Community Programs

Evaluation Approach

MHYC staff want to learn how their programs benefit Corpsmembers and ways they might improve programming. Although MHYC staff have numerous assumptions and goals about how their program impacts corpsmembers, they want to learn first-hand the benefits of the program through the perspective of corpsmembers. To that end, we are conducting a Goal Free Evaluation using the Most Significant Change (MSC) evaluation approach. MSC is an approach that involves gathering corpsmembers’ personal accounts of how the program benefitted or impacted them. This method works well for goal free evaluation since pre-defined goals or outcomes are not initially identified.  

Data collection began by facilitating Focus Groups with corpsmembers to hear their stories and learn about program impacts. After the focus groups, evaluators will facilitate shared data interpretation sessions with MHYC staff and corpsmembers to co-create program outcomes. Finally, evaluators will create a survey based on the outcomes of the Goal Free Evaluation that MHYC will use to continue monitoring their program.