We are Susana Morales and Corey Newhouse, and we have the great honor to serve as the Co-Chairs for the AEA Awards Working Group for 2026. This role aligns our values of collaboration, equity, and leadership development by uplifting and celebrating excellence in the evaluation field. 

The AEA Awards recognize and celebrate excellence, innovation, and impact in evaluation practice, theory, and use. The awards honor distinguished evaluators all while fostering a sense of community and encouraging collaboration and knowledge-sharing across academia, nonprofits, government agencies, and philanthropic organizations.

The AEA Awards not only celebrate excellence, but also help shape the future of evaluation by promoting rigorous, ethical, and impactful practices. They reinforce the importance of using evaluation to drive meaningful social change, ultimately improving programs, policies, and communities.

The 2025 AEA Awardees illustrate the wide range of excellence in evaluation:

AEA Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award

Dr. Cherie Avent is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and faculty affiliate with the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on social justice-oriented communication and action, and their impact on change through evaluator and program practices with a primary area in STEM education evaluation. Dr. Avent’s values, intersectional identities, and lived experiences deeply shape her commitments to serving communities who are minoritized in society.  

AEA Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Evaluation Practice Award

Leslie Goodyear is a Distinguished Scholar and Principal Evaluator at Education Development Center. She served as the Ethics Section editor and associate editor of the American Journal of Evaluation, chair of the Qualitative Methods TIG, and chair and member of AEA’s Ethics Working Group, contributing to the revision and dissemination of the AEA Guiding Principles. Leslie’s publications have focused on improving evaluation practice, including Qualitative Inquiry in Evaluation and Evaluation capacity building in theory and practice: Revisiting models from practitioner perspectives. 

 AEA Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Government Award

Dr. Toni Watt serves as the Chair and Professor of Sociology at Texas State University. Throughout her career, Dr. Watt has dedicated herself to evaluating programs and policies designed to improve outcomes for children and youth who have experienced trauma and/or the foster care system. Dr. Watt is an advocate for participatory research, consistently engaging individuals with lived experience in the foster care system as research partners. She co-founded and co-directs Texas State Sociology SOAR, which provides undergraduate students with opportunities to conduct applied research.

AEA Robert Ingle Service Award

Sharon Rallis is Distinguished Professor of Education Policy and Reform, Emerita of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where her teaching included courses in inquiry and program evaluation. Sharon joined AEA in its initial year and has actively participated in many and various aspects of the organization, including: as an AEA Board member for two terms; on awards committees three times; as program co-chair with Chip Reichardt for the 1992 Annual Conference; as President in 2005; and as Editor of AJE for five years.

AEA Research on Evaluation Award

Dr. Tarek Azzam, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Director of the Center for Evaluation and Assessment. Tarek’s research focuses on developing new methods suited for real-world evaluations. His research on evaluation work involves studying the impact of politics on the evaluation process, and the integration of new technologies and resources to develop new evaluation-specific methodologies. 

AEA Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award

Dr. Apollo M. Nkwake (PhD, CE) is the Global Lead-Senior Technical Advisor for Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning at Action Against Hunger USA. His work focuses on improving program effectiveness through methodological rigor. He is the author of several seminal books, including the widely cited Credibility, Validity, and Assumptions in Program Evaluation Methodology and Working with Assumptions in International Development Program Evaluation. Dr. Nkwake has held senior roles at The George Washington University and the World Agroforestry Center and has served as an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Evaluation.

Rad Resource

Nominations for the 2026 AEA Awards are now open! Submit a brief Letter of Interest here by April 10, 2026. The Awards Committee will invite full applications in May 2026.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

Hello! We, Tabitha Sarkar, a young woman co-researcher and international business student in Amsterdam, and Selina Keya,  a young professional evaluation associate with Elevating Voices with Change and The Mangrove Collective, worked with young women co-researchers in Bangladesh as part of the RiseUp! Asia Pacific Formative Evaluation. RiseUp! is a flagship initiative of World YWCA, in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, designed to strengthen young women’s leadership and advocacy across Asia and the Pacific.

