Evaluation of the British Red Cross community connectors programme : final report, Social Return on Investment : May 2019

Background: A Social Return on Investment (SROI) was undertaken to evaluate the economic impact of the British Red Cross Community Connectors programme. The programme was a form of social prescribing, which was focused on alleviating loneliness. This type of analysis is particularly suited to interventions that include a wide range of benefits (Nicholls, Lawlor, Neitzert, & Goodspeed, 2009).

Objectives: The SROI sought to address the following objectives. • Provide robust evidence to inform the British Red Cross decision making with regard to wider rollout and support advocacy • Understand the costs of service delivery and make judgments about its value of outcomes including reductions in the use of other services that might occur as a consequence of the support provided to service users

Methods: The different benefits and costs included were informed by the literature and decided by stakeholders and local experts, using workshops, surveys and informal conversations. This approach promotes relevance of findings and encourages a collaborative focus. The SROI approach has been successfully used to evaluate wellbeing interventions. For example, a community befriending programme (Arvidson, Battye, & Salisbury, 2014). It is widely used and recognised by decision makers; for example, the Cabinet Office has issued guidance on how to use SROI. A key advantage of the SROI for evaluating the Community Connectors project is that it enables the economics model to develop over time, and be shaped by unanticipated cost and benefits. This enables any changes to the programme or its costs/benefits to be incorporated. This is important because of the innovative and developing nature of the Community Connectors programme.

Findings: The Inputs taken into account (costs for delivering the project) are British Red Cross central organisational costs for the set-up and coordination of the project, British Red Cross project delivery costs and the time donated by volunteers for their training and participation in the Community Connector service. The outcomes (benefits) that are taken into account are improved wellbeing of volunteer, improved wellbeing of service-users (using SWEMWBS scores) and reduced missed health appointments. Wellbeing is valued using the wellbeing valuation approach (Fujiwara, 2013).

Conclusion: The ultimate findings from these calculations included total inputs, outcomes, net present value and Social Return on Investment ratio. This demonstrates an economic return to society in general of £1.48 for each pound invested in the project. A range of sensitivity analyses were also conducted.