Long-term impact

Measuring the long-term impact of our work

We don’t want to know only how many children and families we support, but also how we have improved their lives in the long term.

Therefore, we have developed a social impact assessment methodology to measure how people who were cared for or supported by SOS Children's Villages as children are doing – years later – in eight dimensions: care, physical health, social and emotional well-being, education and skills, protection and social inclusion, livelihood, food security and shelter.

The first seven assessments – two pilots in 2015, and five further assessments in 2016  – provide evidence that SOS Children’s Villages is indeed making a lasting dif­ference in children’s lives and helping to make the communities in which they live sustainable.

The findings from Côte d’Ivoire (Abobo-Gare), Ethiopia (Hawassa), Nepal (Surkhet), Senegal (Dakar), Swaziland (Mbabane), and Tanzania (Zanzibar) show that approxi­mately 80% of former participants in SOS programmes are doing well or very well in at least six out of the eight dimensions of well-being. Before participation in the SOS programme children are doing poorly.

 

Key findings

Our impact assessments have shown that SOS family strengthening is successful in preventing the separation of children from their families, improving the care children receive from parents, and fostering social and emotional well-being.

The majority of participants in SOS family care, who later become parents them­selves, fulfil their parental obligations to their own children, creating a positive impact on future generations.

Com­munities with active SOS programmes show improvements in awareness of children’s rights, and stronger commu­nity networks to safeguard children.


Financial impact

The impact of SOS Children’s Villages programmes can also be measured financially.

The social return on investment is the accrued, quantifiable benefit to the community in terms of increased lifetime income for programme par­ticipants, decreased public spending on social benefits and alternative care, and increased levels of volunteerism and giving.

By conservative measures, early assessments show that SOS programmes provide a social return on investment of at least €14 for every €1 invested.

A report on our impact assessment will be published in late 2017 on www.sos-childrensvillages.org.