Keya, as an evaluation navigator, partnered with YWCA Bangladesh to design and guide the evaluation, engaging RiseUp! alumni, like Tabitha, as young women co-researchers. Keya trained and coached the co-researchers to lead data collection, co-analysis, and facilitate a sensemaking workshop.

Lessons Learned

Transformational leadership enables young women to reshape power structures. In Bangladesh, RiseUp! has built confidence, Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights knowledge, and peer solidarity. Yet barriers persist: patriarchal norms, in-law resistance, ethnic discrimination, and weak enforcement. Addressing these requires deeper engagement with resistant groups, succession planning, and sustained alumni networks. RiseUp! gives young women ownership, not just a platform.

Safe spaces were central to this process. More than physical venues, they became relational incubators of trust, solidarity, and collective action. Young women described them as places where they could “grow together,” practice leadership, and support one another. Within these spaces, participants confronted taboos around menstrual health, spoke publicly, and advocated for survivors of violence. Vulnerability and courage intertwined, allowing them to share deeply personal struggles and draw strength from one another.

Storytelling served as both evidence and advocacy. Using a Change Scale tool and Most Significant Change storytelling, participants captured impact beyond surveys, revealing how entrenched gender norms shape their lives while highlighting resilience and leadership capacity. Most Significant Change narratives showed how young women prevented child marriages, referred survivors to legal services, and engaged duty bearers. One participant noted, “Family is the first and primary support; if they do not support, we cannot move forward.” Capturing family attitude shifts alongside community change proved vital. Amplifying youth voices strengthened policy influence and accountability with leaders, teachers, and NGOs. Storytelling fostered self-reflection and collective awareness, showing struggles are not inevitable. Youth-led evaluation must link grassroots narratives to policy and intergenerational dialogue.

Through collective sharing, awareness deepened. Women began to see how family structures and social norms had shaped their experiences, while also recognizing their own capacity for growth, resistance, and change. This realization became the first step toward empowerment, planting visions of dignity, freedom, and belonging. Together, they imagined futures where their voices matter, rights are recognized, and possibilities replace limitations.

Hot Tips

RiseUp! participants also co-created bilingual posters, infographics, and handouts, ensuring findings were accessible to grassroots communities and institutional stakeholders. As a core component of the Feminist Consultation Methodology, it is one way to make sure the findings are owned by communities.

Rad Resources

This process was grounded in World YWCA’s Feminist Consultation Methodology ensuring ownership by young women, keeping data rooted in communities and empowering them as leaders of change rather than subjects of external evaluation with key stakeholders.

Youth-led evaluation must continue to evolve as a tool for systemic change. As one NGO field officer observed, “Now young women have learnt how to knit dreams.” RiseUp! shows that youth-led evaluation, grounded in storytelling, is not only a method of documenting change but a pathway to systemic transformation. Learn more about the RiseUp! evaluation here.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

Greetings! We are Elaine Stavnitzky, Founder and Chief Navigator of Elevating Voices for Change and Kimberley Teillet-Meunier of the Mangrove Collective.

Over the past year, World YWCA commissioned us to lead the RiseUp! Asia Pacific Formative Evaluation. Together with Dr. Suchi Gaur and Victoria Kahla, Senior Director of Strategy and Operations and Program Manager for RiseUp! respectively, we co-designed the evaluation process with an intergenerational Steering Committee of RiseUp! Asia Pacific leaders and representation from Australian government. RiseUp! Young Women’s Leadership and Advocacy Initiative in Asia and the Pacific is a flagship initiative of World YWCA, in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade gender equality initiatives.

RiseUp! in Asia and the Pacific is led by YWCA national associations and partners, with young women in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, contributing to World YWCA’s Goal 2035: 100 million young women and girls will transform power structures to create justice, gender equality and a world without violence and war. We were intentional that this collaborative, formative evaluation be grounded in World YWCA’s Feminist Consultation Methodology, ensuring that data collection and sense-making are owned by young women who have participated in RiseUp!

