The benfits of participatory evaluation for children and youth

This article looks at the extent youth participation in four evaluation projects. It presents case study data from the projects, two of which were conducted in highly participatory programmes, and two that had little youth participation but had a participatory evaluation process. The first of the projects took place within The Center for Young Women's Development, a youth-run harm reduction programme that employs young homeless women. The second evaluation project focused on the Town Youth Participatory Strategy, a youth-led drop in centre serving low-income Caucasian youth in rural Ottawa. The next was a coalition of youth programmes that had come together to evaluate the juvenile justice system in San Francisco. The final case study focused on a youth drop-in centre serving street children in an urban city in Canada. The article gives details of all the projects and their effect on the young people, with quotes from the young people themselves.