Clients of all sizes benefit from YLI's expertise in designing program and community assessments that provide solid guidance on how to support young people. The following are some of our projects:

California Friday Night Live

The California Friday Night Live Partnership (CFNLP) is a statewide youth development network serving almost a half-million young people through local, youth-led member groups. YLI worked with CFNLP to create a program evaluation system that measures how well Friday Night Live programs are providing young people with five youth development outcomes, or "standards of practice": safe environments, community engagement, leadership and advocacy, skills-building, and relationship-building.

The centerpiece of this evaluation system is a comprehensive youth development survey, designed by YLI, that includes 55 questions through which youth offer their perspectives on program performance. YLI also has developed a set of research tools related to youth attitudes and perceptions about violence, learning, and alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs for Friday Night Live programs interested in collecting data on these topics.

Butte County Community Assessment

In 2003, YLI joined with the Butte County Department of Behavioral Health, Community Services Division, to engage young people in research on local alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence issues. Working in partnership with their adult allies, young people in Butte County surveyed more than 1,000 students from seven high schools in the county, gaining valuable insights into how young people in the county view substance use and violence, as well as on the related messages they receive from media, peers and other sources. Youth who conducted the survey used its findings to develop a set of recommendations on how their community could reduce substance use and violence, and presented these recommendations at a countywide Youth Summit. Take a look at the results of the youth-led community assessment 

Marin Youth Development Network

A project of YLI and the Marin Community Foundation, the Marin Youth Development Network (MYDN) brings youth-serving agencies together to support positive change in their communities. To guide creation of the network, YLI conducted a community assessment to address various key questions: What kinds of supports and opportunities are available for young people in the county? Who is being served? How often do youth participate in program activities? How familiar are program staff across the county with youth development practices? How effectively do they feel youth development theory is applied in their programs?

The community assessment included three parts, in order to collect information from a variety of stakeholders: 1) a questionnaire for youth-serving program staff, 2) interviews with directors of youth-serving organizations and funders, and 3) focus groups with young people and youth-program staff.

The community assessment report includes key findings and recommendations for how the network can build countywide capacity of programs to promote youth development.

Along with conducting the initial community assessment for MYDN, YLI provided staff at organizations in the MYDN with training on youth development frameworks and strategies for assessing whether young people in their programs were experiencing the core youth development supports and opportunities. Network participants can use YLI's youth development survey to evaluate and improve their programs.