We set up a structure where young women co-researchers were facilitated, guided and supported by Evaluation Navigators (young professional evaluators) in almost all the countries (except Sri Lanka where we followed a different approach). RiseUp! partners worked with Evaluation Navigators and RiseUp! young women co-researchers to support data collection and sense-making in their RiseUp! communities. This deeply collaborative evaluation is the result of our unwavering commitment to the values and practices of community-led accountability.

Hot Tips – Feminist Consultation Principles for Evaluation Practice

From our experience, values-based principles are key to a feminist approach to evaluation. The following are ones we applied in the evaluation.

Locally Led & Trust-Based: The Feminist Consultation Methodology prioritizes evaluations that are shaped and guided by those most affected by the issues under study. Participants are engaged as knowledge-holders and co-interpreters, fostering trust through shared decision-making, respect for lived experience, and attention to relational ethics.

Intersectional & Inclusive: The methodology explicitly recognizes that power, opportunity, and harm are shaped by intersecting identities and contexts. For evaluators, this means designing processes that surface diverse perspectives and avoid treating communities as homogeneous.

Transparent Processes: Clarity in purpose, roles, methods, and use of findings is central. Transparent communication—before, during, and after data collection—supports informed participation and reduces extractive practices.

Accountable & Reflective: Ongoing feedback, collective sense-making, and reflection are built into the process. Accountability is understood not only as reporting results, but as being answerable to participants and adapting based on what is learned.

Together, these principles challenge evaluators to align methods with values, placing equity, agency, and responsibility at the center of evaluation practice, as articulated in the work of World YWCA.

Rad Resources

World YWCA’s Feminist Consultation Methodology – an adaptive guide that walks people through a participatory approach to evaluation and research that centers young people’s lived experiences, shares power in decision-making, and builds trust through inclusive, transparent, and accountable engagement.

YWCA’s Safe Space Guidance – creating safe spaces is critical for young women to share and learn, especially about sensitive topics that are important to them, such as their hygiene and health, violence, discrimination and other challenges they may face in their community to be a young woman leader.

For other supporting resources, check out World YWCA’s resource page.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

Hi, my name is Holly Gavin and I am a Project Coordinator at Indiana University Southeast’s Applied Research and Education Center (AREC). Partnering with community and supporting the development of young professionals is at the heart of our work, so we were excited to embark on an innovation in our evaluation of a youth program – hiring youth to join the evaluation team. Today, I’ll be reflecting on our experiences and how we engaged youth as evaluators in our project.

Since 2021, our center partnered with the YMCA to evaluate their innovative teen program, the Teen Vibe Camp. The program’s evaluation includes methods designed with Youth-Engaged Participatory Action Research framework, meaningfully incorporating youth expertise and feedback with qualitative and quantitative methods.

During the AEA conference, it was always inspiring to talk to other evaluators employing youth in their evaluation in different ways – as advisors, as co-evaluators, or leading sub-projects within the evaluations. We knew we wanted to try it.

We started by utilizing an advisory approach, having in-depth conversations and feedback from our Youth Evaluators about evaluation methods and their relevance to youth today, program outcomes, and data findings exploration. We are also utilizing a hands-on project approach where youth co-develop instruments to evaluate a youth leadership event, implement those instruments to collect data, analyze data findings, and share back recommendations to program leaders.

Hot Tips

When designing what the Youth Evaluator role might look like, we took the following considerations:

• Transportation & Community Assets: To minimize the demand for transportation as much as possible, we chose meeting locations at YMCA branches closest to youth. We recognize transportation as the greatest barrier to participation for people in our region, especially young people.
• In-Person Collaboration: Work was conducted in six, two-hour sessions, with collaboration between youth and adult evaluators. We were open to meeting virtually if necessary, but prioritized in-person experiences. Access to technology and internet may be a barrier for low-income or under-resourced youth. Meeting in-person made it easier to use technology and perform demonstrations side-by-side, build rapport, and connect as a team.
• Compensation: With any demand of youth time and contribution, we respect that they are valuable, and choosing to show up is no small feat. Competitive compensation matched other local wages for jobs youth were likely to be working.
• Reciprocity: Our goal was to expose youth to ideas, networks, skills, and institutions they may not otherwise have access to, and to connect them with university opportunities, including a college tour.

