A summary report from the 3-year project will be available in early 2015. The report: briefly describes the KYS youth outcomes model and measures; demonstrates how the model and measures can be used at a whole-of-service level; provides evidence of ‘what works’ and is important when providing services to young people, particularly those who are hard-to-reach and have complex needs.

Evaluation Works and Kapiti Youth Support (KYS) were successful in 2011 in a joint bid for Health Research Council funding to capture evidence of the changes experienced by young people using the health and well-being services of KYS, a youth one stop shop.

As there were no agreed set of national youth health and wellbeing outcomes measures, the project needed to develop a way of measuring the changes for young people, before it could assess the impact of KYS’s approach on the young people using its services. The developmental phase of the project involved researching and developing a youth health and wellbeing outcomes model and measures, and a ‘theory about how KYS works’ to enable positive health and wellbeing outcomes for the young people who use their services.

Both the outcomes model and measures and the theoretical concepts were tested as part of the impact evaluation. Over 300 young people were tracked over a 3-5 month period, along with follow-up interviews with young people, their key worker at KYS and a parent or other significant adult.