Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation Briefs
Youth Involvement in Evaluation & Research
Number 1, February 2002
By Karen Horsch, Priscilla M. D. Little, Jennifer Chase Smith, Leslie Goodyear,
Erin Harris, Harvard Family Research Project
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HeadingIndex:
The Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Issues
and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation briefs
are short, user-friendly documents that highlight current
research and evaluation work in the out-of-school time field.
These documents draw on HFRP’s research work in out-of-school
time in order to provide practitioners, funders, evaluators,
and policymakers with information to help inform their work.
This first brief, Youth Involvement in Evaluation and
Research, is the culmination of information collected in
the year 2000 with representatives of 15 programs¹
that are involving youth in their evaluation and research
efforts.
Why Involve Youth in Evaluation and
Research?
How can after school programs attract older youth and keep
them interested enough to come back? Program models and activities
that work well with younger kids may flop with older youth
who are becoming accustomed to making their own decisions,
determining their own direction and priorities, and looking
to affect change in their own lives and communities. Competing
with the benefits that even the most tedious teen jobs can
offer—the money and the opportunity to take on new responsibilities
and meet new people—is a major challenge for after school
programs that are interested in providing services for older
youth. To address these challenges, a growing number of after
school and other youth development programs are trying a new
strategy to engage older youth: they are involving them in
research and evaluation projects related to the design and
implementation of youth programming.
| |
I think every teen
should be involved in some sort of thing. Something
outside of school that helps their community. ’Cause
not only does it make you feel good about yourself,
but it helps you a lot down the line, and it makes people
give you a lot of respect.
- Youth focus group participant
|
Youth participation in evaluation is a process of involving
young people in assessing community programs that affect their
lives. It is not “token” involvement, but active
engagement where youth have real influence in decisions. Increasingly,
after school programs, youth development initiatives, and
community organizations are taking this new approach to research
and evaluation. Programs are realizing that involving youth
in evaluation and research about the programs in which they
participate serves multiple purposes. These purposes include:
- Enhancing the individual development of youth and encouraging
their active involvement in the decisions that affect their
lives.
- Contributing to organizational development and capacity
building.
- Providing youth with the opportunity to create real community
change.²
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HFRP’s Understanding Youth as
Researchers Project
Given the increased interest in and importance of involving
youth as researchers, HFRP staff conducted a set of focus
groups with representatives from 14 youth serving organizations
nationwide in order to learn more about what it means to involve
youth in evaluation and research work. The HFRP team conducted
four adult telephone focus groups with 3–5 participants
each (a total of 15 adult participants), several individual
interviews, and three youth telephone focus groups, with 3–4
participants each (for a total of 10 youth participants).
This brief brings together information from these participants
to answer three questions:
- Who is involved in youth as researcher projects?
- How do youth as researcher projects involve youth?
- What are the key elements of successful youth-involved
research and evaluation projects?
The brief concludes with a discussion of the influence of
organizational cultures on youth-involved research projects.
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1. Who Is Involved in Youth as Researcher
Projects?
| |
The 21st Century Project
we are working with now [is] a grant that goes for after
school programs ... one of the main problems that contributed
to crime and teenage pregnancies and things like that
was that there’s nothing to do here ... So, what
this grant does is it gives kids something to do from
the time they get out of school till about 6:00, and
it goes later for high school and junior high kids.
So it’s something; it gives something constructive
to do.
- Youth focus group participant
|
The Programs. While not comprehensive or even necessarily
representative, the 14 programs and organizations represented
by the participants in our focus group discussions demonstrate
some of the many varieties of youth-involved research and
evaluation projects underway in rural, urban, and suburban
areas of the U.S. and Canada. The organizations represented
include: schools; nonprofit institutions, including youth
development agencies and research organizations; and universities
in rural, urban, and suburban areas of the U.S. They involve
youth in a range of activities, including community mapping,
evaluation of programs and services, community-based strategic
planning, education and advocacy, and social change projects
in areas such as the environment, health, and safety. Each
of these programs and organizations is profiled at the end
of this brief.
