# data[].attributes.headline
We have not collected Monitoring efficiently in the past and stopped collecting Equal opps data two years ago due to GDPR concerns. Our short term counselling service is funded by Camden & Islington NHS Trust and the only monitoring we collect for this is the number of people and sessions, and the average recovery rate for all our clients. Short term counselling clients (STC) are monitored using the GAD 7 and PHQ 9 questionnaires.  All patient information is collected on the joint Icope database, IAPTUS, used by all the partners in Icope, Camden & Islington NHS Foundation’s Trust IAPT delivery partnership. Any data analysis has to be requested from the Trust. Our long term, low cost (LTC) (up to a year) counselling service, which is subsidised by us, did not collect any monitoring data at all until this year, we are about to introduce CORE-10 (Clinical outcomes in Routine Evaluation) to monitor the clinical progress of our clients. I have organised the collection of equal opps data from our Short term counselling for 19-20, as well as data from the W&S (Work and social) scale. I have also collecting equal opps monitoring from our LTC clients for 19-20. Many of our LTC clients were previous short term clients. Camden & Islington NHS Trust have a valuable Employment service which was located in our building once a week, prior to the pandemic, and hopefully will be returning soon. Not only does this service help out of work clients look for a job, it can also give valuable legal employment advice and advocate for clients if they are having difficulties doing their jobs due to mental health difficulties. We are able to refer our counselling clients to this service. We are currently not keeping track of the number of clients referred. Although we have some good anonymous quotes, it has not been possible to get detailed case studies for these clients, as it is run by the NHS, not by us. Our Phoenix Rose  project provides Complimentary and Alternative Medicine therapies (CAM)  for survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence, and we have good evidence that our CAM treatments improve mental health and well being, but in the past we have not sufficiently tracked the long term health conditions, disabilities and mental health conditions of these clients. I have changed this. But I would like to improve the collection of social impact from these clients, who are very vulnerable and have problems settling back into society and keeping their children out of care. I would also like to see if we are doing everything right with collecting data on their mental health improvements. In 2020 we started a gardening project for local people, “Green Fingers Calm Minds”. Due to the pandemic we were not able to have run the project and instead we have had highly successful online classes. We have now done our first year’s monitoring but I would like to improve the collection of social impact from this project, particularly as we hope to be starting gardening volunteering soon. I would like to audit the above mentioned monitoring and evaluation systems and see if they are up to scratch, and what else we need to do to improve our evaluation framework and “join it up” properly. Clients do go from our Phoenix Rose project to our counselling project and vice versa, and also use our employment service, but we are not “joining the dots” and getting statistics on who is doing this and what benefit they are getting. We need to evaluate our client journey and see what people go where, when, and what happens to them after they leave our service. Our different monitoring and evaluation systems are time consuming and stressful and do not give us a clear picture of how our clients are improving overall. We also do not keep records of what other agencies of Camden’s Health and Social care clients are being referred to. This is valuable monitoring information and funders like to see this to show that we are properly working in partnership with other VCS and government organisations in Camden. This information would add extra value to our work. We are not collecting the right monitoring data from our short term counselling clients, and we are forced (by the NHS Foundation Trust) to use their database, IAPTUS,  when we could collect this data in another, easier to use format.  We are good at collecting highly moving qualitative quotes from our Phoenix Rose clients about how much they have gained from our services, but I would like to refine what social impact we have had on their lives, and what has improved for them. This is difficult to do as our Domestic violence clients are highly vulnerable and sometimes difficult to keep in touch with after they leave. They also usually wish to remain anonymous. I have introduced a number of changes to our monitoring and evaluation systems since I started in this post in February 2020, but am wary of putting more pressure on a very small and overstretched team. I would like to make M&E data collection easier for staff, so that it is automatic and almost doesn’t have to be thought about. I am hoping to start a Client Reference group later in the year, so that we can get feedback on our processes and ensure that our services are running well. Any help with this would also be appreciated, but this would be a small addition to the above tasks. 

