How do you know if what you are doing is actually making a difference?

We continue the discussion started in our term one workshops about how you might know if your activities and campaigns are making a difference in your school and community

If you attended our term one workshops you may have taken part in an activity that was all about brainstorming different things that you thought helped you to know when the stuff you are running in school was making a difference or being effective. 

And it is a good question isn’t it, how do we know what we are doing is working? Does it even matter, and what is the point of analysing things?

Here is the thing, SADD is all about running fun and engaging activities and events in school and we really want you to enjoy what you are doing and have a good time with it. We reckon that a big part of the enjoyment with being involved in your school community is actually seeing people engage with your activities and be impacted, right? I mean that's the feedback our staff hear from students all the time!

So all that being said, we compiled some of the thoughts from students from around Aotearoa, about how you all might know if what you are doing in school is being effective. This is not an all extensive list, but it has some great thoughts and ideas.

• Seeing more students get involved with SADD from school

• Receiving positive feedback from teachers and staff members

• Seeing people using the free stuff from the event

• Students keen to know when the next activity/event will be

• The general vibe or buzz after the activity/event

• What students are saying a couple of days later 

• Asking students how they found it, or what they learnt and them being able to verbalise those things

• Hearing students feedback through social media if they enjoyed the activity or not

• Other students engaging with our school SADD social media

• The local media is interested in what we are doing in school

• Doing surveys afterwards and getting feedback that way

• Hearing people talking and discussing the activity

• Seeing a change in behaviours (e.g. people not taking their mates on their restricted, or students organising sober drivers etc)

• People knowing more about what SADD is and recognising the name

• Seeing students engage with our community partners like NZ Police

• People being more open to discussing safe road user behaviours 

If your SADD group has been rolling for a while, or this blog today resonates with you, here is our recommendation for you: When your SADD committee is planning an event for school ask yourselves the question; how might we know after this event that people have been impacted, or that they understood the message? In more simple words, what would a win look like for this activity? After you have finished your activity, you could then do a brief assessment of how it all went and if your group felt the activity had the desired impact. 

Sometimes the difference is a small step, or more awareness, and sometimes things have a completely different impact then we think. This process of thinking just that little bit more strategically about the impact of your activities can help your SADD group grow not only in your ability to run successful events, but also in your leadership abilities! 

Give it a go, and let us know how it goes. Remember our SADD team are always keen to chat and help you out if you have any questions regarding this topic!