Lessons Learned

• Team Building: Start meetings with youth with an icebreaker. Short cooperative games build community and rapport. This is especially helpful when the time meeting with youth is limited.
• Near-Peers: Near-peers (young adults closer to youth in age) are a great asset when working with youth. Having a range of intergenerational contributors bridges the gap between adult evaluators and youth.
• Adjust to Youth Needs & Capabilities: Make the work engaging and accessible – embrace a variety of modalities, movement, visuals, and activities. Be mindful of attention span and energy levels, and if there is a certain point you start to lose their engagement.
• Value Contributions: Show youth how their contributions are used and give them opportunities to present their work.

We seek to continue to grow and innovate our methods of engaging youth in evaluation, finding new ways to partner with youth with positive youth development and reciprocity at its center.

Rad Resources

Learn about WestEd’s work with youth co-evaluators

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

My name is Dr. Nicole Tirado-Strayer and I work for a nonpartisan research organization called WestEd. The youth-centered evaluations I lead involve partnering with young people to make sense of data about their own schools and communities. I evaluate school mental health initiatives, and students’ voices are essential to ensuring that schools provide the mental and behavioral health supports that all students need. Instead of asking students to simply respond to data, we invite them to interrogate it, contextualize it, and present conclusions directly to decision-makers. In this post, I will describe our tips for engaging youth, based on ourYouth Engagement Cohort, that move youth from data reviewers to system influencers.

Hot Tips

Turn Data into a Data Walk

Through facilitate and structured Data Walks, youth rotate through data stations featuring data on things like school demographics, suspension patterns, chronic absenteeism, service availability, and school climate. Rather than asking, “What does this number mean?” we ask:

• What might be the story behind this data?
• How accurately does this represent students’ experiences?
• What questions does this raise?

This simple shift—from passive consumption to critical inquiry—changes the way youth engage with the data. Youth immediately notice patterns adults often miss, and question assumptions embedded in the data itself.

Why it’s useful: It builds evaluation literacy while centering equity and lived experience.

Map Assets, Not Just Gaps

By creating behavioral health asset maps, youth identify school, community, and online supports, then use red/yellow/green dots to indicate how easy each resource is to find, get, and use. This “Find It, Get It, Use It” framework is important! A support may technically exist—but if students don’t know about it or can’t access it, does it function as a support?

Why it’s useful: Asset mapping surfaces accessibility barriers without framing youth solely as recipients of services. It shifts the conversation from “What’s wrong?” to “What’s working—and for whom?”

Youth-Led Sensemaking & Voicing Recommendations

Involved youth in making sense of the data and providing recommendations. For example, host a participatory process where youth review findings, reflect on themes, draw connections, and decide which data points matter most and how to communicate them clearly. We do this through our Youth Voice Panel, which also presents findings directly to school, community, and district leaders in a moderated conversation. Adults then engage in collective action planning based on youth insights.

Why it’s useful: The evaluation loop closes publicly. Youth see their analysis shape next steps.

Lessons Learned: Structure Creates Safety for Voice

Youth-led evaluation does not mean unstructured evaluation. The clarity of agendas, norms, and step-by-step facilitation creates the psychological safety necessary for authentic participation. When youth know what to expect—and when adults truly listen—their contributions become strategic, not symbolic.

When we design processes that build capacity, share power, and connect insight to action, youth don’t just participate in evaluation—they transform it.

The five-session Youth Engagement Cohort series described in this blog was collaboratively designed and developed by Jenny Betz, Alexis Grant, and Cynthia Huynh.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

I’m Elizabeth Cook of Child Trends, writing with Hope Gabikiny and David Floria, who are youth advisors; Morrigan Hunter; and Katherine McLaughlin of Elevatus Training. Last summer, Katherine, Morrigan, and I hosted a six-week sexual health class for 12 young adults with intellectual disabilities. After each class, we held conversations with participants to learn what was working and what needed improvement before a formal evaluation of the program occurs. Hope and David participated in the class and helped us reflect on the experience. We invited them to share what made it easier (or harder) to share their perspectives.

