Program Evaluation

Ask questions about conducting a program evaluation, including collecting and reporting data, finding validated instruments, and other aspects of assessing program success.

From David Dubois, et. al.: great guide on measuring "soft skills" outcomes

Posted Wed, 10/05/2011 - 10:25 by Kay Logan

This great new guide from the Forum for Youth Investment seeks to help out-of-school time programs measure those tough-to-capture, but ever-so-important skills such as communication, leadership, critical thinking, relationship, and collaboration. Many of these skills are at the heart of mentoring and after-school programming, but few youth programs have the tools to effectively measure those outcomes. Finding the right one can be daunting.

Evaluations of the Mentors from the Mentees- advice?

Posted Tue, 05/31/2011 - 12:53 by MichaelT

I'm a member of a small volunteer organization that has just started a mentorship program. We have 8 mentors working with 3 mentees each (each mentor themselves has a mentor).

I'm the program coordinator right now and I have some questions.

We finished our first quarter and solicited evaluations from the mentees about how they felt about the program in general and their relationship with their mentors.

Webinar series on collecting and using data for decision-making from Ready by 21R, May 31

Posted Mon, 05/16/2011 - 10:26 by Kay Logan

Ready by 21 is hosting a free series of webinars on using data for decision making, including an upcoming webinar on May 31:

Ready by 21R Webinar Series
Using Better Data 101
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
3:00-4:00 PM ET
Presenters: Kiley Bednar, the Forum for Youth Investment
Larry Pasti, the Forum for Youth Investment

Information and registration on this and other Ready 21R Webinar Series events can be found at:
http://readyby21.readytalk.com/?p=ev

Upcoming webinar on evaluating mentoring programs, May 16

Posted Wed, 05/04/2011 - 10:06 by Kay Logan

Register now for one of the two sessions being offered on the Oregon Mentors Evaluation Instrument Toolkit featuring Mike Garringer (the host of this forum) and Celeste Jannssen of Oregon Mentors.

Data Sharing for Youth Involved in Multiple Systems -- Excellent Tool Kit and Webinars

Posted Wed, 04/27/2011 - 10:28 by Kay Logan

The Juvenile Law Center and the Child Welfare League of America have made available their excellent toolkit on data sharing for youth involved in multiple systems. The tookit covers data sharing for individual case planning and decision making; for law, policy, and program development; and for program evaluation and performance measurement. Although designed for juvenile justice providers it is highly useful for other collaborative efforts to support system-involved youth. What a great resource on a complicated and important issue that youth service agencies all struggle with!

CLOSED: Funding for Mentoring Best Practice Research

Posted Tue, 01/11/2011 - 17:43 by Michael Garringer

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention continues to release RFPs related to youth mentoring, this time offering funds for researchers to study effective practices in mentoring youth.

(See the sustainability section of the Mentoring Forums for announcements that are targeted for direct-service providers.)

This latest solicitation, due March 8th, is focused on original research:

Webinar on Evaluating Mentoring Programs

Posted Fri, 01/07/2011 - 15:49 by Michael Garringer

MENTOR continues their excellent series of webinars around the Elements of Effective Practice with a session on January 12th about how to effectively evaluate a mentoring program. The session will be lead by Christian Rummell, a former collegue of mine here at the National Mentoring Center, and will teach participants "how to develop a plan to measure program performance using easy-to-use evaluation resources."

New Evaluation Instrument Toolkit Launches

Posted Fri, 10/29/2010 - 11:36 by Michael Garringer

Oregon Mentors has just released the Evaluation Instrument Toolkit, a new online resource that gathers up dozens of existing evaluation tools and organizes them by keywords for easy downloading.

Tools for measuring stress, self-regulation, bullying and other factors in out-of-school time programs from Child Trends

Posted Fri, 10/08/2010 - 10:20 by Kay Logan

Child Trends has a series of briefs with information and tools for measuring outcomes in out-of-school time programs that are highly relevant to youth mentoring programs, including:

New article on evidence-based practice in funding decisions

Posted Fri, 07/23/2010 - 10:25 by Michael Garringer

The ever-wonderful Youth Today has a fascinating article about the Obama Administration's move toward cutting programs that have not demonstrated their effectiveness in rigorous evaluations.

Prove It or Lose It: White House move to fund ‘effective’ programs sets off battles

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