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…

Drug use trends change rapidly among youth, leaving educators and researchers struggling to respond promptly. Widely adopted universal evidence-based interventions (EBIs), such as the Michigan Model for Health™ (MMH), and their delivery systems offer an opportunity to reach large youth populations and reduce the onset and escalation of emerging…

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…

Background: Mentoring programs pair non-familial adults with children and adolescents for the purposes of promoting positive youth development. Although these programs are widely popular, evaluations tend to show that mentoring programs have, on average, modest effects on youth outcomes. Some researchers have suggested that mentoring programs…

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…

Purpose: Adapted physical activity (APA) provides children and youth with disabilities more opportunities to be physically active. Nevertheless, it is not well known how APA implementation in different services has benefited them. This study reviews the existing literature on APA interventions to identify characteristics and program descriptions,…

Pre-apprenticeship programs are a very effective tool to help youth and adults enter a Registered Apprenticeship program. Participants can also use the experience to pursue further training or enter the workforce. The pre-apprenticeship is designed to help youth or adults take a snapshot of their current skills and use that data to address gaps in…

Although experts agree that diverse stakeholder inclusion enhances quality and equity in evaluation designs and implementation, diverse voices are often omitted. Particularly antithetical to principles of youth character development, evaluations for these programs should strive to include voices from various social, economic, community, and…

To reach first-generation Extension families and combat barriers faced by Native American youths, North Dakota State University Extension has been involved in the national mentoring program 4-H Youth and Families with Promise (YFP). In the program's fourth year, we conducted ripple effect mapping to explore changes in the schools and communities…

Arizona State University's (ASU) Bridging Success program, launched in 2015, is a campus-based support program for students with a background in foster care, also known as Foster Care Alumni (FCA). The program is housed within ASU's School of Social Work, which is part of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions. The program…

Ongoing research and evaluation that produce actionable, widely disseminated evidence are central to the continuous improvement of U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) programs. In addition, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA) requires DOL to conduct periodic, independent evaluations to inform the effective operation of WIOA…

Camp remains a powerful experience for youth of any age, but special care must be taken to ensure camps are supportive of diverse audiences. This article describes the process by which 4-H camp organizers created a welcoming and affirming camp for teen dependents of active duty, retired, or veteran military personnel, especially those campers who…

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…

The purpose of this study was to explore potential effects of a 12-week therapeutic mentoring program targeting social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in 52 children and adolescents between 11 and 17 years of age. Self-reported scores on a norm-referenced behavioral questionnaire were tracked across the span of a mentoring program, and then…

The research question guiding the production of the youth employment evidence and gap map (EGM) is stated as follows: What is the nature and extent of the evidence base of impact evaluations and systematic reviews on youth employment programmes in the world? The primary objective of is to catalogue impact evaluations and systematic reviews on…