|
Staff
Assessment Exercises
Exercise
Two: Organizational Assessment Questionnaire
This questionnaire,
developed by the Administration for Children and Families within the Department
of Health and Human Services, can help you assess your organization’s
readiness to implement a youth development approach. Don’t be alarmed
if your organization currently has few of these types of activities in
place. Think of this as a place to start generating ideas and thinking
about how everything you do could take on a different tone and lead to
different outcomes.
The questions
are grouped into four sections:
- Organizational
Development
- Programs
and Services
- Outreach
and Education, and
- Collaboration.
| A.
Organizational Development |
- What is the organizational vision or mission regarding implementing
a youth development approach? Who was involved in creating that vision
or mission? (Specifically, were any young people involved?)
- What has the organization done so far to ensure that all programs
are based on a youth development (rather than problem-centered approach)?
- What will be necessary to help staff and board members shift their
thinking about youth from a "deficit-based" to an "attribute-based"
approach?
- What is the staff and board members’ understanding of the life
development process, and what has the organization done to help them
understand their own on-going development?
- How has the organization trained staff and board members about the
adolescent development process?
- What has the organization done with regard to examining conditions
that exist within the community, how young people experience those conditions,
and how negative conditions might be improved?
- What has
the organization done to remove the barriers to healthy youth development
that exist within the neighborhood, community, and nation?
- Does the
organization offer young people programs that do the following:
- Provide
a full range of services and opportunities?
- Enable
young people to develop new skills?
- Teach
personal life skills, such as solving problems, making decisions, setting
and achieving goals, and creating and maintaining harmonious interpersonal
relationships?
- Connect
young people to caring adults (other than staff) and then support those
connections?
- Support
young people’s educational experiences?
- Provide
academic and employment preparation and internships?
- Enable
young people to consider and plan for their future?
- Address
the general problems of adolescence or specific difficulties without
labeling youth as "troubled"?
- Mix young
people from various backgrounds?
- Expose
youth to new events, circumstances, opportunities, and locations?
- Teach
young people about what to expect from, or how to handle, real-life
situations such as planning for the future, getting married, having
children, maintaining employment, developing hobbies or special interests,
celebrating successes, or adjusting to loss?
- Place
young people in supported leadership positions through which they are
exposed to the challenges and satisfactions of collaborating with others
to explore options, make decisions, and achieve positive outcomes?
- Connect
youth to the community through special projects or links to on-going
community efforts or activities?
- Does the organization offer guidance to youth about how to take advantage
of services and opportunities (provided through the organization, through
other agencies, and in the larger community)?
- How does the organization address young people’s need to take
part in activities that are functional, educational, and fun?
- What characteristics demonstrate that a youth development approach
underlies program efforts?
- How are
the results of program efforts to support adolescent development measured
and shared?
| C.
Outreach and Education |
- What is the prevailing youth policy (state or local), and how has
the organization worked to inform the policy process with regard to
youth development?
- How has the organization worked with the community to create and communicate
a vision of what is necessary for the positive development of young
people?
- How has the organization addressed the culturally based negative feelings
about adolescents? How will it do so in the future?
- How has
the organization used the media to counteract the current projection
of negative images about youth that shape public opinion and therefore
public policy?
|
D. |
Collaborating with Other Youth Services Providers, Young People, and
the Community |
- How does the agency collaborate with other youth services providers
to develop strategies for moving toward a youth development approach
to helping young people within the community? The state? The region?
- How would other youth services providers characterize the agency’s
contributions to improving youth policy and practice?
- What has the organization done to truly involve youth, families, and
community members in designing and evaluating programs and developing
strategies for rebuilding communities?
- What types of situations has the organization created in which young
people are valued and included?
- How will the organization help the community to shift its thinking
about youth from a "deficit-based" to an "attribute-based" approach?
- How will the organization help the community to understand and value
adolescent development as part of a lifelong developmental process?
- What real outcomes have resulted from the organization’s collaborative
efforts in the past?
- What real
outcomes is the organization working toward through its current collaborative
efforts?
|
Source:
National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth. Family and Youth
Services Bureau; Administration on Children, Youth, and Families;
US Department of Health and Human Services.
www.ncfy.com
|
Next: Resources
>>
Home
| Index | Topic
in Brief | Evidence-Based Programs
Skills for Educators | Skills
for Youth | Current Research
Library | Statistics
| Theories & Approaches | Links
Professional Credits | Learning Activity
| Forums |
Archives
|
|
