Impact
The Creating Chances Monitoring & Evaluation team at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW conduct a rigorous evaluation of Creating Chances activities as part of our ongoing commitment to establishing best practice and ensuring programs are achieving intended outcomes.
Overall Findings in 2020
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Creating Chances continued to support a culturally and linguistically diverse group of young people during the challenging COVID-19 period by adapting former face-to-face programs to the virtual environment.
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These adapted, online programs had a statistically significant positive impact on participants’ hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resilience.
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CC successfully transitioned back to face-to-face programming in schools whilst complying with changing public health orders in Terms 3 and 4 of 2020.
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Springboard, Champions, Coach, and Future Pathways face-to-face programs were found to have a positive impact on hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resilience.
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Creating Chances is reaching more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people than in previous years (16% in 2020, 12% in 2019, 8% in 2018).
Sociodemographic Data 2020
- 18% were born overseas; 11% came to Australia as a refugee/asylum seeker
- 45% identified as female and 55% identified as male
- From 25 countries including Afghanistan (4%), Pakistan (1%), Syria (1%), India (1%), Iran (1%), China, Thailand, Italy, Iraq, South Africa, Egypt, Greece, Saudi Arabia.
- 16% identified as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (or both), which is much higher than the average for the NSW population (2.9%) .
Online Programs delivered during COVID-19
17% increase in
Hope
“Creating Chances is fun, motivating, and interesting”
1% increase in
Optimism
“I like being with the Creating Chances facilitators and seeing them”
19% increase in
Resilience
“Creating Chances is captivating”
11% increase in
Self-efficacy
“I like to learn about preparing myself for the future and university and connecting to role models”
Springboard Program
23% increase in
Hope
“Creating Chances gave me something to look forward to and something positive to focus on. I felt like it gave me a chance to have a second go, because my life was not the best before joining the program”
17% increase in
Optimism
“Mel’s* attitude improved a lot as the program went on. At first she seemed quite unwilling to speak in front of the group and engage in the sports. This improved dramatically, and by the end of the program she was the first one to put her hand up to help out or run an activity”
13% increase in
Resilience
“ If I have a fight with my friend or my sister, not everything is messed up and I can fix things. I’ve learnt that there’s different ways to fix things. One of the main things I learnt is to listen and not talk and just say I’m right or blame others”
20% increase in
Self-efficacy
“It helped give me the confidence to voice my options when my friends were harsh to me or others in my friends group. I find it easier to stick up for my friends now”
Champions Program
26% increase in
Hope
“I will be more resilient and not be overcome by bad emotions, and to put positivity out into the universe”
19% increase in
Optimism
“I will continue to be more positive”
13% increase in
Resilience
“Before I did Creating Chances, I was shy and a bit unconfident, but since then I’ve been a far more confident and resilient person. I have developed life skills that will help later in life”
22% increase in
Self-efficacy
“Creating Chances has helped me be more confident in class and more willing to get involved with sports”
Coach Program
21% increase in
Hope
“I will be happier”
19% increase in
Optimism
“This program really built my confidence and allowed me to speak to bigger groups of people”
13% increase in
Resilience
“I will become a better person and not just give up finding a solution to my problems”
18% increase in
Self-efficacy
“The change for me was being more confident and being able to communicate and work with others”
Future Pathways Program
20% increase in
Hope
“I am going to go through with my goals and try to achieve the best I can in school, work and other things that I may come across”
18% increase in
Optimism
“I have changed my attitude and I will continue to keep my head up”
18% increase in
Resilience
“I am going to try and change the way I look at and tackling problems and challenges that I face”
17% increase in
Self-efficacy
“Talking to the kids at first was tough, but I definitely feel like it’s gotten better every week”
22% increase in
Social-connectedness