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"Keeping It Real": An Evaluation Audit Of Five Years Of Youth-Led Program Evaluation, Jeffrey J. Bulanda, Katie Szarzynski, Daria Silar, Katherine Tyson Mccrea

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Youth are increasingly seen as competent in participating in research and program evaluation, two activities previously reserved for adults. This paper is a report of the findings from an evaluation audit of Stand Up! Help Out!, a participatory action after-school youth leadership development program for disadvantaged urban youth that utilized youth evaluations to develop a best practices service model. The youths’ feedback assisted providers in improving services so that youth engagement in the program was 99% (by comparison with national highs of 79%). Here, we describe an important aspect of the process of youth-led program evaluation leading to such high …