Following three successful national events run by Arts Council England and Museums Libraries and Archives which looked at the ways arts and culture deliver positive activities for children and young people, the Arts Council has collated a small number of case studies which represent the essence of the three events and which we hope you will find useful as an advocacy tool. Substance's approach to monitoring and evaluation is one of these case studies.

This report reveals that the activity-based social inclusion programme, Positive Futures, is getting young people back on track and back to work in some of the country’s most disadvantaged communities.

The report, ‘Working for us’, reviews the progress of the programme over the last year. The findings show that, despite the economic downturn, the number of young people gaining employment through Positive Futures increased by more than one third compared to 2007/08. Other key findings include:

* The number of young people recorded attaining awards and qualifications rose to 9,677, a 65 per cent increase compared to figures for the same period in 2007/08.

* The programme’s reach being extended to 59,348 young people with nearly one and a half million hours of contact between young people and professionals.

* 1,500 instances of evidence of participants choosing to not take illegal drugs.

* 7,153 (67%) of the 10,725 young people whose engagement level movements were recorded showed movements in a positive direction.

Substance are pleased to announce the publication of this report which presents learning from year one of the DCSF Information and Signposting Project. The project has worked with 20 local authorities to help them meet the statutory duty to collect, manage and publish information on positive activities for young people.

The project has made use of Substance’s positive activity publication platform Plings (Places to Go, Things to Do) to enable activity providers to easily and effectively aggregate positive activity information, which has in turn enabled better and more targeted information sharing and analysis.

Throughout our work with the twenty pilot authorities we have been keen to learn about the challenges associated with meeting the duty and to test fresh approaches to gathering, managing and sharing positive activity information.

This document aims to share the learning from the first year of the project and includes practical step by step guidance, addressing each of these three themes. Substance will continue its work with the pilot authorities during the second year of the project.

From April 2004, a research team led by Professor Tim Crabbe was invited to conduct a two year programme of detailed qualitative research into Positive Futures, a national sports and activity based social inclusion programme, funded by the Home Office Crime and Drug Strategy Directorate.

The research itself focused on six case study projects located in Yorkshire, Merseyside and London which reflected the diversity of organisational and delivery cultures within the wider programme.