Strategies for Recruiting Youth for After-School Programs

First and foremost, make it easy for youth to sign up! While the MWB program took place after school or during the summer, we often recruited during school days. Opportunities to engage students in the enrollment process were limited during the packed school day, so our team had to be flexible. We worked with established points of contact at school sites to determine the best times and methods to reach youth—generally during lunch periods or pre-existing school events or workshops.

Posting flyers in schools, if permissible, is another way to easily reach youth about a program and get them to sign up. At many of the school sites, MWB staff hung flyers with information about the program, contact information for the implementation team, and a QR code to allow students to easily reach the team.

Adolescents have lots of options for spending their time out of school; Incentives can make program participation seem like a more worthwhile investment of time and energy. To ensure that our incentives aligned with participants’ needs, we gathered feedback directly from young people (via focus groups and during program sessions) and other researchers and practitioners about their preferences and then applied this feedback to decisions about incentive types and amounts. The evaluation team provided participants with virtual gift cards for completing program surveys and focus groups, while the implementation team offered participants food at every session—in addition to gift cards and community service hours (depending on the site) for attendance. We believe our heavy advertisement of these incentives during recruitment helped us reach students who otherwise would not have signed up.

We adjusted our incentives throughout implementation to align with participant and school needs and values; While this was not our original plan, we soon realized we needed to be flexible and responsive to our study population. For example, a few months into programming, we learned that participants value community service hours for participation—often a requirement for graduation. In response, our team began offering community service hours as an additional incentive for participating, making the program appealing for a broader range of youth. By working with students and school partners to determine the most attractive and beneficial incentives, we were able to boost and maintain recruitment across sites.

Some youth who graduated from the program expressed a desire to stay involved in the work. Since multiple enrollments in the study are not permitted, the implementation team looked for another way to support youth’s continued interest. Our youth ambassador program allowed program graduates to promote the program to their peers. Because adolescents are often most influenced by peers, youth-led recruitment was a fruitful strategy. The youth ambassador program was also mutually beneficial in creating leadership and community engagement opportunities for youth.

In our experience, recruitment and overall program success rely on establishing and maintaining strong working relationships with school staff, who can spread the word about the program. School staff have established relationships with students—and more opportunities throughout the school day to talk to them about the program—making staff a trusted source and disseminator of information.

When building connections with new sites, our team prioritized in-person meetings to educate school staff about MWB and increase their buy-in and ability to support recruitment. During these meetings, we provided materials for staff to review and left time to answer their questions. We also designated a primary school contact to liaise between staff, students, and the implementation team to ensure efficient communication and logistics.

The implementation team attended back-to-school events at participating school sites to connect parents and families with information about the study and the MWB program to share with students. Because MWB is a sexual health program that covers sensitive topics, connecting with parents allowed implementers to clarify the program’s goals and content and address any concerns. Students may be more likely to attend after-school programs when their parents are supportive. However, we kept specific student enrollment and participation confidential; While we advertised the program to parents, we did not communicate with them about specific children’s involvement.

Footnote

[1] Across six sites, the team delivered MWB as the treatment group program and a career readiness curriculum as the control group program to more than 500 youth.

This publication was made possible by Grant Number 90AP2693-04-00 from the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. Its contents are solely the responsibility of Child Trends and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.