Involving youth and encouraging their participation is important in promoting positive youth development. Youth need to be fully engaged in programs as active participants. Their participation should be sustained, and they should able to translate the skills and experiences gained within the program to their greater communities.

Youth Involvement and Engagement Assessment Tool

To ensure that youth are actively engaged, programs should regularly assess youth involvement and engagement. This online assessment tool can assist organizations and community partnerships in determining how they involve youth in programs, whether youth are becoming more engaged in the community, and if certain strategies are helping to retain youth. This tool is also available as a downloadable Adobe Acrobat file (PDF, 8 pages).

Resources

Building Partnerships for Youth Program Assessment Tool

This tool was created to help administrators and program personnel assess their program's capacity to address 21 elements of youth development and thus make informed decisions regarding future program directions. This brief self-assessment provides an immediate feedback report which indicates how well a program is currently addressing each of the elements of youth development.