YAC Impact Report
We know YAC is fun (for members and volunteers), and we know our members love to get out and undertake fieldwork and site visits and get their craft on – we only have to look at the longevity of the club (42 years!) to see that the format appeals to young people. The bounce back after Covid has been incredible; our membership is up 12%, volunteer numbers are up by 9%, and we have more clubs than ever before, with more in the pipeline. We also know that our YAC members like to stick around, some for the full eight years, and we have YAC leaders who have been with us for over a quarter of a century. Imagine that!
However, through our own ad hoc experiences, those of our volunteers and the feedback from members, their parents and carers, we also strongly suspected that YAC has a far greater, meaningful and long-lasting impact on our members. So, this time last year, we set out to explore this and develop an approach that was fun for our branches to participate in.
We were really lucky to be able to recruit Rebecca Jacobs, an arts and heritage consultant, to work with us to develop the methodology, which was co-created and youth-proofed by members of the CBA’s Youth Advisory Board, to ensure the activities and language used were both interesting and accessible, especially for some of our younger members. Rebecca developed a series of surveys (for volunteers, parents/carers and members), online focus groups, and, possibly most importantly, on-the-ground activities to be undertaken as part of YAC sessions that would help us explore particular experiences and impacts. Rebecca also conducted in-depth interviews with YAC leaders and members to create some fantastic case studies. As this was a pilot study, kindly funded by Historic England, we worked with seven YAC groups from across England, including a mix of different branch types (CBA-managed, Affiliate and After-school) with varying age ranges, member and volunteer numbers, well-established and new branches, etc. This was to ensure that we could trial the different evaluation techniques with different groups.
It’s safe to say that Rebecca had a great time travelling across England, visiting the different branches and exploring the similarities and many differences between the groups. Let’s just say we were a little envious over at YAC HQ!
We are really pleased to be able to share the YAC Impact Study and also the news that Historic England are providing funding for the next three-years to allow us to continue to develop the project. We will also be applying for funding to roll out the study to the rest of the UK. Happy reading!