From here, Hope and David describe what helped them participate in meaningful ways.

Hot Tips: Design participation around respect

For us, participation started before the class sessions even began. Getting materials ahead of time helped us prepare, understand unfamiliar words, and ask questions before meeting as a group. This was especially important when language was not written in plain language. Having definitions included in materials helped, and adding a glossary or index would make participation even easier.

Accessibility also meant sharing materials in different formats. Because I (Hope) have low vision, getting materials electronically helped me follow along and understand what others were talking about.

During sessions, slowing down conversations made a big difference. In many group settings, discussions move quickly, and it can be hard to know when to speak. Using guiding questions, allowing extra time to respond, and sometimes calling on people by name helped us know when it was okay to contribute.

It also helped to have different ways to communicate. Being able to type responses in the Zoom chat instead of speaking out loud made participation possible on days when talking felt difficult or overwhelming. When conversations became overstimulating, having the option to message the facilitators privately or talk with them after class helped us stay engaged.

Another important part of respectful design was allowing participants to have a support person present if they wanted one. A support person could be a family member, staff member, or trusted helper who attended the session on or off camera to help explain confusing information, check understanding, or talk things through afterward. Having someone with me (David) allowed real-time help understanding instructions or words that were unclear.

Respect also showed up in smaller but meaningful ways. Being paid for our time showed that our perspectives mattered. Reminders before sessions helped us remember to attend and feel ready. Meeting one-on-one before the class to explain the project and expectations helped us decide whether we felt comfortable joining.

Lessons Learned: Respect improves feedback and learning

One of the most important parts of the experience was being asked directly whether we felt respected. That does not happen often in disability services or educational settings. Being reminded that our feedback mattered and that staff would not be offended made it easier to speak honestly.

Trust also grew from transparency. Knowing that some project staff had disabilities themselves helped us connect with them and feel more comfortable sharing our perspectives.

Instead of using surveys, we talked together after each session about what worked and what did not. Those conversations made it easier to ask follow-up questions, explain our thinking, and talk about what mattered most to us.

This experience showed us that respect is not just a value, it is something you build into how evaluation is done. When people feel respected, supported, and understood, they can share feedback that makes programs stronger.

Rad Resources

• Research Ethics for All (RE4ALL)
• Accessible Trauma-Informed Research: A How-To Guide for Qualitative Research with Survivors with IDD

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

Hi! I’m Santee Ezell, a Mississippi-based evaluator working with Student & Academic Affairs Departments that rely heavily on peer educators. From the beginning of my career, first as a program developer and then as program evaluator, I have focused on topics such as the eight dimensions of wellness, sleep, sexual assault prevention, substance misuse and abuse, and mental health just to name a few.

Over time, I noticed a disconnect: peer educators were trusted to deliver programming but rarely invited to shape how that programming was evaluated. I began experimenting with what happens when peer educators move beyond providing feedback and instead serve as co-evaluators by helping define questions, select methods, and interpret findings. The shift improved relevance, trust, and use of results.

Hot Tips

Involve peer educators early

Peer educators already understand student language, norms, and informal campus dynamics. Rather than presenting them with finalized evaluation plans, I now start by asking: What should we be paying attention to? What outcomes do students care about?

This approach draws from empowerment evaluation, which emphasizes shared learning and decision-making. When peer educators help shape questions, evaluations better reflect the campus realities.

Use peer-friendly methods

Peer educators have helped design methods that feel authentic and accessible to college students, including:

• brief reflection prompts used after peer-led workshops
• photo storytelling about campus spaces tied to well-being
• simple journey maps showing how students seek support

These approaches complement surveys and often surface context that numbers alone miss. They also reduce evaluation fatigue by integrating data collection into existing peer education activities.

Balance trust with structure

Peer educators are not just DATA COLLECTORS, they are COLLABORATORS. At the same time, as the lead evaluator, I remain responsible for ethical practice, confidentiality, and participant safety. Clear training, role definitions, and boundaries are essential, especially when evaluations touch on sensitive topics like mental health or substance use.