The Youth. Youth involved in these projects came from
diverse educational, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds,
ranged in age from elementary school students to college students,
and included students placed at risk, high school dropouts,
and high achieving students. Some projects targeted special
populations of youth, such as girls, minority and immigrant
youth, youth from under-resourced areas, and street youth.
The Adults. Adults who work with youth in these research
and evaluation efforts include volunteers and paid staff,
community members, community-based and university researchers
and evaluators, local graduate and undergraduate students,
and experts in different areas of inquiry.
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2. How Do Youth as Researchers Projects
Involve Youth?
Among the youth who participated in our focus groups, several
participated in the evaluation of after school programs and
organizations, community service projects, and drop-in centers
for street youth. Some led participatory action research projects
on issues of concern to youth and their communities, such
as youth health behaviors, immigration, youth violence, school
drop-outs, and the environment. The projects represented in
our focus group discussions involved youth at a variety of
points in the research and evaluation process—developing
research projects, designing research questions, creating
data collection instruments, collecting information, analyzing
data, presenting findings, and making recommendations for
change.
The projects involve youth in a range of activities, usually
taking place after the school day ended, on weekends, and
during school holidays and vacations, and included community
mapping, evaluation of programs and services directed at youth,
community-based strategic planning processes, education, advocacy,
and social change projects.
Some specific activities of these projects included:
- Managing an adult-youth coffee house and “rap sessions.”
- Creating a video project for teens about violence and
substance abuse.
- Producing a booklet on high-school dropouts.
- Bringing valuable jobs and positive activities for youth
to the community by establishing an after school program.
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3. What Are the Elements of Successful
Youth as Researcher Projects?
Our analyses reveal five key elements that are essential
to successful youth-involved research and evaluation projects:
- Organizational and community readiness
- Adequate training and support for involved youth
- Adequate training and support for adult staff
- Selecting the right team
- Sustaining youth involvement
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1. Organizational and community
readiness
Ready organizations. An organization must be ready
to handle the responsibilities and demands of the new “way
of doing business” implied by youth-involved research
and evaluation work. A participatory organizational structure
is more conducive to this type of work than a strongly hierarchical
one. Additionally, a key component to any youth-involved research
and evaluation project is educating the adults involved in
how to work with, listen to, and respect youth.
Ready communities. Communities must also be ready
to work with youth and respect youths’ work, especially
in projects that include youth presentation to the community.
In a context where their work is not respected, it is difficult
to sustain youth commitment to research and evaluation and
change. Sustainability needs to be cultivated through youth
demonstrating the value of what they do.
Readiness is not an all-or-nothing proposition. One of the
most effective approaches to youth-involved research and evaluation
is a gradual one. Youth in Focus (formerly Community LORE),
a technical assistance organization in Oakland, California,
builds the capacity of community-based organizations to involve
and sustain youth participation in community and organizational
development through youth-led research, evaluation, and planning.
Youth in Focus utilizes a comprehensive training/coaching
model, “Stepping Stones.” Trainers from the organization
work with both young people and adults in the organization
through the full process of an evaluation or research project.
They coach adults to plan and facilitate youth-run evaluation
processes. Youth in Focus also trains young people directly
through workshops at critical stages of the evaluation. This
example illustrates that while youth involvement does require
a commitment to a new way of doing evaluation and research,
not everyone needs to begin by doing it comprehensively.
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2. Training and support for involved
youth
Providing the right training and support to youth is essential
to the success of youth involvement in research and evaluation
activities—but it is also a critical challenge. The key
issues related to training are: when to begin the training,
what type of training to provide, and how frequently.
Youth need to understand what it takes. It is important
that youth understand the project and have the skills necessary
to do the work. It is critical to break down the process of
evaluation and research into concrete, but manageable steps
and to stay away from technical jargon. One way to support
and train youth is to pair them with “expert” partners
or coaches. This enables youth to learn evaluation methods
and also gives a greater level of credibility to evaluation
and research work.
