Young People’s Survey

The Young People’s Survey (YPS) is a self-report survey used to assess young people’s functional mental and behavioural skills (i.e. how they feel and behave in life) in terms of emotion management, empathy, problem solving, initiative, teamwork, & responsibility.

YPS can be used at the start of working with a young person or when they join an organisation to help plan provision, and as a follow-up to assess growth in socio-emotional skills.

When to Use It
The YPS can be used in different ways to suit different purposes. It can be completed by young people shortly after they first enter provision in order to assess their base line socio-emotional skills. This information can be used for planning purposes (e.g. to tailor provision to the needs of the young people who are attending). The YPS can also be used at both baseline and shortly after or near the end of provision, in order to assess young people’s socio-emotional skill growth.

The YPS is designed to be used once or twice per year, so is not designed for use in shorter-term provision. This is because it takes time for socio-emotional skills to become embedded in young people’s thinking and behaviours, and to ‘transfer’ to other areas of their lives.

For longer-term engagement with young people (for example, a year or more) the YPS may also be used at ‘mid-point’ to explore how skills are developing.

We recommend baseline surveys are completed once staff and young people become comfortable with one another to minimise the risk of young people self-reporting higher scores than accurate, which makes it difficult to detect actual changes.

It is possible to use the YPS to measure change over a shorter timeframe (e.g. three months), as long as the design and intent of the provision is closely aligned to socio-emotional skill development, and expectations are realistic about the amount of change likely.

We recommend using the main YPS with young people aged 10 and older. There is a more accessible version for young people of a younger age or who have specific additional needs.

For more information please visit: https://www.youthimpact.uk/socio-emotional-skills-measurement-hub/measures/young-peoples-survey