This brief describes the relationship between placement stability and youth engagement in the Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP), a program developed and implemented by the Alameda County Social Services Agency (SSA) for 14- to 20-year-olds in foster care who have multiple risk factors for experiencing homelessness. The authors used program data…

Supporting college and career readiness among youth who encounter significant academic and life challenges requires innovative strategies to help them envision their futures, leverage their strengths and develop dispositions that promote positive trajectories. For youth development professionals who develop and implement novel programmatic…

Background: Local implementation of evidence-based curricula, including sex education, has received increasing attention. Although there are expectations that practitioners will implement evidence-based programs with fidelity, little is known regarding the experiences of instructors in meeting such standards. During 2005 to 2009, the California…

Empirical Education Inc. is the independent evaluator of SRI International's 2014 Investing in Innovation (i3) Development grant called Redesigning Secondary Courses to Improve Academic Outcomes for Adolescents with Disabilities and Other Underperforming Adolescents. The goal of the grant is to develop "Enhanced Units" that combine…

Background: There has been little evaluation of school-located vaccination programs that offer human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in US schools without health centers (ie, extramural programs). This article summarizes lessons learned from such programs. Methods: In July to August 2010, 5 programs were identi?ed. Semistructured, in-depth telephone…

Video production can be easily used as a way to develop social skills in older children with higher-level autism and Asperger syndrome. The program described in this article is an inclusive program that employs a reverse inclusion strategy to teach social skills to children and adolescents with autism utilizing filmmaking. We discuss some of the…

The Big Read evaluation included a series of 35 case studies designed to gather more in-depth information on the program's implementation and impact. The case studies gave readers a valuable first-hand look at The Big Read in context. Both formal and informal interviews, focus groups, attendance at a wide range of events--all showed how…

Although a growing body of research points to the critical need to foster reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills for students in order to ensure their success in college, careers, and life, these efforts have tended to focus more on developing literacy skills in the early years, often ignoring secondary students. The outcome has…

This report focuses on the seven original Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) projects selected for funding in 2003. Three of the original seven projects were selected for a national random assignment evaluation in 2005; however, this report only focuses on program operations prior to joining the random assignment evaluation for the three…

Two pressing education reforms entail improving students' reading skills and improving high schools in the United States. In this article, the authors focus on both of these issues by adding the voices of students in an underperforming high school to the discussion about reading reform. We present the results of a larger study pertaining…

Under the larger scope of the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning, SEDL funded three awardees to carry out large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCT) assessing the efficacy of promising literacy curricula in afterschool settings on student academic achievement. SEDL provided analytic and technical support to the RCT studies…

This report, summarizing the proceedings at a February 1988 conference at Brown University on youth service, presents briefly an overview of the emerging network of youth service programs in the following states: (1) Minnesota; (2) Pennsylvania; (3) California; (4) Massachusetts; and (5) Ohio. Rationales for youth service are analyzed. Eight…

The current emphasis on best practices for school-based health and mental health programs brings with it the demand for evaluation efforts in schools. This article describes the challenges of launching a successful school program and evaluation, with lessons learned from three projects that focus on intimate partner violence. The authors discuss…

In 1983, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 947 which authorized a statewide Youth Suicide Prevention School Program, including provisions for staff training, parent awareness, and a classroom curriculum. This document contains the four guides of the Youth Suicide Prevention School Program. The first guide, the Implementation and…

This paper is one in a series of research papers related to the state role in youth employment and training. It describes seven state-sponsored youth employment and training programs, representing a varied range of approaches that states have undertaken to address their youth employment problems. The first section of this paper provides capsule…