Engaging Youth for Positive Change is a local civic engagement program focused on youth and young adults in the U.S. state of Illinois, and guides them through the process of adopting a local ordinance by working with their local city councils or other governing bodies. Researchers collected two waves of data from EYPC participants to…

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…

Involving youth in developing and implementing prevention programs to reduce sexual violence (SV) has the potential to improve prevention outcomes. However, there has been little focus on youth-led SV prevention programs, and limited evaluation research to help guide efforts. The current study examined the effectiveness of Youth Voices in…

This systematic review identified 10 process evaluation studies of positive youth development (PYD) programmes for disadvantaged young people, and aimed to assess the quality of reporting, methods used, and barriers and enablers to delivering programmes as intended. Four databases were searched: Web of Science, Psych INFO, Scopus, and Embase.…

This dissertation examines the impact of Skyhawks Sports Academy camps on youth participants' social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies using an intrinsic case study approach. The study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data were gathered through SEL competency surveys administered on the first and fifth days of…

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,…

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…

Opportunity youth (OY; i.e., youth ages 16--24 who are neither working nor in school) are a population who is difficult to engage and retain in educational programs, particularly in community college career and technical education (CTE) programs. OY are an important population to community colleges, as CTE programs culminating in…

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…

One of CYFAR's unique features is the built-in planning year for all grant recipients. We present our evaluation team's approach during year 1 to establish a foundation and plan for scholarly publications during funding years 2-5. The systematic literature review provided the team with a better understanding of the culture and context of the…

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…

Narrative case studies have shown that, when people are involved in an evaluation of a program they are part of, it can change how they experience the program. This study used a quasi-experiment to test this proposition empirically in the context a participatory action research curriculum called Youth as Researchers. Half of all Youth as…

Adventure therapy programs can promote beneficial experiences and attributes that cultivate positive youth development (PYD). This study explores the impact of an urban, outdoor adventure therapy program for underserved youth. Multiple versions of the Positive Youth Development Inventory were given to participants and a comparison group (N = 161)…