Making Every Day Count - Teens

Club Participation and Teens’ Outcomes 21As noted in the introduction to thisreport, P/PV’s prior review of evaluations of discreteprograms at the Boys & Girls Clubs suggested thatClubs’ implementation of focused programminghas shown promising results in different areas, suchas career development, delinquency preventionand academic success. Most prior evaluations ofClubs were limited to understanding the outcomesof those discrete programs, however, and did nottake into account the larger ways in which the Clubexperience—the staff, the place to hang out, themultitude of opportunities—might influence a positivetrajectory for youth. Thus, at the heart of thisstudy was the effort to look at participation in theClub as a whole and learn more about how exposureto the range of Club activities, staff supportsand opportunities might promote healthy developmentat a time of transition in youth’s lives—as theymove from middle school to high school—whenmany youth, particularly minorities, disengage fromschool and positive activities. 28In this chapter, we address the question “Whatrole do the Boys & Girls Clubs play in influencingchange in teens’ outcomes?” For each of the threeoutcome areas that the Boys & Girls Clubs hasestablished as central to its mission—good characterand citizenship, academic success and healthylifestyles—we use quantitative data from baselineand follow-up surveys and Club attendance recordsto examine the relationship between youth’s frequencyof attendance in the Club and changesin their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors over thecourse of the 30-month evaluation period. To illuminateways in which the Clubs’ overall approachmay influence these outcomes, the chapter also usesqualitative data from interviews with teens and staffto explore the strategies—some of them formal;some, informal—that Clubs use to support andengage youth and to promote positive changes ineach of the three areas.More specifically, this chapter highlights our findingsin relation to three central questions:• In each of the three broad outcome areas, doteens who attend more frequently experiencemore positive changes than those who attend lessfrequently? 29• What practices do staff report and youth perceiveas supporting positive outcomes in each of thethree areas?• Can we suggest a target minimum level of attendance,based on the data that we have?The study cannot determine with certainty thatthe associations we found are causal. There maybe other factors that we have not been able to takeinto account that lead youth to both participatemany days and do well on the outcomes. However,the additional findings presented throughout thereport—that the Clubs are keeping teens involvedand that they are experiencing the types of meaningfulsupports and opportunities at the Clubs thatresearch has shown are important for healthy development—suggestthat Clubs had some bearing onthe teens’ positive trajectory. (Please see AppendixE for more details on the analyses described in thischapter.)Good Character and CitizenshipOutcomesTo assess the degree to which youth participationmay be related to more positive outcomes in eachof the three broad areas, we explored whetheryouth who participated more also showed betteroutcomes over time.In the area of good character and citizenship, weexamined eight outcomes and found significantrelationships between participation and changein four of them. Youth who came to the Club withgreater frequency reported:• Higher levels of community service involvement,• Increased levels of integrity (knowing right fromwrong),• Decreased levels of shyness, and• Decreased levels of aggression.