When you refer to the sampling point (A) being at 4-6 months after initial contact – how are you defining “initial contact”?

The ‘start date’ for a beneficiary will be the point at which they start to engage with the project rather than the very first point of contact. We want to evaluate the impact which all activity funded by BigLF (Fulfilling Lives: multiple needs) has, not just the impact of navigator support. Some of the initial outreach work, whilst no doubt an essential part of getting people into support, might not be a suitable ‘start point’ as individuals may not be actually receiving any services. A useful guide may be to think about the practical steps of (a) when you set up a client record for an individual in your local management system and, more importantly, (b) when you start to count the individual as a beneficiary in receipt of services for any returns made to BigLF’s Grant Management System. In other words, if you are counting them as a beneficiary of services funded by BigLF, and including them in returns to BigLF, then we want to be able to evaluate what impact those services are having. We understand that it may not be as clear cut as a specific date, and this is not critical in terms of the evaluation, but we do need to have the most accurate start date that is possible. There is a window of two months for the first service user survey (4-6mths after the start date) so this should accommodate any slight discrepancy in start date.