Age range

Website: comhealth.home.igc.org

Mission/Goals: Community Health Academy (CHA) is a community-based organization that accompanies and builds the capacity and skills of residents and neighborhood groups in their efforts to achieve their vision of a healthier community. Youth Grants for Youth Action (YGYA) is both a youth-to-youth grant-making program and a leadership development program. The program promotes youth empowerment while providing resources for positive youth-determined activities. It builds the capacity of youth to make grants for youth-initiated projects and take leadership in improving the community. Youth are mentored and trained to develop projects, write and review proposals, make grants, administer their own projects and monitor funded projects.

Source(s): www.ofcy.org; comhealth.home.igc.org

Type of Evaluation: Outcomes Monitoring.

Objective: The Oakland Fund for Children and Youth (OFCY) evaluation was designed to assess service provision and the effects of services provided by organizations that received grants from OFCY. Please note that the following summary focuses on evaluation findings regarding the effects on children, rather than on service provision.

Impact/Outcomes: Youth-reported satisfaction with services increased between fall 2003 and spring 2004 (84.0% versus 87.8%), while parent satisfaction decreased (88.6% versus 85.2%). The percentage of youth, parents, and program staff reporting improvement across the seven developmental assets increased between the fall and spring (60.6% and 70.4% in the fall versus spring for youth reports, 62.2% to 71.3% for parents, and 71.3% to 76.0% for program staff). Similarly, the percentage of youth and parents reporting improvement across the eight areas of attitudes, skills, knowledge, and behaviors increased (64.4% to 73.5% for youth reports and 59.0% to 72.8% for parent reports), but the percentages remained stable for staff ratings (82.9% to 82.8%). Staff ratings of youths' expectations of themselves declined slightly (72.7% to 71.2%), while their ratings of youths' participation in home, school, and community remained unchanged (74.2%). 91% of youth improved their school attendance more than the average improvement of OUSD students, and 80% of youth improved their GPA more than the average improvement of OUSD students.