Meaningful Measures is delighted to announce that we have recently delivered training on our MYCaW tool to Independent Age. Independent Age is a charity which enables older people to "have the opportunity to live well with dignity, choice & purpose". We were especially excited to work with the Independent Age team as Meaningful Measures also has a special interest in projects supporting the needs of older people.

Independent Age have been using the MYCaW tool for around a year on their Reconnections pilot project in Barking & Dagenham and Havering, with another pilot having just commenced in Surrey. The Reconnections pilots work with residents in later life to help them rediscover "their love of life in the communities where they live" by finding old interests and making new friends. The work aims to increase social connections and prevent isolation and loneliness – in light of the Covid-19 pandemic this work is more crucial than ever.

In late January 2021 Meaningful Measures provided two, one-hour long training sessions to the Independent Age team working on the Reconnections pilots. Details of the sessions are below -

1st hour – Introduction to MYCaW: The audience for this tool was the service delivery staff at Independent Age, and senior project managers. We discussed the MYCaW history and background, reasons why the person-centred outcome measure tool is useful to enable better service understanding and performance. We also covered specific guidance and troubleshooting on how to use the MYCaW, and an interactive Q and A to support any practical issues of data collection and record keeping. We also included discussion on how to collect data over the phone due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

2nd hour - How to interpret and analyse and strategically use MYCaW data: The audience for this training was the Reconnections service administrators, and other senior members of Independent Age staff. We unpacked MYCaW data analysis in terms of qualitative and quantitative approaches. We explored how to code the open text qualitative "concerns" generated from MYCaW. Quantitative data reporting was explained in terms of the simplest and most impactful way to display the changes in MYCaW scores. Advice as to how to use the data to strategically inform service provision, resource allocation and quality assurance within the Reconnections pilots was provided, and there was an interesting and reflective Q and A session.

Here's what Independent Age staff thought of the training:

"The second session on how to analyse MYCaW was especially useful. It made us realise how effective it can be to reveal the 'voice' of service users through the data. This information is often lost in free text boxes but MYCaW allows us to analyse the information in a useful way."

Janette Powell Reconnections Pilots Lead, Independent Age

We really enjoyed delivering this training. If you feel your organisation would benefit from some of our input – via video platform (or even one day in person!) please drop us a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.