Some evaluation methods are more conducive to youth-involved
projects. Some evaluation methods more easily lend themselves
to youth involvement. Examples include: focus groups with
other youth, ethnography, and other field methods that help
youth to learn and develop new skills. Once youth become skilled
in these methods, they can begin to handle more complex research
methodologies.
Youth involved roles must match youth skills. Youth
need to be given evaluation and research roles that are appropriate
to their level of development and expertise. For some, the
gradual approach described above is successful; youth are
given initial, well-defined tasks and gradually take on more,
depending on their motivation, their time, and their ability
to take on tasks by themselves. In other cases, youth involvement
can take place in all of the tasks, but adults needs to provide
more intensive involvement early on, and then, over time,
pull back to let youth take the lead. While age level can
be an important consideration in determining how much direction
students need, their level of independence and maturity is
also a factor.
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| |
I think a lot of what
makes teens want to be involved is giving them an opportunity
to do it themselves. At first it’s a little weird
when you realize, “Hey, I’m making real major
decisions!” At first, our projects were little,
and doing tiny stuff. And now they’re getting like
big, and we’re going out and doing more ’cause
we’re realizing it. A lot of my friends have come
up to me, and said “Oh, I want to do that kind
of stuff, too. How do I get involved?”
- Youth focus group participant
|
3. Training and support for adult
staff
Caring adults are a key element to any project involving youth
in research and evaluation; however, it is important to recognize
that adults working with youth on research and evaluation
projects also need training and support. Often this involves
changing the way adults typically work with and look at youth.
Adults can be resistant to viewing youth in new ways, letting
them play new roles, giving them the space to have a voice
in decision-making, and treating them as true “partners.”
Meaningfully involving youth in the research and evaluation
process challenges adults to take on new roles themselves
and to adapt the process to the needs and skills of the youth.
Combat “adultism.” Fighting adult perceptions
of youth—what can be referred to as “adultism”—is
one of the major challenges cited by both adults and youth.
Youth often feel they do not have representation in programs
that affect them; adults who work with youth can inadvertently
reinforce this by making decisions for youth and overlooking
their input.
For many youth, the opportunity to change adults’ images
of youth is an important motivating factor for participation
in youth-involved research projects. In some cases, changing
adultism comes about through youths’ actions and the
results. For example, youth members of a research project
had difficulty getting adult participants to cooperate with
a school-wide survey. They faced both skepticism and unwarranted
criticism. However, after a successful presentation of their
findings, youth received greater adult acceptance and support
from school staff. In addition, the adult response rate to
a similar survey rose sharply the following year.
Some programs have done a series of educational sessions
with adults to improve their perceptions of youth credibility.
The audiences for these educational sessions include the evaluation
audience, or partners in the evaluation process (adults the
youth are working with).
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At the organizational
level, they’ve bought into it ... just the fact
that the young people are coming up with these little
tangible suggestions gives it credibility. But the place
we run into challenges is funders and more policy-level
people who are coming in with [an] academic bias …
it’s like being admitted to a club, in a way, and
to believe that other people [like youth] can do that,
when you’ve gone through ten years of various training
might be hard, I think.
- Adult focus group participant
|
4. Selecting the right team
It can be difficult, but essential, to bring together youth
with diverse opinions and experiences. Key features of a good
team include:
- Diversity. While obviously which youth should be
involved depends on the interest of youth and the nature
of the evaluation or research project, diversity is essential
to creating a youth-involved evaluation/research team—ethnic,
gender, income, and educational diversity are all important.
- Multiple roles. Projects need youth who will play
different roles—up front youth leadership and youth
who play supporting roles are both necessary to conduct
youth-involved research projects.
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5. Sustaining youth involvement
Sustaining youth involvement is a key challenge. Youth are
typically not masters of their own lives or their own time—they
may have to meet other school, extracurricular, or home commitments.
Adults involved in these projects must be prepared for this,
and recognize that youth will participate at different levels
of intensity, at different times. Youth-involved research
teams must be prepared for the “ebb and flow” of
youth involvement.
