1040 - Let’s Slay those adolescent and youth-focused program evaluations! Crucial concepts in planning evaluations and integrating meaningful youth engagement approaches and methods

Abstract Information: We know that young people are the future citizens of their countries and the planet. Their passage from adolescence to adulthood marks a crucial moment for consolidating the attitudes, values, and behaviors that will equip them for a rapidly changing society as adults. While significant policies and programs are reaching and supporting the growth and social well-being of adolescents and youth, the evaluation of these policies and programs is surprisingly limited. Hence, opportunities are lost to provide evidence from youth, adult, and systems perspectives of what works and doesn’t work to improve the relevance and effectiveness of policies and programs for the substantial cohort of young people today. Participants in this highly interactive workshop will explore crucial concepts and principles of evaluating adolescent and youth-focused programs and strategies to meaningfully include and engage young people in evaluation and research, drawing from initiatives and innovative examples in North American and African contexts. It will focus on evaluation methods and tools that enable adolescents and young people to participate by offering alternatives that shift ways of communicating and, in many ways, enhance the quality of the information gathered while considering their levels of development and life contexts. Case studies, simulations, and role plays of data collection with participatory methods will highlight good adolescent and youth-focused evaluation practices and raise issues and methodological challenges from evaluation design through dissemination of findings. We aim to facilitate exchanges and debate between evaluators on good examples and possibly on less good ones, as well as on methods and approaches to encourage the authentic participation of adolescents and young people in evaluation. Adaptable to many contexts and disciplines, evaluators can use these tools across the spectrum of M&E activities, from needs assessment and program monitoring and evaluation to interpreting and communicating results with stakeholders.

Relevance Statement: It is an interesting paradox: While there are significant government, donor, and NGO investments in policies and programs supporting adolescents and youth to reach their full potential, the evaluation of these policies and programs is surprisingly limited. Too many opportunities are lost to provide evidence of what works and doesn't work to contribute to improving policies and programs reaching this substantial cohort of young people (The project has ended but we can still learn from it: Practical Guidance for Conducting Post-Project Evaluations of Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health Programs, WHO 2019). At the same time, youth participation in civic engagement is increasing, and meaningful engagement has become mainstream in policies, standards, and to a lesser extent, evaluation. (See, for example: Engaging and Empowering Youth Across the OECD 2018, Standing Up with Young People – Today and Tomorrow, SDG Knowledge Hub Policy Brief, 2023). A systematic focus on including and engaging young people more meaningfully in evaluation changes the dynamic of evaluation, moving it from an adult-centric to a more power-balanced endeavor where youth opinions and analyses matter as much as adults, in the absence of youth, designing and implementing policies and programs. The workshop explores some of the unique edges of adolescent and youth-focused evaluations that distinguish them from evaluations of programs serving adults, including: What are the appropriate measures and techniques to assess change for young people in different life stages and the adults and institutions that support them? How can adult evaluators, who are powerholders and have their own expectations of how young people should act, challenge themselves to adjust their 'evaluator mindset' to be more in tune with how adolescents and youth think, feel, and analyze their situations? How can evaluators meaningfully engage young people in evaluation as respondents or as fellow evaluators to draw out better young people's reflections and solutions to a given issue while maintaining rigor? How can evaluators learn to operate with ease in the youth space while keeping actions ethical when working with minors, parents and carers, and the community? To this end, the workshop will build participants' capacities in distinguishing youth-focused evaluation and thinking about when and how to use youth-friendly qualitative methods.