Building Better Opportunities

About the work

Building Better Opportunities (BBO) was a national programme funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and managed by the National Lottery Community Fund. It funded a range of programmes designed to support people furthest from the job market with holistic, person-centred support to help move people into employment or education, as well as improve confidence, skills and wellbeing.

What we did

Shephard & Moyes was commissioned by a number of BBO projects to provide evaluation support over their lifetimes. These included programmes delivered in Shropshire, Sussex, Surrey and Leicestershire. We worked with the lead partner organisation to develop evaluation frameworks and tools to capture quantitative and qualitative data, to understand what outcomes were achieved, but also how these outcomes were achieved. We produced annual evaluation reports that summarised the impact and learning from the programmes, and facilitated Learning to Action workshops to help delivery partners reflect on what they learnt and make changes to delivery models.

The difference we made

By working across a number of BBO programmes, we were able to capture considerable learning on how to deliver effective employability support to vulnerable people experiencing significant challenges in their lives. Through this we have supported programmes to better understand the building blocks needed to help people find a purpose in their lives.