Several factors help sustain youth involvement.
- Use research for change. The most common motivator
for involvement in research and evaluation is the ability
to use research and evaluation as a vehicle for change.
Some youth are not satisfied with a report to a funder that
sits on a shelf; they need to see the results of their work
in tangible, immediate, and important ways. This can be
either through program changes or the fact that others were
willing to listen and consider what youth have to say.
- Develop lasting relationships. The experience of
youth involved in research projects should go beyond just
the “work” of research and evaluation. Youth members
stressed that there is a real and long-lasting value in
developing close relationships with peers and adults. These
relationships can extend far beyond the bounds of the research
or evaluation endeavor, to include attending youths’
sports games and recitals and getting to know parents.
- Compensate with visible rewards. Providing youth
with rewards and validation for their work helps to keep
youth involved. This validation can take the form of: monetary
compensation, a concrete product, utilization of results,
presentation of findings to various audiences, travel to
present or collect data and work with others, and making
an impact in the community. The opportunity to gain skills,
both practical and personal, is also a form of compensation.
- Serve as mentors and role models. Experienced youth
who have worked on research/evaluation projects can be encouraged
to be involved as mentors to newer members of these projects.
Alumni of a project can play a strong role in recruitment,
training, and maintaining connections and role models.
- Provide logistical support. Topping the list of
requirements for a successful program for both adults and
youth is food and transportation. Very simply, if youth
are hungry, they will not be able to concentrate; if youth
can’t get there, they can’t participate. Sharing
meals also creates a congenial atmosphere conducive to work
and relationship building.
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Organizational Culture of Youth
Serving Organizations
Any project that involves youth in evaluation and research
activities is by necessity multifaceted, drawing on the rich
histories and lessons from youth development, community and
grassroots activism, action research, and evaluation. As the
data presented herein suggest, while there are commonalities
for successful youth involved research and evaluation projects,
the projects themselves differ from organization to organization.
We conclude that this is, in part, due to the culture of the
organization sponsoring the youth involved project. Key elements
of youth-involved research—who participates, what approach
is used, to what degree youth are involved, and the type of
project initiated—stem from the focus of the organization
that initiates the project.
Two examples from our research underscore this point. Projects
that had a strong evaluation or research focus—most often
nonprofits research organizations and universities—described
wrestling with issues such as the quality of the evaluation/research
design, data collection protocols, timelines and deadlines,
and the structure of reports. They recognized that at times
this meant providing more adult structure to the work of the
young people, even bringing in professional evaluators to
give studies greater “credibility,” to meet funder
requirements for third party evaluators, to train youth in
evaluation and research, or to ensure instruments and data
collection and analysis procedures met certain standards.
By contrast, the more youth development-focused organizations
in our sample prioritized the development of youth leadership
and skills. For these organizations, youth took the lead in
projects and the adults played a consulting role. Research
timelines and methodological rigor, though always important,
were secondary to creating positive experiences for youth
to gain leadership skills.
To set goals for a youth-involved research project, organizations
must answer questions about their organizational mission and
culture:
- Is the organizational priority to promote youth leadership
and empowerment?
- Is it to produce a high-quality final product that meets
rigorous research and evaluation standards?
- Is it to take action and make community change?
We conclude by emphasizing that one approach to youth as
researchers is not preferable over another. Further, multiple
priorities can be met in the same youth-involved research
and evaluation project. However, youth involved research and
evaluation priorities must be reviewed, assessed, and communicated
to adult and youth members in order for a project to be successful.
Negotiating the possibly conflicting goals for the project
is a necessary starting point to determine the focus of the
project and the expected outcomes achieved for the youth and
the organization.
Acknowledgements
This brief brings together the knowledge, experiences, and
reflections of many individuals involved with youth-involved
research and evaluation. Without the generosity of these individuals,
this brief would not be possible. We would also like to acknowledge
and thank the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, funder of the
study. While this report reflects the views and input of many,
responsibility for the final product rests with the authors
at the Harvard Family Research Project.
