Oral Presentations

What Does it Take to Empower Today's Youth?: Program Evaluation of Empower Montana

Author Information

Julia Vander ArkFollow

Presentation Type

Presentation

Faculty Mentor’s Full Name

Daisy Rooks

Faculty Mentor’s Department

Sociology

Abstract / Artist's Statement

This project seeks to evaluate the efficacy of Empower Montana’s youth programs. Empower Montana is a local social justice-oriented nonprofit that provides extracurricular programs for students K-12. They offer various after-school programs, including groups for students of color and queer youth, as well as summer camps emphasizing leadership skills. While Empower Montana consistently collects feedback from their participants, they have not been able to systematically analyze this feedback to identify program areas that need growth or improvement. To help them with this issue, I will examine survey responses from 470 youth participants from a variety of Empower Montana programs from 2017 to 2022. To supplement these data, I will observe several after-school sessions and include data from these observations in my analysis. The surveys provide information on participant demographics and measurements of their social-emotional learning, specifically their self-management abilities, academic self-efficacy, and social skills. My analysis will focus on several areas of interest to Empower Montana, namely differences in participant outcomes before, during, and after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. This information will help Empower Montana better understand the diverse experiences of their youth participants who have lived through the pandemic. I will also examine differences in participant outcomes based on race and gender to evaluate if participants’ identities lead to different experiences in their programs. Following the findings, I will design a plan of action for Empower Montana to implement changes in areas that need growth. This project contributes to the practice of youth program evaluations and emphasizes how they can be most effective in making positive change.

Category

Social Sciences

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Apr 21st, 4:00 PM Apr 21st, 4:20 PM

What Does it Take to Empower Today's Youth?: Program Evaluation of Empower Montana

UC 332

This project seeks to evaluate the efficacy of Empower Montana’s youth programs. Empower Montana is a local social justice-oriented nonprofit that provides extracurricular programs for students K-12. They offer various after-school programs, including groups for students of color and queer youth, as well as summer camps emphasizing leadership skills. While Empower Montana consistently collects feedback from their participants, they have not been able to systematically analyze this feedback to identify program areas that need growth or improvement. To help them with this issue, I will examine survey responses from 470 youth participants from a variety of Empower Montana programs from 2017 to 2022. To supplement these data, I will observe several after-school sessions and include data from these observations in my analysis. The surveys provide information on participant demographics and measurements of their social-emotional learning, specifically their self-management abilities, academic self-efficacy, and social skills. My analysis will focus on several areas of interest to Empower Montana, namely differences in participant outcomes before, during, and after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. This information will help Empower Montana better understand the diverse experiences of their youth participants who have lived through the pandemic. I will also examine differences in participant outcomes based on race and gender to evaluate if participants’ identities lead to different experiences in their programs. Following the findings, I will design a plan of action for Empower Montana to implement changes in areas that need growth. This project contributes to the practice of youth program evaluations and emphasizes how they can be most effective in making positive change.