Evaluations into our work with women and families
The Benefits Of Early Intervention – Evaluation Of The CAFÉ Gamechangers Project
Date: 2013
Evaluated by: Frontier Economics
Project overview: Gamechangers aims to reach the most marginalised families and help break the cycles of crime, poverty and unemployment they often face. Gamechangers is innovative drawing on a combination of St Giles experience working with gangs allied with conventional family support workers.
Key outcomes:
- Some local authorities estimate that they spend up to 10 times more on troubled families than on ‘average’ families - the overall cost of troubled families to the public purse is in the region of £9bn
- Helping ex-offenders find work can reduce their likelihood of re-offending, which is very costly. The cost of keeping a male in prison for a year alone exceeds £28,000 (Interface Enterprises Cost Calculator) while career criminals cost society around £1.2m
- There is substantial evidence linking child outcomes at age 3 to later childhood and adulthood development in several areas including crime, education, health and employment.
To date, the project has achieved very positive outcomes including (not limited to):
- Finding temporary accommodation for 23 families and permanent accommodation for 10 families and saving 17 families from eviction
- Supporting 20 families with improving their children’s school attendance
- Supporting 15 clients to access drug support services and 6 clients to access alcohol support services
- Training people to NVQ level 3 in Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) groups, with 20 local people (under 35) gaining the qualification.