported in the South West of England by EDF Energy. (Please see report download right)
The North Yorkshire Youth Mentoring Project, supported by The National Lottery Reaching Communities Fund, was designed to support vulnerable young people through intense, early intervention, one-to-one sessions and group work activities. The aim to improve their wellbeing, future employment opportunities and to learn new skills was achieved over the 3 year period in which Skyblue provided services as the Learning Partner (2020-2023).
Using participatory research techniques designed with the young people themselves, we helped bring out their feelings and opinions so that their voices could be heard, and they could shape not only their own experience of mentoring but for future cohorts of young people like them too. The young people especially liked activities such as ‘You’re the Boss’ in which they took on the role of designing the future service, making improvements and bringing fresh ideas that might not have been realised otherwise.
This work has built on Skyblue’s years of helping evaluate and improve youth programmes (linked to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games) that aim to help them feel greater agency, and take positive steps towards education, volunteering, social action, employment and enterprise. See the report download to the right about the Young Leaders Programme in London and Glasgow that Skyblue evaluated.
The Timpson Review (2019) identified a range of significant challenges in England’s school system that have been leading to a rise in permanent and fixed term exclusions. We conducted an independent evaluation of a project aimed at reducing rates of exclusion on the East Coast of North Yorkshire working with primary and secondary schools, pupils, teachers, specialists (including educational psychologists), families, carers, support workers and alternative provision organisations.
After 3 years of investment the Project had encouraged inclusive practice amongst participating schools. A key element of support has been behaviour management CPD for all staff in the catchment supported by experts in this field. Young people also directly benefited from the support around them, and improvements in their agency were observed and scores using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were positive over the duration of the intervention.
For over 20 years Skyblue has undertaken research aimed at helping clients design and deliver programmes that deliver physical and mental health benefits. This ranges from European youth health champion peer projects, to coach and volunteer workforce development planning and helping understand the social return of initiatives aimed at different segments of the population from the least to most active in society. Our long term relationship with North Yorkshire Sport continues to help improve activity levels in this county and provide leadership and innovation with an array of sporting and non-sporting partners.
In recent years we have:
In our role as Learning Partner for the Woodsmith Foundation we are currently evaluating their investment in:
We also completed a comprehensive market assessment for Anglo American in 2023 to support their ongoing investment in a programme called Turning Tides aimed at adolescents aged 15-21 through a customised coaching intervention. Changes in these young adults’ lives are being tracked by the Programme’s Operational Lead, Katie Cowie, who continues to share learning with Skyblue in the interest of advancing joint knowledge about interventions that can work to support mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Skyblue was privileged to author the North Yorkshire Framework for Tackling Loneliness and Social Isolation ‘Be Social Be Well’ (see article right). This was a multi-agency commission that has led to the co-design of 5 strategic ambitions to create positive change between 2020 and 2026. Inspired by real lives and stories of people overcoming loneliness, the work is just one strand of a wider ‘Building Connections Fund’ initiative in the county that includes a number of campaigns to encourage connections, conversations and stronger relationships developed across all communities and contexts. The Framework’s emphasis has been on prevention, but it also recognises the urgent need to reach, understand and support those who experience feelings of chronic loneliness as this can have many negative health, economic and wider societal consequences.
Commissioned by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Skyblue developed and successfully delivered a customised learning, coaching and development programme for 14 local charities that aim to reduce poverty and tackle inequalities in the City of York. The organisations vary significantly in their scope. They include those working to support people who feel marginalised or discriminated against, young people to improve their aspirations, older people to develop their confidence to step back into employment through to individuals that have suffered abuse or have barely enough to get by from day-to-day. This programme aimed to develop the capability of these charities to demonstrate their impact so that they can improve their support services and work with investors and funders to focus effort where it can make greatest difference in future. One of the participating charities subsequently won a national award for their impact practice.
As part of a long-term research project with North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council Skyblue collaborates with the LIFE (Lived Insights From Experience) group to understand the reality of living without reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious, healthy food. You can download the hard-hitting insights gathered from people across multiple community food provisions in York.
Please also look at the short film about Katie who contributed to the research as a community reporter with lived experience of food insecurity (see film link in the right hand side of this page).
Some of our most valuable learning has come from evaluating projects aimed at tackling disadvantage in society including but not limited to people with disabilities, physical, mental, learning and sensory impairments, autistic individuals, refugees and asylum seekers and young people furthest away from the labour market. Our work simply aims to ensure that the voices of these under-represented people are accurately reflected in our research studies and assessments to better improve services and self-support resources in future.
This is the strategy authored by Skyblue on behalf of partners who are aiming to tackle loneliness and social isolation in North Yorkshire.
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