Mentoring is a series of collaborative activities and conversations between young people and older or more experienced persons (i.e., mentors) who are acting in a helping capacity to provide support that benefits one or more areas of the young person's development. This resource offers those who develop and implement mentoring services meaningful…

"Ecosystems of Youth Leadership Development: Pathways to New Programs" introduces new insights into youth leadership development, where the voices of youth who have been disaffected by previous programs are brought to the forefront. This is opposed to past studies where research is often grounded in understanding only the positive…

This study is an evaluation of the national youth service corps (NYSC) program of the federal government of Nigeria. It assessed the input, process and output indices of the programs to determine the extent to which the program has been successfully implemented and what it has achieved so far. To the researchers' knowledge this study is the first…

There has been increased focus within the evaluation field on the value of community-engaged research (CER) methods; however, CER is not easily seen as compatible with experimental evaluation methods (or randomized controlled trial, RCT). For instance, in an experimental design, researchers leverage randomization to create a counterfactual; this…

This report explores motives, experiences, and outcomes of the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3)--a federal program to improve services for "opportunity youth" by increasing flexibility for sites focused on systems change--and makes recommendations for federal leaders to improve its appeal and impact. Building on…

Summer youth employment programs (SYEPs) have the potential to serve as critical bridges to promising careers, especially for young people who hail from disadvantaged backgrounds or reside in underserved areas. Summer jobs can provide early exposure to professional environments, equipping participants with essential skills for the workplace,…

For many years, those who work in the mentoring field have wondered how they can extend the impact of their programs beyond the benefits experienced by young people they serve. There has been an increasing desire within our field to harness the power of mentoring to enable the youth served in a program to not just grow individually, but to…

A substantive body of research demonstrates that programs for young people have a range of positive benefits including academic achievement, career exploration and development, and social, emotional and civic skills. However, many programs do not realize this potential -- often due to the lack of coordination and support about how to assess and…

Youth substance use challenges their health and well-being. There is research and practical need for rigorous evaluation of substance use prevention programs in prompting positive youth development. This study examined the program effectiveness of Health Rocks!, a youth substance use prevention program, with a quasi-experimental two-factor mixed…

A growing divide in physical activity amongst youth, fueled by the privatization of youth athletic programs, most negatively impacts underrepresented students. Intramural-sports programs hold the potential to engage more of our youth in physical activity, including those from marginalized populations. Utilizing a collective impact approach,…

This dissertation consists of two chapters that examine the impact of educational and positive youth development programs on students' academic and behavioral outcomes. In the first chapter, I evaluate the effect of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, a school meal provision allowing schools meeting the eligibility requirements to…

Evaluation data is needed to demonstrate the impact of 4-H science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programming on children and youth. However, collecting evaluation data from cloverbuds (ages 5-7) is particularly challenging given their developmental age. We adapted an observational Cloverbud evaluation tool to measure basic life…

Summer youth employment programs (SYEPs) are a workforce development strategy used around the country to provide early work experiences to young people each year. These programs partner with local employers to provide subsidized wages for young people between the ages of 14 and 24. The programs often include job-readiness training (which prepares…

The purpose of this paper is to chronicle the efforts of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RMYC), an outdoor experiential education service program, to establish itself as an evidence based program, highlight the constraints encountered around accomplishing this, and then suggest some alternative routes to those currently available. RMYC is typical of…

Get Islington Reading was a three-year campaign to develop a community of happy, confident young readers aged 9 to 14 across the London Borough of Islington. The campaign was funded by the Charity of Sir Richard Whittington through The Mercers' Company and delivered by the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency in collaboration with…