10-08-1997 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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HEALTHY YOUTH/ H E A L T H Y C I T I E S Measuring Success On any given day, we are inundated with the difficulties facing our youth. Often, the common response is to get tough. But do hard line tactics work and, if not, how can cities evaluate and improve programs? innesota communities realize the situation facing youth first hand and are addressing it through a number of prevention strategies. Prevention strategies can be grouped into three, broad categories: primary prevention, aimed at the general public; secondary prevention, aimed at individuals exhib- iting high risk characteristics; and ternary pre- vention, aimed at those individuals who have already entered the criminal jusnce system. The biggest question for all of these emerging tech- niques is. "Do they work ?" Evaluation can help answer this question. Evaluation is as much a way of thinking about how strategies are implemented as it is a set of handy cools and techniques for collecting information. An evaluator always asks. "How Jo I know what I am saving about my program is true and will be accepted by others as true ?" In semng up an evaluation of youth programs. activities. and events, the goal is not to prove chat all youth have been saved from engaging in a l possible neganve activities. Instead, che goal is to develop a chain of evidence chat a reason - ible person would accept as demonstrating suc- cess. For example. research may demonstrate chat teaching independent Living skills to homeless youth reduces their likelihood of communing .nmes or becoming victims of crone. To euec- .:iveiv evaluate such a program. che vouch 'liould be able to demonstrate they have learned icing skills. The evaluanon does not have to .iemonscrace chat youth who have completed 'tie independent living skills program are less :hyphen in came. Previous research has already srablished that connecnon. Thus. a demonstra- unn of erfecnve teaching and learning indicates ;hat the youth parncipanng in che program are -dso less vulnerable co crime. As cities become more Involved in youth programming, as onmary soonsors and coilabo- By Edward C. Siegel razors, conducting a thoughtful evaluation will both measure success and determine areas need - ing improvement. There are several simple guidelines CO consider when evaluating youth programs: 49 Determine basic demographics. It will be im- portant to figure out whether the program is 43 reaching the group of originally targeted youth. Funders especially want to know who receives services. 1. Get feedback. What did the participating 26 youth enjoy about the program? What could have been done differently or better? What as- 19 17 13 11 z z a 0 Cities have varying degrees of responsibility and involve• ment with issues and con- cerns affecting children and families. A 1996 National League of Cities survey asked respondents to report the three areas their city was most connected to dur- ing the previous year. Page 54 pects made it difficult to participate: e.g., lack of transportation, meenng times lack of child care? Was staff well prepared? Were ocher par- ticipants eager and supportive? Finding out the useful and not -so- useful components of a pro- gram, event, or activity is vital imormadon. Good feedback data provides the clues needed for improvement. Outcome data is crucial. Although outcome data may be far more difficult co obtain than other types of data. it is by far the most impor- tant. Reiiabie outcome data cells what was di- rectly accomplished as a result of participating in che program. acnvity, or event. Some examples of outcome data include test results. records of goal accomplishments. and school records. Be objective. Always collect imormanon, feedback, and data in an objective format. This means questions should have well defined choices for answers. tests should be multiple choice. and opinion items should have defined scales. Limit open ended comments. Written com- ments are interesnng, but for the most part they should be supplemental co che evaivanve data rather than the mam body of data Open ended comments are obviously more subiecnve and difficult co measure. Keep materials brief Evaivanon matenais should be beef and still cover the :oorc success-