199 - Empowering Youth Voice to Define the Story of Evaluation and Planning of Youth Programs

Abstract Information: How do you provide opportunities for all participants to have a voice in afterschool program planning? Youth participants in afterschool programs can be a vital stakeholder in the programs’ performance measurement cycle. Afterschool program leaders and internal evaluators can partner with youth participants at each stage of the performance management cycle. Program evaluation is an essential part of providing quality afterschool programming to youth and their families. Evaluation becomes more powerful and impactful when all of the stakeholders are involved in the evaluation process. Youth are the experts on their lived experiences – therefore they are also experts on the supports they need to thrive. Youth voice helps to provide context to the data collected so that the evaluation can tell the story of the program and its impact. But we have not been consistently asking the youth themselves what they would like or what they need from the program as we plan what programming would like. Evaluation in youth programs is hindered by limited resources of time, staff capacity and staff perception of evaluation. But how do organizations providing youth programs involve young people in program planning and evaluation? This roundtable will explore how to support staff and youth to empower youth voice in program evaluation.

Relevance Statement: This roundtable elevates the key AEA evaluation competencies of methodology, context and planning and management through the lens of a performance management cycle. Eckhart-Queenan and Forti (2011) emphasized the critical importance of using measurement activities to learn and improve program performance. Organizations that embrace measurement to learn are better poised to adapt their program practice to the ever-changing circumstances they may face.1 Stakeholder involvement at each stage of the performance management cycle is essential to the learning process. By engaging youth participants in the performance management cycle at each stage, the programs are able to develop a more responsive and useful process that more closely connects to the mission and work of the programs. It also provides a more complete picture of the program’s impact and the participant’s experience within the program. For example, when program experience surveys are developed just by internal evaluators, program leadership might dismiss negative results, claiming their population did not understand the question. However, when survey development includes the youth in the process, the youth can provide insight into what would be feasible questions to ask their peers as well as suggest additional indicators that the program might want to consider. Research has also shown that youth involvement in decision making has multiple benefits to both the participants and to the organization.2. But youth participatory evaluation takes time – something that is not always available in program evaluation. How do we rethink our performance improvement cycle to effectively bring youth participation into the process, with the support of staff who also embrace evaluation? Focusing on youth participants involvement in the performance improvement cycle directly connects to the theme of “The Power of Story,” which asks us to reflect on the story of evaluation. By incorporating the youth participants in the process, we are promoting the importance of youth voice in the evaluation process and shining a light on their unique perspective that they bring to the table. Often, youth programming is developed with program outcomes determined by the funding stream. But if we are looking to provide a story of the impact of programs, we should be including the participants and their community in defining what program outcomes we should be looking at and how we will collect the data that measures program effectiveness. The roundtable is hosted by an internal evaluator at a not-for-profit social service agency providing afterschool programming in New York City. The roundtable will begin with the host explaining the issue and barriers to involving youth in program evaluation and then discuss some ideas that they have tried. The roundtable would hopefully spark conversations to help to further enhance and support opportunities to incorporate youth voice in program planning.

References: 1. Eckhart-Queenan, J and Forti, M (2011) Measurement as Learning: What Nonprofit CEOs, Board Members, and Philanthropists Need to Know to Keep Improving. The Bridgespan Group 2. O’Donoghue, J., Kirschner, B., & McLaughlin, M.W. (2003). Moving youth participation forward. New Directions for Youth Development: Theory, Practice and Research, No 96.