¹ One of the organizations
has gone through major changes since the time of the focus
groups and has asked that their organization’s description
not be used.
² After
School Evaluation Symposium. (June 2001). Barry Checkoway,
Director of the Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service
and Learning at the University of Michigan, presenter at Symposium.
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Organizations Represented in the Study
Center for Youth Development and Policy Research
Community Youth Mapping
Academy for Educational Development
1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-884-8295
Contact: Raul Ratcliffe, Program Officer
AED Center for Youth Development and Policy Research
Email: rratclif@aed.org
Community Youth Mapping is a youth development strategy instituted
by the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research at
the Academy for Educational Development. Community Youth Mapping
is a process in which young people canvass their neighborhoods
to identify opportunities—places to go and things to
do—for other young people, children, and families. The
goals of this process are: to develop a more comprehensive
list of resources for the community, to involve youth as major
stakeholders in the collection of positive data, to shift
the focus of youth issues in communities to include development
of opportunities rather than only on delinquency prevention
and treatment, to identify gaps in available resources, and
to involve young people in developmentally appropriate youth
activity.
Youth Mapping involves young people ages 14–18, from
all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. In the process, young
people partner with adults in a mutually empowering and respectful
relationship. Young people are involved in all phases of the
mapping process including data entry, data analysis, and dissemination.
The young people attend a two-day training to prepare them
for the situations they may face during the mapping process.
Training is also provided to field supervisors and all adults
working on the project to make clear what needs to be in place
to support this effort.
City Year
285 Columbus Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
617-927-2500
Contact: Belle Brett
Email: bbrett@brettconsulting.com
City Year is a full-time community service, leadership development,
and civic engagement program for young people of all backgrounds
aged 17–24, in 13 cities nationally. It is part of the
AmeriCorps program network and corps members work in diverse
teams on a variety of year-long (and some short-term) projects,
many involving children. Through City Year projects, young
people are involved in a variety of activities to help document
their service, reflect on areas for improvement, and assess
outcomes of their work. Youth are involved in all phases of
the research. Their involvement in evaluation activities is
a way of increasing their use of evaluation to improve their
work, their understanding of service, their reflective ability,
and other skills. City Year representatives from each of the
sites/cities develop guidelines for the research. In addition,
each site is encouraged to hire a local area evaluation coach
(usually an advanced graduate student) to help them with their
team or site level projects.
EnvironMentors
655 West Lombard Street, Room 665
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-706-1924
Contact: Whitney Montague, Program Manager
Email: wmontague@environmentors.org
The EnvironMentors Project matches urban high school students
with environmental and science professionals. The pairs work
together for eight months on environmentally-oriented research
or community service projects. Founded in 1992, the Project
opens students’ eyes to the contributions they can make
to the environment and gives them the skills, knowledge, and
discipline for greater success in life.
Students and mentors usually meet once per week for two hours
for the duration of the program (varies by location, but generally
from October to April/May). Together at the meetings,
the student and mentor choose a topic and design a research,
experimental, or community service project. Over the
course of the program, the student and mentor work together
to research their topic in the library, on the computer, in
the field, and with expert interviews. With support
from the mentor, the student develops and presents the finished
project in a presentation to an elementary school class in
the spring and at the culminating EnvironMentors Fair at the
end of the year.
Douglas 21st Century Community Learning Centers
1235 7th Street
Douglas, AZ 85607
520-364-1113/520-364-7330
Contact: Lori Tapia, Project Director
Email: alastapia@cs.com
The 21st Century Community Learning Center in Douglas, AZ
provides youth programs designed to build resiliency and social
factors for all youth—prevention, leadership, mentoring,
and other factors. The 21st CCLC Program is a key component
of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. It is an
opportunity for students and their families to continue to
learn new skills and discover new abilities after the school
day has ended. The focus of this program, reauthorized under
Title IV, Part B, of the No Child Left Behind Act, is to provide
expanded academic enrichment opportunities for children attending
low performing schools. Tutorial services and academic enrichment
activities are designed to help students meet local and state
academic standards in subjects such as reading and math. In
addition 21st CCLC programs provide youth development activities,
drug and violence prevention programs, technology education
programs, art, music, and recreation programs, counseling,
and character education to enhance the academic component
of the program.