# data[].attributes.subject
We have not collected Monitoring efficiently in the past and stopped collecting Equal opps data two years ago due to GDPR concerns. Our short term counselling service is funded by Camden & Islington NHS Trust and the only monitoring we collect for this is the number of people and sessions, and the average recovery rate for all our clients. Short term counselling clients (STC) are monitored using the GAD 7 and PHQ 9 questionnaires.  All patient information is collected on the joint Icope database, IAPTUS, used by all the partners in Icope, Camden & Islington NHS Foundation’s Trust IAPT delivery partnership. Any data analysis has to be requested from the Trust. Our long term, low cost (LTC) (up to a year) counselling service, which is subsidised by us, did not collect any monitoring data at all until this year, we are about to introduce CORE-10 (Clinical outcomes in Routine Evaluation) to monitor the clinical progress of our clients. I have organised the collection of equal opps data from our Short term counselling for 19-20, as well as data from the W&S (Work and social) scale. I have also collecting equal opps monitoring from our LTC clients for 19-20. Many of our LTC clients were previous short term clients. Camden & Islington NHS Trust have a valuable Employment service which was located in our building once a week, prior to the pandemic, and hopefully will be returning soon. Not only does this service help out of work clients look for a job, it can also give valuable legal employment advice and advocate for clients if they are having difficulties doing their jobs due to mental health difficulties. We are able to refer our counselling clients to this service. We are currently not keeping track of the number of clients referred. Although we have some good anonymous quotes, it has not been possible to get detailed case studies for these clients, as it is run by the NHS, not by us. Our Phoenix Rose  project provides Complimentary and Alternative Medicine therapies (CAM)  for survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence, and we have good evidence that our CAM treatments improve mental health and well being, but in the past we have not sufficiently tracked the long term health conditions, disabilities and mental health conditions of these clients. I have changed this. But I would like to improve the collection of social impact from these clients, who are very vulnerable and have problems settling back into society and keeping their children out of care. I would also like to see if we are doing everything right with collecting data on their mental health improvements. In 2020 we started a gardening project for local people, “Green Fingers Calm Minds”. Due to the pandemic we were not able to have run the project and instead we have had highly successful online classes. We have now done our first year’s monitoring but I would like to improve the collection of social impact from this project, particularly as we hope to be starting gardening volunteering soon. I would like to audit the above mentioned monitoring and evaluation systems and see if they are up to scratch, and what else we need to do to improve our evaluation framework and “join it up” properly. Clients do go from our Phoenix Rose project to our counselling project and vice versa, and also use our employment service, but we are not “joining the dots” and getting statistics on who is doing this and what benefit they are getting. We need to evaluate our client journey and see what people go where, when, and what happens to them after they leave our service. Our different monitoring and evaluation systems are time consuming and stressful and do not give us a clear picture of how our clients are improving overall. We also do not keep records of what other agencies of Camden’s Health and Social care clients are being referred to. This is valuable monitoring information and funders like to see this to show that we are properly working in partnership with other VCS and government organisations in Camden. This information would add extra value to our work. We are not collecting the right monitoring data from our short term counselling clients, and we are forced (by the NHS Foundation Trust) to use their database, IAPTUS,  when we could collect this data in another, easier to use format.  We are good at collecting highly moving qualitative quotes from our Phoenix Rose clients about how much they have gained from our services, but I would like to refine what social impact we have had on their lives, and what has improved for them. This is difficult to do as our Domestic violence clients are highly vulnerable and sometimes difficult to keep in touch with after they leave. They also usually wish to remain anonymous. I have introduced a number of changes to our monitoring and evaluation systems since I started in this post in February 2020, but am wary of putting more pressure on a very small and overstretched team. I would like to make M&E data collection easier for staff, so that it is automatic and almost doesn’t have to be thought about. I am hoping to start a Client Reference group later in the year, so that we can get feedback on our processes and ensure that our services are running well. Any help with this would also be appreciated, but this would be a small addition to the above tasks. 

# data[].attributes.body
Case studies & social data -- demonstrate social and medical value

# data[].attributes.body
Evaluate whole organisation or one specific program?

# data[].attributes.body
demonstrate impact for funding -- particularly for LTC programme to be able to provide all services free of charge for BAME clients

# data[].attributes.body
Work better with NHS data for STC

# data[].attributes.body
Establish theory of change for LTC & Phoenix Rose with defined outcomes

# data[].attributes.body
Determine ways to better use/apply existing data sources

# data[].attributes.body
Determine new monitoring & evaluation mechanisms for demonstrating social impact

# data[].attributes.body
Determine processes for establishing case studies

# data[].attributes.body
Not an M&E culture in the organisation

# data[].attributes.body
Staff turnover/institutional memory

# data[].attributes.body
Office manager is resistant to change/struggles with admin support

# data[].attributes.body
Theory of change

# data[].attributes.body
M&E structure using existing and some new data

# data[].attributes.body
Limited trustee support

# data[].attributes.body
Justification for using M&E

# data[].attributes.body
Framework & mechanisms for collecting and using social impact data

# data[].attributes.body
Occasional in-person meetings

# data[].attributes.body
Transparency