Evaluation of the Education, Training, Volunteering and Employment (ETVE) project

St Peter’s House annual service user survey highlights that People Living with HIV (PLWHIV) in West Sussex believe that they would benefit from support around accessing training and/or employment. There is currently no organisation offering any skills development support or back to training or employment support to PLWHIV in West Sussex.

In response to this need and the often inability of PLWHIV to access such opportunities without support, St Peter’s House set up the ETVE project in 2014 to fill the gaps between the training and community opportunities offered in the county. The ETVE project offers pathways for service users to access mainstream educational opportunities, work placements, job opportunities and community / interest and voluntary groups across the area. The Sussex Community Trust’s HIV specialist nursing team have confirmed the need for this type of work across West Sussex. The Sussex Department for Work and Pensions supports the project and is looking at how best to facilitate the HIV education workshops in local Job Centres.

The ETVE project aims to help PLWHIV in West Sussex who are unemployed and socially isolated, to access education, training, volunteering opportunities and/or or employment. The project aims to support the development of both work related skills, such as IT skills, and life skills such as self-confidence. In June 2015, the University of Brighton was commissioned to conduct a small scale process evaluation of the project. The evaluation activities started in September 2015 and will run until December 2018. Data collection with the ETVE project’s service users and stakeholders (e.g. local HIV workers, specialist HIV nurses etc.) is planned to take place at the end of each project year. There will thus be four separate data collection phases. The evaluation of the project will consider the following expected outcomes (as specified by the ETVE project):

1.Service users reporting changes in work and life skills including employability as a result of the support received;
2.Service users’ levels of engagement with, and positive contribution to, their respective communities (e.g. peer support and community groups) as a result of the support received;
3.An increase in service users engaged in training, volunteering roles or paid employment as a result of support received and from an increased awareness of local organisations.

In addition, the evaluation will:

•Assess whether the main ETVE project outcomes and indicators have been achieved;
•Identify unmet service user’s needs;
•Identify key strengths and weaknesses of the project, and;
•Provide feedback to the ETVE project to help inform planning and implementation.