Youth aged 11–18 were involved in a research project
at Companeros and the 21st CCLC in Douglas to determine the
beliefs, experiences, and ideas of youth living on the US/Mexico
border in order to implement change for betterment. These
youth were involved in all aspects of the project, from identifying
questions to presenting results. A university research team
provided training in phases as the youth progressed with the
research.
Enter
University of South Florida
College of Public Health, MDC 56
13201 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard
Tampa, FL 33612-3805
813-974-6605
www.hsc.usf.edu/prc/sarasota.html
Contact: Kelli McCormack Brown, Associate Professor
Email: kmbrown@hsc.usf.edu
The Florida Prevention Center Tobacco Network (FPRC-TN),
housed in the College of Public Health (COPH), University
of South Florida (USF) provides a forum and network for university-based
educators and researchers and key tobacco control persons
within the state to collaborate in developing and implementing
applied research. It also provides an opportunity to enhance
university and state capacity to put research into practice.
The primary goals of this project are to develop a university-based,
multifaceted workgroup with expertise in diverse areas, develop
collaborative relationships with key tobacco control persons
in the state, and to collaborate in a network of prevention
research centers and community partners to promote applied
tobacco research.
Youth were involved in a research project of the Prevention
Research Center in which youth collected data about tobacco
and alcohol initiation and use among middle-school-aged youth.
Twelve high school students were trained to collect focus
group and in-depth interview data from other youth. The students
were involved in instrument development, data collection,
data analysis, and presentation of findings. They received
intensive two-day training as well as follow-up training.
Their efforts were compensated.
Health Evaluation Research Services
Circle of Hope Initiative
7000 Carroll Avenue, Suite 200
Takoma Park, MD 20912
301-270-4415
Contact: Anita Smith Hawkins
Email: profhawk@bellatlantic.net
The Circle of Hope was a violence prevention initiative in
three neighborhoods in the District of Columbia. The strategy
focused on three areas: youth leadership and development,
community policing, and collaboration for systems change.
These intervention strategies were chosen in response to findings
which suggested that: 1) violence among youth can be attributed
to youth feeling disconnected, detached from, and not valued
by their communities, 2) poor relations between community
residents and police present barriers to effective public
safety, and 3) inconsistent quality and poorly coordinated
levels of community activism leave communities vulnerable
to crime.
An evaluation was conducted of the initiative and focused
on examining whether changes could be made in each of these
areas. Youth between the ages of 16 and 19 and other community
members were involved as researchers in the evaluation to:
increase the cultural appropriateness of data collection methodology
and enhance the internal validity of research, improving data
interpretation; to provide youth and residents with knowledge
and skills that would be useful to support later community
building efforts; and to foster a sense of ownership by the
community at large. Youth were involved in all aspects of
the evaluation: instrument development, data collection as
participant/observers (ethnographers), and the interpretation
of data. An initial orientation, followed by a series of weekly
trainings was provided to the youth involved. They received
a small stipend for their time.
MYTOWN
54 Columbus Avenue
Boston, MA
617-536-8696
Contact: Karilyn Crockett
Email: karilyn.crockett4@verizon.net
MYTOWN, established in Boston, Massachusetts in 1996, runs
a youth-led 1.5-mile walking tour of Boston’s South End.
The tour chronicles the historic and contemporary events that
have shaped the experience of the people struggling to cement
their communities in the area, and covers one hundred years
of history, from 1895 to the present. By blending oral and
written accounts, the tour offers an innovative historical
interpretation fueled by the lived experiences of past and
present residents.
Youth involvement is the centerpiece of the organization’s
philosophy. Youth can hold any position in the organization,
from researching and leading tours, to running payroll. Staff
have developed a rubric of accomplishments and experiences
that an individual must complete, which determines the level
of responsibility they can hold within the organization.