The American Evaluation Association’s Guiding Principles offer a helpful anchor for maintaining integrity while sharing power.

Start with one role shift

If you work with peer educators, try one small step: invite them to co-interpret findings from a recent evaluation. Ask what resonates, what feels incomplete, and what should change. In my experience, when peer educators become co-evaluators, evaluation shifts from a reporting task to a shared learning process and campus change follows more naturally.

Rad Resources

• Utilization-Focused Evaluation book by Michael Quinn Patton and Charmagne E. Campbell-Patton
• Facilitating youth participatory action research (YPAR): A scoping review of relational practice in U.S. Youth development & out-of-school time projects

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

Hi! We’re Tiffany Wilson, Independent Evaluation Consultant, and Gabriela Magana, Senior Research and Learning Manager at Public Health Advocates. Together, we supported the Neighborhood Change Champions (NCC) program that dared to put data and research tools directly into young people’s hands. NCC was designed to build youth capacity to engage in policy advocacy through leadership, learning, and civic engagement. Through this journey, we discovered the importance of evaluation as a capacity-building tool.  

Building data and research literacy was the cornerstone of the NCC program. Youth participated in monthly training for two years, designed to develop their ability to find secondary data, collect primary data, understand, and use data as a tool for change. Rather than treating data as something done to them or for them, these training sessions intentionally equipped young people with the skills to design data-collection tools, gather data, and interpret it to identify issues affecting their communities. For example, the youth reviewed secondary data to identify which issues might be most pressing for students in their community, then designed and administered a survey to understand what their peers felt were the biggest challenges and greatest opportunities to support struggling students. Youth used the survey results, coupled with a legal epidemiology process, to select a policy focused on strengthening youth mental health. 

As youth engaged in the policy selection process, they expressed continued interest in data activities, and program staff listened. Staff and the evaluator shifted the evaluation plan and recruited and trained a group of youth to design and facilitate end-of-year evaluation focus groups. Over time, this consistent investment in data capacity transformed how youth engaged with advocacy, moving from instinct-driven conversations to evidence-backed decisions that carried real weight in policy spaces.

All the youth reported confidence in using data to advocate for change because of their participation in NCC. Many shared that conducting research was one of their favorite parts of the program. They learned about issues in their communities through secondary research and managed primary data collection themselves. One youth reflected, “I really liked making surveys and seeing the data at the end.” A second youth mentioned, “I can proudly say I was part of [NCC] and mention the data we collected. I can tell people how important it is to train teachers on mental health since they do not know what is going through students’ minds.”

Hot Tips

Don’t underestimate young people’s capacity for complex research. When they show curiosity or want to go deeper, follow their lead. Ground research in issues youth care about and use engaging and collaborative exercises like “the river parable“, brainstorms or “roots and leaves” mapping. When research connects to their lives, engagement follows.

Youth-led evaluation requires flexibility. Building real data literacy means being willing to adjust your timelines and let young people move through an iterative, messy, applied learning process. It’s not enough to teach concepts in a workshop and call it done. Youth need space to play around with research tools, to practice in low-stakes environments, and yes, to make mistakes and try again.

Youth need consistent support as they practice new skills, plus space to celebrate without always focusing on outcomes. Sometimes the best learning happens when youth can just be together.

When you meet young people where they are and give them room to move from “I think I get it” to “I can actually do this,” that’s when the magic happens. Repeated exposure over time, not one-and-done training, is what turns a data activity into a skill that youth own and carry into their advocacy work and beyond.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting YFE TIG Week with our colleagues in the Youth Focused Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

For many professionals in health evaluation and related fields, political advocacy and health evaluation can at first glance appear to be two separate worlds. However, these two worlds are deeply connected. Evaluation provides evidence about what is working, for whom, and under what circumstances. Political advocacy seeks to influence policies and funding decisions that ultimately shape health outcomes via the programs and research that are funded. Health evaluation findings can play a crucial role in advocacy by grounding arguments in data rather than anecdotes alone by offering credible answers to questions about whether a program should be funded, expanded, redesigned, or terminated.

