Online Harms Intervention – Evaluation + Learning Partner

Tender description

The VRP is looking to appoint an experienced partner to support as an evaluation and learning partner. The VRP commissions a wide range of violence reduction interventions in West Yorkshire. It is a requirement of the VRP to demonstrate evidence of the impact of funded programs, the potential for sustainability of promising interventions, as well as value for money. Accordingly, a number of funded violence reduction initiatives are selected for evaluation each year. One of these newly formed initiatives is the implementation of online harms provision within a secondary school in Bradford. (Please Note: This is subject to onboarding of both the delivery provider and school, which will be done while this evaluation process is live, for timeliness). The VRP funded research last year highlighted the opportunity for us to pilot new approaches in response to online harms that could potentially be scaled nationally and beyond. It found that while young people in West Yorkshire do receive a considerable amount of education on online safety, starting for many in primary school, there is a significant lack of evaluation of online harms interventions and currently no formal evidence base on what works in school-based online harms interventions. As such, it’s imperative that this pilot intervention builds in evaluation and learning from the beginning. Incorporating a strategic learning role into this specification will aid in enabling development and iteration of an intervention as it is developed and implemented, increase the potential for national acceleration of any intervention after a pilot in West Yorkshire, and enable West Yorkshire to play a key role in building up the evidence base of what works in this arena.