National Teen Action Research Center
Institute for Community Research
2 Hartford Square West, Suite 100
Hartford, CT 06106-5128
860-278-2044
Contact: Kaleitha Wiley
Email: knwiley@teenactionresearch.org
The National Teen Action Research Center (NTARC) is a youth
center of the Institute for Community Research in Hartford,
Connecticut that works with diverse groups of youth in a variety
of settings. The NTARC uses a participatory action research
model to empower youth by developing skills in group problem
solving, communication, social negotiation, critical thinking,
and research, among others. This model has been developed
into a curriculum over several years of work with youth in
this area by past and present NTARC staff and has been adapted
to work with many different types of youth in many different
settings. The NTARC provides college and career exposure through
visits, trips, career workshops, training, etc. Youth are
also exposed to many cultural activities such as plays, dances,
art exhibits, speakers, etc. Full-time NTARC adult staff support
youth in all aspects of their research projects.
Youth primarily conduct action research projects around health
and education issues of importance to them and begin looking
at their communities critically, becoming engaged in ways
that enable them to make positive changes in their communities
and build support networks of young people and adults. They
are involved in all points of the research process. The youth
begin with identifying an issue of concern, creating a research
model, and exploring all of the domains involved through a
modeling process. They are then introduced to several research
methods and trained in those they choose to use in their research
project to develop research instruments and to collect and
analyze the data. They synthesize their results and present
them to peers and community leaders. Finally, the youth use
their results for action, attempting to affect change to address
the issue of concern. In addition, teens educate other youth
and adults by developing dissemination strategies and facilitating
action research training projects. NTARC youth are generally
between the ages of 14 and 20 years. They are primarily African-American,
West Indian-American, and Latino and come from a broad range
of educational levels. The majority of youth are paid employees
(although some have volunteered in the past).
Portola New Directions
(a 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program)
72 Commercial Avenue
Portola, CA 96122
530-832-1827
Contact: Susie Kocher
Email: skocher@psln.com
New Directions offers after school activities and homework
assistance to middle and high school students in Portola,
a rural community of about 2,000 people in northeastern California.
School year programs include dance, outdoor recreation, book
making, and video production, while summer programs include
hiking and camping, swimming, and pottery.
In the second year of funding for the program, youth were
hired to do a needs assessment for future youth programming
and evaluate program components in place so far. Youth were
involved throughout the project. One youth was initially hired
and was then involved in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring
other youth. The six-person (in grades 8 and 10) evaluation
team identified some research questions consistent with the
research goal of providing information useful to the 21st
Century program and their own desire to gauge student interest
in starting a teen center in the community. The team designed
and implemented focus groups with middle and high school students
and used the information to develop a survey that they administered
to about 425 students. Youth entered the data, analyzed results,
developed findings and recommendations, and wrote a booklet
about the project. The students were paid minimum wage as
employees of the school district. Copies of the booklet are
available to those interested by contacting the email address
above.
Town Youth Participation Strategies
c/o TriCounty Addiction Services
88 Cornelia Street W, Unit A3
Smiths Falls, Ontario
Canada K7A 5K9
613-269-2436
www.typs.com
Contact: Les Voakes, Project Coordinator
Email: voakes@magmacom.com
Town Youth Participation Services (TYPS) coordinates a variety
of workshops, conferences, and information dissemination activities,
using participatory action research methodologies, with a
goal of youth involvement and empowerment within their respective
communities. TYPS has a primary focus to work in small communities,
but can include youths in large cities, to develop youth centers,
groups in which the youths have either equal or majority voice
in the operations and administration of their organization.
Youth are provided with workshops and a series of training
sessions. TYPS provides support by disseminating information
and programs generated by youth groups and youth centers that
have been participants in the TYPS workshops. New workshops
are organized and facilitated each year, and new groups regularly
request the start-up workshops. An annual conference is hosted,
funded by Health Canada, and a webpage has recently been established
to provide a means for youth to communicate among themselves
about common issues relevant to their youth groups/centers.