One example of how health evaluation was used to influence policy change is through the creation of the Momnibus Act. The US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates compared to other nations, with Black women having the highest rates. However, it is estimated that 80% of these deaths are preventable. This has led many evaluators and researchers within the health field to advocate for improved healthcare for pregnant women, which first started with documenting and assessing the number of deaths that were occurring. These efforts, among others, led to the creation of the Momnibus Act, which is a package of 13 bills to provide funds to address maternal mortality and disparities in the US.

Lessons Learned

As evaluators, we come from diverse backgrounds. Your evaluation findings do not have to be partisan to be politically relevant. Sharing evidence about disparities in outcomes, inequities in access, or unintended consequences of programs is not “taking sides”. Data that highlights who benefits and who is left out can help policy makers push for more equitable policies. Finally, engaging with advocacy through an evaluation lens can be empowering. It reinforces the idea that your work has real-world impact, and that evidence can be a catalyst for change. Rather than seeing evaluation as a back-end requirement, you can view it as a tool that supports more informed, just, and effective policies.

Political advocacy does not have to be a huge endeavor; it can be something as simple as emailing or calling your local congressional office. I am learning that engaging in advocacy can be a good way to learn how to communicate your evaluation/research findings beyond academic or technical audiences. Advocacy often requires translating complex results into clear, compelling messages that resonate with policymakers, community leaders, and the public. This might mean focusing less on statistical detail and more on implications.

With health misinformation becoming more widespread, our voices as researchers/evaluators are needed more than ever.

Rad Resources

If you want to learn about political advocacy and how to get involved, check out this advocacy toolkit by the Association of Public Health Nurses. This toolkit explains in further detail policy processes and advocacy step-by-step.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Health Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the Health Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our Health Evaluation TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

I had a moment a while back that I think many of you will recognize. A stakeholder was thrilled, telling me, “We had 10,000 patients log into our new portal last month!” I congratulated them, but then I asked, “That’s great, but what did they do? Did it change how they manage their health?” The line went quiet. We had fallen into the utilization trap.

Lesson Learned: Clicks Are Not Confidence

The utilization trap is when we mistake usage metrics for impact. It’s easy to do. Utilization data – logins, clicks, downloads, dashboard views – is readily available and looks great in a report. Stakeholders love it because it feels like tangible evidence of success. But it doesn’t tell us if the intervention actually empowered the user. It tells us they accessed the tool, not whether it built their skills, knowledge, or confidence to manage their health more effectively.

To avoid this trap, I’ve started using a simple three-level framework in my own work:

1. Access: Can users get to the information? (e.g., Did they receive a portal invitation?)
2. Engagement: Do they use the tool? (e.g., Did they log in and view their data?)
3. Empowerment: Does using the tool build their capability? (e.g., Did seeing their data increase their confidence in managing their condition?)

Most evaluations stop at level 2. The real impact – and the real story – is at level 3.

Hot Tip: Ask “What Capability Are We Building?”

Before your next digital health evaluation, I encourage you to ask your stakeholders this one simple question: “Beyond using this tool, what specific capability do we want to build in our users?”

Are you trying to improve their understanding of their condition? Boost their confidence in talking to their doctor? Help them make more informed decisions? Once you define the target capability, you can measure it directly instead of relying on utilization as a proxy.

Rad Resources

There are some great validated tools out there to measure empowerment. The Patient Activation Measure (PAM) is fantastic for assessing a person’s knowledge, skills, and confidence in managing their own health. For measuring confidence more directly, you can’t go wrong with a tailored self-efficacy scale based on Albert Bandura’s foundational work. And for shared decision-making, the CollaboRATE scale is a quick and effective tool.

By shifting our focus from utilization to empowerment, we can move beyond counting clicks and start measuring what really matters: whether our interventions are truly helping people lead healthier lives. Have you encountered the utilization trap in your own work? I’d love to hear how you’ve addressed it!

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Health Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the Health Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our Health Evaluation TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.