Our daily evaluation told us that all the participants enjoyed the activities – every activity had a 100% approval rating save for the drama workshop which had a lukewarm response. We will discuss and review it with the facilitator. 

We surveyed most of the families of children who participated in the club for teens. 17 (of 32) replied. Key feedback was: 

• Every respondent thought their child had benefitted from attending the club 
• 15 of the 17 respondents would recommend the club to other families 
• 6 of the respondents (35%) said they would not be happy for their children to go on these trips if they weren’t organised by Salusbury World. We would expect that those who responded to the survey were those who are most fluent in English and who are most confident generally – and most likely to be happy with their children doing these things without us. Our expectation is that this percentage would be even higher if we had heard from everyone. 

Improved confidence and self-esteem 

Evidence from various sources confirms the holiday activities made a difference to confidence and self-esteem: 

• Partners like Create and Strength & Learning through Horses gathered self-assessment feedback from the children after 3-day workshops – on each occasion, the majority said their confidence had grown. 
• Children told us they felt more confident.
  • “I was scared at the start and then I wasn’t.”
  • “I felt so nice when I could walk next to Ghost [horse].”
  • “I felt on the start a bit scared but when I started to do it more, I felt more comfortable with the others."
  • “I can express my feelings. I can't speak so good so a good way to express in painting.”
  • “Here you can do anything. You can express your feelings without writing or telling anyone.”
  • “I was so comfortable.” 

 Salusbury World staff observed children growing in confidence. 

Reduced social isolation 

Several participants told us that the club was one of the few chances they had to socialise outside their home: 

• "It's boring at home." 
• "Mum is too strict to let me out on my own" 
• "I'd be doing laundry or helping mum [if I wasn’t here]” 
• "I'd be on my phone [if I wasn’t here]” 
• “It’s good to have a break out of the house”  

Many children attended the club along with their friends and were keen to make the most of time together. Friendships also developed between children who didn’t know each other previously – from different schools and from different ethnicities/language backgrounds. 

Encouraging new friendships and widening social connections was helped by activities where children were paired up or put into groups. The Create artists and the instructors at the National Centre for Circus Arts and at Strength and Learning through Horses were particularly adept at avoiding grouping existing friends together and supporting pairs/teams who didn’t know each other well; our staff saw connections made on these occasions develop when children met again at subsequent activities.  

One participant said, “I wanted to be in a group with my friend, but being with a different partner was good.” Another said, “I liked how well we worked together.” 

Experiencing something new – we achieved this, whilst also meeting the children’s clearly-expressed wish to revisit some familiar favourites: 

• Circus skills – no-one had done this before (and everyone wanted to do it again). 
• Kayaking, equine therapy, theatre trip – new to some participants and others had done it before 
• Sport, trampolining – familiar to everyone 

Q talked about the pleasure of doing something for the second time: “The first time was fun but I liked it even more this time. The first time I didn’t know how to do it. It’s really good doing something again and remembering what you learnt before.”

We were excited to be contacted by one participant after the film-making workshop; he wanted to have details of the app we used so that he could make more films independently.