Youth are involved in evaluating their own youth centers
and programs, other youth center programs, and new program
models offered from a variety of government agency and voluntary
groups. As well, youth are asked to comment on current social
issues that affect them and their community (both macro and
micro concerns). Through these evaluations, programs, models,
and mainstream research about youth are examined and commented
upon. The final purpose of the research is to produce useful
information for each of the youth groups involved and for
the information to be shared with other youths. Youth participants
range from 12 to 20 years old, with a concentration on 14
to 18 year olds. They are involved in all parts of the research,
in varying degrees. The youth participants have been particularly
successful in conducting focus groups, identifying research
questions, and presenting data to interested audiences.
Youth in Focus
(Formerly Community LORE)
2068 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-621-1402
Contact: Jonathan London
Email: comlore@igc.org
Youth in Focus is a nonprofit training and consulting group
dedicated to institutional, community, and social change.
The organization’s innovative Youth REP initiative builds
the capacity of organizations to involve and sustain youth
participation in community and organizational development
through youth-led research, evaluation, and planning. Youth
in Focus has designed and uses a comprehensive training/coaching
model, “Stepping Stones.” Trainers from the organization
work with both young people and adults in the organization
through the full process of an evaluation or research project.
They coach adults to plan and facilitate youth-run evaluation
processes. Youth in Focus also train young people directly
through workshops at critical stages of the evaluation. They
provide intensive support around research design, instrument
development, analysis, report and presentation development,
and next steps planning.
Since its inception, Youth in Focus has worked with numerous
community-based organizations, schools, public institutions,
and community initiatives to develop youth-led research and
evaluation projects. These projects have addressed a variety
of issues including: school reform, juvenile justice reform,
youth services development, public land use and land stewardship,
and urban development. Youth in Focus works with youth between
the ages of 10 and 23, primarily with youth of low income
and communities of color in urban and rural communities in
northern California. Young people are involved in every step
of the evaluation process, from developing the evaluation
design, identifying research questions, creating evaluation
instruments, conducting the study, analyzing data, creating
a report and presentation, presenting data to the community
and key stakeholders, and participating in follow-up activities.
Youth in Focus also involves youth evaluators from past projects
in training and coaching new youth evaluators.
Other Research Projects
Frank Barry
Senior Extension Associate
Cornell University
Family Life Development Center
Martha Van Rensselaer Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
607-255-7456
Email: fb12@cornell.edu
Frank Barry has been involved in a project to help two communities
develop stronger environments for raising children. This work
has involved co-facilitating four Search Conferences to help
communities develop strategic plans toward this end. The Ford
Foundation funded two of these conferences. The Search Conference
methodology requires involvement of all major sectors of a
community, including youth. Youth have been between the ages
of 12 and 18.
Cynthia J. Reed, Ed.D.
Auburn University
Dept. of Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology
4036 Haley Center
Auburn, AL 36849-5221
334-844-3060
Email: reedcyn@auburn.edu
Youth involvement in evaluation was a focus of Dr. Reed’s
dissertation research in 1997. Urban high school youth were
taught how to conduct focus groups, analyze data, present
data, and develop new questions. Data collected through the
focus groups conducted with other students at the high school
were included in the school improvement process.
Bessa Whitmore
Carleton University School of Social Work
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1S 5B6
613-520-2600 (ext. 6692)
Email: ewhitmor@ccs.carleton.ca
Dr. Whitmore was involved in a youth-led participatory evaluation
at the Besserer St. Drop In Centre, a service offered for
street-involved youth by the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa-Canada.
Six youth, between the ages of 18 and 21 and users of the
drop-in services, were involved. Youth were involved from
the very beginning (starting with design, and including data
collection, analysis, reporting, and follow-up action). The
best description is “the Kit” which the youth designed
themselves, for other youth wanting to evaluate their own
services. The kit can be found on the Internet at: www.ysb.on.ca.
Support was provided by two Centre staff who were on the research
team and provided skills and crisis management.
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