When considering community impacts of outdoor education (OE), youth are community members, leaders, and experts who can and should be meaningfully involved in the design and evaluation of OE programs and research that impact them. Ensuring youth have agency in these processes can create opportunities for building community (Brennan, 2008), making…

Recently, a new program model for describing and predicting the impact of 4-H on youths was proposed. The model's structure was confirmed statistically in preliminary testing. However, youth voice had not been included in the development of the model. This article describes a study intended to assess the alignment of the six thriving indicators…

Background: The goal of the study was to develop and verify a pathway model (or theory of change) for STEM Scouts, an out-of-school time (OST), positive youth development program for elementary through high school-aged youth. Pathway models include connections between hypothesized activities to short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes. STEM Scouts is…

The purpose of this study was to understand the landscape of the Sports Based Youth Development (SBYD) field, especially around areas of practical concern for program leaders, staff, and funders. This study integrates SBYD best practices from the research perspective as reflected in empirical studies and non-empirical literature and from…

Logic models have garnered acclaim for their usefulness and disdain for the time required to create good ones. We argue that the orderly, analytical nature of logic models is opposed to many Extension programs, and we explain developmental evaluation, an approach that highlights ongoing development, adaptations, and rapid response. We use our…

The goal of this American Association of School Administrators (AASA) youth apprenticeship toolkit is to encourage the creation of school and business partnerships as a viable and expansive pathway to success in school, career and work. This toolkit provides resources for secondary and community college administrators to advocate for and build…

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that in 2016 over four million young people in the United States were "disconnected," meaning they had not been enrolled in school in the previous three months and were not working. Although this number has fallen in the years since the Great Recession (which officially ended in 2009), as the…

In 2014 the Oregon 4-H program adopted a new program model to describe and evaluate the impact of 4-H on youths. The model is based on promoting thriving in young people, with an emphasis on high program quality. This article discusses the impact on thriving in 378 youth participants of the 4-H Summer Conference (4-HSC) program. The results of the…

The aim of the article is to describe the assessment model adopted by the SCINTILLA Project, a project in Italy aimed at the online vocational training of young, seriously-disabled subjects and their subsequent work inclusion in smart-work mode. It will thus describe the model worked out for evaluation of the training program conceived for the…

While policy-makers in Britain can justifiably lay claim to creating the term NEET to define young people who do not engage in formal learning, training or employment, the high number who fall into, and remain in, this category continues to challenge them. This, in part, is attributable to the extended use of the term NEET to capture all young…

A key challenge in formative evaluation is to gather appropriate evidence to inform the continuous improvement of initiatives. In the absence of outcome data, the programme evaluator often must rely on the perceptions of beneficiaries and staff in generating insight into what is making a difference. The article describes the approach adopted in an…

This article examines Extension professionals building community capacity in 10 counties across five Appalachian states in response to the talent crisis in the United States information technology (IT) workforce. The goal has been to transfer IT knowledge and create a supportive environment to foster interest in IT careers among underserved girls…

This article examines four influential programs--Citizen Schools, After School Matters, career academies, and Job Corps--to demonstrate the diversity of approaches to career programming for youth. It compares the specific program models and draws from the evaluation literature to discuss strengths and weaknesses of each. The article highlights…

Few formal post-secondary educational programs in the United States focus on youth work, thus youth workers often enter the field with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of experience working with youth. Drawing on mounting evidence that quality youth service requires skilled staff, professional-development opportunities have received…

Decades of research show that high school dropouts are more likely than graduates to commit crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, have children out of wedlock, earn low wages, be unemployed, and suffer from poor health. The ChalleNGe program, currently operating in 27 states, is a residential program coupled with post-residential mentoring that seeks…