Panyappi Indigenous Youth Mentoring Program Evaluation

Weaving the Threads Together
Achieving desired program outcomes
Panyappi Indigenous Youth Mentoring Program Evaluation
The Panyappi outcomes hierarchy in Appendix 1 identifies the thirteen desired outcomes
of the program. The overall goal of a long-term reduction in offending by the client
group cannot be determined at this point for the following reasons:
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Panyappi was not funded at a level that made it accessible to all young people who
met the target group criteria, as it had a limited number of staff each doing timeintensive
work with a small caseload of young people.
It was also not funded to reach a slightly younger age group where it is possible to
engage in earlier and potentially more effectively preventive efforts that would
intervene in pathways that lead to offending behaviour in young people.
As a pilot program it was also not funded for a sufficient period of time to ensure
that shorter-term success could be sustained through the provision of ongoing,
although gradually reducing, support while further referrals were accepted, ie
“mentoring beyond the trouble zone.” Therefore, it would be difficult to interpret
any changes in the level of offending behaviour evident in available state or regional
statistics as being attributable to the program.
Recommendation 1
Recommendation 2
A longer period of time needs to elapse before this goal can be judged, i.e. three to
five years after the program is functioning at an optimal level, particularly as it is
based on a developmental crime-prevention perspective. 67
An appropriate evaluation framework needs to be agreed and funded in order to
track changes in offending behaviour by the client group that accounts for other
contributing factors that may work for or against that goal – this includes a
consistent and agreed method of defining offending behaviour and a reliable system
of recording it based on this definition that has the cooperation and support of
relevant government departments or agencies. To date, formal and external
evaluation of mentoring programs has been infrequent, limiting what can be learnt. 68
Recommendation 6
Outcomes 1 through 9 are about formative or process issues and have been explored
through the process evaluation work. Outcomes 10 through 13 relate to the impact
evaluation work outcome areas. Achievement of these desired outcomes are described
below based on the evaluation stories.
67 Homel, R. (2000). Blazing the developmental trail: The past, the future and the critics. Youth Studies
Australia, 19(1), 44-50.
68 Wilczynski, Culvenor, et al. (2003), op cit, p. 82 & 86.
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