Rough Sleeping Impact Evaluation

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Public Health Joint Commissioning Unit are undertaking an impact evaluation of the National Rough Sleeping Drug and Alcohol Treatment Grant (RSDATG) which funds 2 drug and alcohol rough sleeper outreach services in Cambridge City and Peterborough City localities. The evaluation will address a combination of outcomes and process and gather information on the planning, delivery, and uptake of the intervention, the causal pathways through which the intervention was expected to act, and the contextual factors affecting the implementation and outcomes of the intervention. The data collected will serve as a baseline for measuring impact over the subsequent 2 years and will inform lessons learned as well as re-design and decision making.

The evaluation will examine the coverage and quality of funded services, identification of challenges and barriers and determine lessons learned to improve engagement and interventions at a local level. The evaluation will measure the progress of the project as it reaches the year 2 stage. The process evaluation is important to explain discrepancies between expected and observed delivery and outcomes, to understand how the local context influences delivery and outcomes, and to provide insights to aid implementation. There will be two separate reports for Cambridge and Peterborough however common linkages and threads in both areas will be identified and highlighted.