Making Every Day Count - Teens

Conclusions and Implications 39Final ThoughtsP/PV’s review of 20 years of research on Clubs, summarizedin Beyond Safe Havens, found positive outcomesrelated to career development, delinquencyprevention and academic achievement that resultedfrom the implementation of discrete programs atthe Clubs. At the same time, the review suggestedthat the potential for Clubs to make a differencein youth’s lives had not been fully tested by thoseevaluations of Clubs’ myriad discrete programs.Targeted programs have their own mechanisms forimproving youth outcomes; however, the Clubs’overall approach to working with young peopleand connecting them to the Clubs and staff wererevealed as also critically important. Thus, theresults found by studies of discrete programs withnarrowly defined outcomes were not deemed indicativeof the larger potential for Clubs to play a rolein youth’s lives. In essence, the discrete programsare not happening in a vacuum; they are part of thelarger fabric of the whole Club experience, and thefindings from those discrete program evaluationsdid not necessarily tell the whole Club story.The data gathered for this evaluation have added towhat was learned from these past studies. The findingshelp explain the ways in which the Club “as awhole”—including its overall environment and thesupportive adult staff—promotes engagement andpositive outcomes for teens, and does so across a setof outcomes that are broader than the specific targetsof those many discrete programs. Beyond thesediscrete program offerings—designed to promotegood character and citizenship, academic successand healthy lifestyles—the Club’s larger approachto serving teens is crucial in helping youth makepositive choices in all three of these areas.