Evaluation of The Positive Futures Programme 2016-2018

Abstract: Venture Trust is a national (Scotland) voluntary organisation delivering intensive wilderness experiences and communitybased life and social skills development programmes. Venture Trust has a long-established wilderness-centred development programme, Living Wild, which works with Community Justice cohorts. The number of veterans who referred to Living Wild led Venture Trust to ask whether the wider veterans’ community, with its particular experiences of military life, would see better outcomes from a programme specifically targeted to them. It was thought that the approach developed in Living Wild could be used to engage with veterans who are struggling with the transition from military to civilian life to enable them to have a more positive future. From there, Venture Trust developed a specific programme targeted at veterans - Positive Futures. Positive Futures was developed in 2015, with recruitment of veterans to the programme starting late in 2015. The first Positive Futures Wilderness Journey took place in April 2016. This report is the evaluation of Positive Futures over the period January 2016 to June 2018 inclusive. Within this report, the evaluation of Positive Futures breaks out impacts for those veterans who have been involved with the CJ system and compares their impacts to those who have not. It also breaks out impacts for ESLs and LSVs.