This Module

Evaluating Program Success

Next Play

2. Collect Data

1. Get Your Team Ready to Use Data

In order to improve the way you and your organization interact with young adults, you first need to take a step back and make sure you are setting yourself up for success.

It's essential to take the time to get your program and organization ready to work with Opportunity Youth. That prep work requires commitment to being honest about what is possible to accomplish, where your organization is, and what changes need to happen for your programs to be successful.

Opportunity Youth have way too many experiences with good hearted people and organizations make promises they cannot deliver. We know you don’t want to be one of those people, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

Jump to: Takeaways

Who is this play for?

image of 2 team members. should have a comic book effect and afrofuturism graphics effect

Organizational Leaders

Direct-support Staff

Why this
matters:

Prevents harm.

Trying to start programs that an organization isn’t ready to deliver can lead to harms including staff burnout staff and negative experiences for those using those services.

Focuses resources.

Evaluations help you understand where to focus organizational change efforts.

Creates long term sustainability.

Its all but impossible to deliver a service without consistent organizational support.

Put it into action

Check your assumptions

Everyone brings their assumptions and biases to every interaction we have with others. Sometimes assumptions are correct; other times they are not.

We all know how much we hate it when people make assumptions about us. At best, even when they are right, learning that someone assumed something about you can feel presumptuous. When the assumption is wrong, it creates a lot of frustration and anger.Even when you come from the same neighborhood or are of a similar age, that doesn’t mean you have had the same experiences. You need to be careful not to let your assumptions define the way you are communicating.Here are things you can do to help check your assumptions:

Think about what things were like when you were a young adult. Then think about all the things that have changed since then. List out what might be the same and, more importantly, what might be different. Also, spend some time thinking about what was unique about your personal experience.
Listen for when you (or someone close to you) says something like “young adults today do/don’t ….” That phrase tends to surface a lot of assumptions.
Keep an open and curious mind when you get to the conversation. Be sure you are asking questions about the other person’s experience and really listen when they talk about the differences in their experience.

Assumptions can also show up in the language that you use. To help with this, be sure to check out the “strengths-based language” play earlier in this Playbook.

Decide what you are evaluating

To start, you need to decide what you want to evaluate. Here we suggest areas to consider along with questions that can be incorporated into team meetings or feedback forms:

Current communication practices

Do we communicate in ways that resonate with Opportunity Youth?
Are we using strengths-based language and can identify stigmatizing language?
Do we provide information in ways that are accessible (plain language, multiple formats, mobile-friendly)?
Are our feedback channels set up to hear and respond to youth perspectives?
How easy is it to fill out our forms?

Inclusion practices

Do our staff and leadership reflect the communities we hope to serve?
Are youth or young adult advisors meaningfully involved in shaping these programs?
Do we have policies (e.g., attendance, dress codes, eligibility requirements) that will create hidden barriers?
Are our forms asking for information that we don’t use?
Are we prepared to deliver services in ways that are easily accessible to our target community?

Organizational culture

What biases may we have about Opportunity Youth?
How comfortable do staff feel working with Opportunity Youth?
Are we prepared to meet community members where they are?
How does the organization react to change?

Community perception

What is our reputation in the community?
What do the community members we want to serve think about us?
What are their experiences with services like ours?

Potential community and staff risks

Without organizational change how might we unintentionally harm the young adults we are working with (e.g., raising false expectations, retraumatizing youth, reinforcing inequities, fail to deliver critical services)?

Without organizational change how might we unintentionally harm program staff members and partners (e.g., raising false expectations, retraumatizing staff, placing too much work on individuals, failing to provide emotional support)?

Readiness for sustainable change

Are we ready to invest the time and resources to build trust over months and years, not just weeks?
How will we sustain engagement beyond a single project, event, or hiring round?

Start and keep improving

The work of improving the way your organization serves Opportunity Youth is never done. Whether you are just starting or have been doing it for decades, there’s always something you can be working to improve. The important thing is that you make improving an intentional part of your day-to-day operations.

Your organization might have already had some of these on hand. You can use the above plays to fill in the rest. If you go through all the plays in this module, you’ll have answered all those questions.

How you specifically implement those changes really depends on your organization. What we can offer you are some best practices and things to think about. You don’t have to do it all! Look for help from the outside.

For instance:

Invite Opportunity Youth or youth-serving organizations to review your environment, communications, and policies. We talked more about this in the last module’s play, “Making Sure Young Adults are Heard.”
There are lots of organizations already doing work in many critical opportunity youth service areas. Before you reinvent the wheel, make sure you reach out to see if there are collaboration opportunities.
The United Way of Mid South’s Driving the Dream program is another great resource to use to learn about other service providers in your area.

Takeaways:

Leadership leads in creating spaces for honest feedback. Leaders need to model openness and admit when things don’t work as planned.
Make sure staff feel safe raising concerns without fear of punishment.Give small teams autonomy to test improvements (e.g., pilot a new communication method) without waiting for leadership approval.
Find ways to make constant improvement everyone’s responsibility.Build in short, regular moments for staff and youth to give feedback (weekly huddles, “plus/delta” sessions, anonymous digital surveys).
Celebrate when feedback leads to real change so people see it matters.

What's next