MyEnds 2 - Early Market Warming Session Community Needs Assessment & Evaluation

Lot 1 - Community Needs Assessment The MyEnds1 Impact Evaluation (Forthcoming) has a number of important recommendations relating to improving mobilisation and partnership working. In particular, the evaluation suggested that there may be scope for Networks to work more closely with statutory partners. It also found that Networks had taken an iterative approach to intervention development which meant that in some instances, it was challenging to link interventions to an overall theory for violence reduction. Based on this learning, the VRU intends to provide additional insight and support to VCS Networks during mobilisation which will allow sites to tailor their strategy to meet local needs and to forge relationships with statutory agencies from the outset. We are therefore looking for a partner who can provide a site-level community needs assessment for all MyEnds 2 sites during mobilisation stage. The Community Needs Assessment will aim to fulfil the following objectives: 1. Provide a detailed assessment of local need to support My Ends consortiums in their strategy development, 2. Support Networks to identify local strengths, resources, partners and areas they may wish to further develop, 3. Increase the speed of activity mobilisation and delivery by supporting the development of targeted interventions. We are looking for a provider with: • Experience working with grassroots communities, • Excellent knowledge of public health data, • Demonstrated ability to communicate evidence and data to grassroots organisations, • Strong data-visualisation skills, • Experience in community resource mapping, • A good understanding of local government and statutory agencies.

Lot 2 - Process Evaluation As MyEnds is a complex and iterative model, the VRU are keen to continue to learn from delivery and will be commissioning an evaluation of the programme. Given the community-led focus of MyEnds, the VRU wishes to commission an evaluation that will take an innovative, community-led participatory approach to evaluation. We are therefore looking for an evaluation partner that: • Can demonstrate strong cultural competency. • Has exceptional community engagement skills. • Has demonstrated experience in participatory research methods (in particular, with children and young people). The process evaluator will be encouraged to use innovative participatory approaches. Including, but not limited to; • Utilising peer researchers in data collection, • Providing capacity building and skills sharing with local stakeholders in evaluation methodology, • Demonstrating community participation in evaluation design, • A 'Human' centred approach to demonstrating impact which incorporates a user-journey/ life history approach and can reflect a complex systems approach, • Innovative approaches to output development using different types of media to communicate findings.

Lot 3 - Impact Evaluation As the MyEnds programme will (by 2026) have been running for five years across multiple different sites, the VRU is interested in looking at the long-term impact of MyEnds. In particular,we are interested in exploring whether there has been a significant impact on violence, crime or other relevant public health metrics in those areas (looking at both MyEnds1 & 2 sites). We are therefore looking to commission an evaluation partner which: • Has excellent knowledge of administrative datasets (including but not limited to administrative data sets in the crime, public health, education and justice space), • Strong data analysis/ statistical skills, • Demonstrated experience in designing complex quasi-experimental evaluations.