Session Five: Sharing PYD Impact
“something to believe in“
For over 10 years, ABC’s Shark Tank reality television show has featured entrepreneurs in their quest to convince a panel of business professionals to believe in their ideas. The ability to succinctly communicate the value of the product or service and tell a story that is appealing to the sharks has the ability to shape the future work of the entrepreneurs. Like entrepreneurs of small businesses and start-up companies, youth-serving organizations also have something that they want people to invest their time, money, interest, and energy in. So how do you get others to believe in the impact of positive youth development? By using data to create a powerful impact story.
Welcome to the fifth and final session of the Program Planning and Evaluation for PYD Impact Academy. This session will revisit the program cycle and re-examine the connection between program planning and evaluation. Self-paced learning assignments include instruction on individual action plans, best practices for sharing impact stories, and an introduction to data driven decisions. During the live webinar session, hosted by experienced PYD evaluators, you will “complete” the program cycle, discuss the value of an evaluation network and discuss the usefulness of connecting program quality data, PYD thriving indicators and outcome data and learning outcome data to make data driven decisions, and to tell your impact stories.
Learning Objectives for Session 5
- Understand the value of telling the PYD story, how, when and with whom do we share this information.
- Develop data-driven decision skills based on connecting program quality, thriving and outcome data.
- Develop skill in translating evaluation results into strong PYD impact stories for different audiences.
- Develop a personal action plan for applying evaluative thinking, program planning and evaluation in 4-H practice.
Before you begin – please register for one of the two required webinars for Session 5
Please complete the self-paced learning assignments listed below in the order they are presented.
Clicking on the button will open a new tab. To return to the session content, click on the PYD Academy in your browser’s tab list. This will take you back to where you left off.
Step One – Read
‘America’s Moment’
Making the case for Positive Youth Development, Dr. Mary Arnold shares in this article how increasing the investment in positive youth development programs and people is critical. She also highlights key areas where such programs can help support and transform youth, and in-turn society, as well as how youth development professionals and volunteers embrace a whole-child approach.
Take Away: Making the case for Positive Youth Development is necessary when sharing stories of program impact, as a variety of audiences, including stakeholders, funders, and others, are continuing to learn about the discipline and why it is to be celebrated for its ability to provide quality opportunities for youth. Consider audiences you might engage with the PYD story.
Step Two – Watch
‘Making Decisions Shouldn’t Be This Hard – The Lunch Decision’
Pepperoni, cheese, or olives? Making a decision as a group is never easy, and we all have our own opinions or vantage point of expertise. For the group in this video, even a decision about lunch proves to be difficult and a seemingly simple task becomes difficult. Similar decision challenges can be faced when making meaning of the data we collect.
Take Away: Think about experiences where you or your teams couldn’t come to consensus or when you look back and realized you missed an opportunity for change. It is critical that we listen to our data and making decisions for our programming should be informed by multiple levels of data. Throughout Session 5, you will begin to uncover how to select the most appropriate data to inform program decisions.
Step Three – Read
‘Basics of Evaluation Reporting or Dissemination’
Successful evaluation reporting and dissemination communicates results by considering who will be impacted by the evaluation results and considers how the results will be used. Review these Evaluation Quick Tips from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension to learn how evaluation results can be translated into strong PYD impact stories for different audiences.
Take Away: The story of our program is important to a variety of stakeholders. Donors, decision-makers, youth, partners, community members and other partners likely have varying interests in our work. As you review this resource consider how your PYD story will be tailored for one or more of your audiences.
Step Four – Read
‘Engaging Stakeholders in Program Decision Making: A Toolkit for Engaging Stakeholders in Data-Driven Decision Making’
Kendra Lewis from the University of New Hampshire, along with contributions from the University of California, compiled a toolkit that is designed to help organizations, groups, and project teams to make data-driven decisions. Through the initiation of ‘Data Parties,’ youth development professionals are able to review data and information to then make informed decisions about their programs.
Take Away: Too often data sits on the shelf or is filed away in a report. ‘Data Parties’ can be a fun and innovative way to uncover ‘aha’ moments and engage stakeholders in working with the data in a hand-on, interactive way. Make a list of 5 people you might engage in this type of discussion.
Step Five – Reflect & Share
“Youth Program Quality Principles”
Review the three examples and respond to the three prompts for each of the examples in the Jam Board (one example per slide):
- Question 1: Who is the likely audience for the example?
- Question 2: In what ways is the example effective?
- Question 3: How might the examples effectiveness be improved?
Step Six – Attend ONE of the Live Webinar Sessions
Tuesday, December 5thor Thursday, December 7th (2 hours, select one)
Session 5 of the academy wraps up with a live webinar session. In this session, Dr. Kali Trzesniewski, Professor of Extension at the University of California, Davis; and Dr. Steven Worker, a 4-H Youth Development Advisor at the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources; will share more about monitoring your performance objectives, applying feedback in a continuous improvement model, and observing program quality and a Developmental Context Fidelity measure. Please come prepared to learn and download the Individual Action Plan Below before the session!
Step Seven- Do the Evaluation
After you have participated in the live webinar there are two steps to complete before you move on to the next session – confirm completion of all session requirements and complete the session evaluation.
You will be directed to the confirmation and evaluation site at the end of the live webinar session. You can also return to this page to complete this required step.
Your input on the academy experience is critical to helping us shape the best possible academy going forward!
Step Eight- Optional Additional Reading
Read ‘Beyond the Gap’
The term ‘opportunity gap’ is increasingly being used by organizations and educators to describe how the circumstances in which people are born and/or live determine their opportunities in life. Participation in youth development experiences, regardless of the topic and content they are focused upon, is a powerful way to address the opportunity gap, as shared in the ‘Beyond the Gap’ article published by National 4-H Council.
Step Nine – Go to Phase 2, Learning Circles