Based in East Dunbartonshire, Group Recovery Aftercare Community Enterprise (GRACE) is a membership organisation and charity that supports people who have experienced life traumas. It offers a diverse range of weekly activities for members, including fitness classes, skills development, and social events. At the core of its approach is peer-led support, where members support one another through life's traumas, building self-esteem and resilience.
GRACE identified a need to better capture the impact they were making through their work - on their service users, the wider community, and health and social care partners. Community Enterprise were commissioned to work with GRACE to review their existing monitoring and evaluation and undertake a socio-economic impact assessment.
Community Enterprise collaborated with staff and volunteers from GRACE to better evidence the impact GRACE is making within their community. A range of activities were undertaken as part of this evaluation:
A guidance template for Monitoring & Evaluation and an impact evaluation that demonstrates a range of social and economic outcomes being delivered by GRACE across West Dunbartonshire, e.g. an estimated 2873 fewer appointments/support requests for NHS health and social care partners as a result of having GRACE support.
"Absolutely amazing mini evaluation and expressed the value of our organisation to our members, the process was so professional and having a totally independent evaluation was so informative to our organisation"
GRACE