Evaluation of the Administration for Children’s Services’ Family Enrichment Center Initiative
YSI is in the process of evaluating implementing a rigorous evaluation of the Family Enrichment Centers, a primary prevention initiative led by the NYC Administration for Children’s Services. ACS has partnered with community-based services providers to create centers that offer community-driven, comprehensive services to support families living in communities that experience high rates of reported child abuse and neglect. YSI evaluation is examining the characteristics and needs of families who are currently utilizing the FECs and assessing the impact the FECs are having an impact on strengthening families’ protective factors to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Evaluations of
21st Century Community
Learning Centers
YSI is currently implementing multiyear evaluations of seven 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school projects, which aim to provide needed youth development and academic enrichment services to students attending New York City public schools. Collectively, these programs are serving approximately 5,000 students attending 28 separate New York City elementary and middle schools. These comprehensive evaluations assess the impact afterschool programs have in supporting participants' academic, social, and personal development.
Evaluation of New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Race to Justice Initiative
YSI has partnered with the New York City’s Health Department to evaluate Race to Justice, an effort to advance racial equity and social justice in all facets of the agency’s operations. YSI developed an in-depth plan to assess the implementation of an introductory training workshop that all 6,000 agency employees will eventually participate in. YSI also conducted focus groups and qualitative analysis of interviews with key staff who have taken on a leadership role in implementing Race to Justice policies and practices throughout the agency.
Performance Management Capacity Building Support to Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT)
YSI has provided technical assistance and performance management support to Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT), a New York City-based nonprofit organization that educates, trains, and supports disadvantaged youth and adults to help them acquire the personal and professional skills they need to achieve successful employment. YSI has collaborated with OBT staff to recommend needed modifications to OBT’s data system; identify critical data points to help tell the OBT story; and develop a more user-friendly “at a glance” report. Through this capacity building engagement, YSI provided OBT valuable feedback on the agency’s methods of collecting and organizing data, as well as its process for reporting on program outcomes.
Evaluation of Harlem School Partnership for STEM Education
YSI completed an evaluation study of The Harlem Schools Partnership for Science and Math Education, a five-year initiative carried out by Teachers College to improve the teaching and learning in the STEM disciplines in eight Harlem schools. Through interviews with key stakeholders, including faculty, graduate students, public school administrators and teachers, and analysis of assessment data collected in connection with the New York State Testing Program, YSI documented the program components and the impact those supports had on teaching and learning in participating schools.
Evaluation Training Grantees of the New York Foundation
YSI developed and implemented two one-day workshops on for direct service and advocacy grantees of the New York Foundation. These workshops provided an overview of evaluation and performance measurement strategies to help grantees effectively measure the quality and impact of their work. Participants learned about the benefits of various approaches to program evaluation in order to help their organizations identify assessment priorities. Topics covered included developing an evaluation plan; how to effectively collaborate with key stakeholders in the evaluation process; and methods for collecting, analyzing, and reporting on implementation and outcome data.
Evaluation of the American Museum of Natural History’s Common Core Literacy and Science Standards Professional Development Initiative
YSI recently completed a two-year evaluation of an AMNH professional development initiative supporting middle and high school science teachers working in New York City public schools. Over the past three years, the Museum has designed a variety of professional development resources and workshops intended to help teachers make more effective use of the Museum’s permanent exhibits. YSI’s evaluation studied the extent to which these resources are helpful in preparing teachers to lead effective field trips to the Museum. YSI’s evaluation assessed teachers’ satisfaction with these professional development resources, as well as what specific knowledge and strategies teachers learned by utilizing these resources.
Developing an Evaluation Strategy for Urban Teacher Residency Programs
YSI is partnering with the consulting firm 2Revolutions to help Urban Teacher Residency United (UTRU) develop a national evaluation strategy. UTRU is a network of teacher residency programs that pair master’s-level education coursework with a rigorous full-year classroom apprenticeship under the guidance of an experienced mentor teacher. YSI and 2Revolutions have collaborated with UTRU member organizations to develop a set of common success metrics to capture historic work, in order to better understand both program impact and lessons learned from program development.
Evaluation of
Brooklyn College’s
GEAR UP Program
Brooklyn College, a senior college of the City University of New York, operates a GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) program serving approximately 500 students attending two Brooklyn high schools. The program provides tutoring, mentoring, and college planning services to a single grade cohort (students entering the 10th grade in September). YSI has served as the lead evaluator of the program for the past three years, collecting relevant data to gauge Brooklyn College’s progress towards meeting its goals and objectives.
Evaluation of Build, Research, Invent, Design, Grow and Explore through Science (BRIDGES)
YSI is conducting a five-year evaluation of BRIDGES, a National Science Foundation-funded collaboration between The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the Salvadori Center, a not-for-profit educational organization that uses architecture and engineering to help students in schools and out-of-school time programs to master mathematics, science, arts, and the humanities. BRIDGES is an afterschool program currently operating in ten NYCHA community centers that aims to use investigations of the built environment to introduce and reinforce STEM concepts and skills. Most of the participants in BRIDGES are themselves residents of the public housing developments where these community centers are located.
Evaluation of a Site-Based Youth Mentoring Program (RAMP Up)
YSI is conducting a two-year evaluation of RAMP Up, a one-on-one site-based youth mentoring program created and managed by The After-School Corporation.