Measuring Youth Development: How Out-of-School Time Programs Collect and Use Data

Assessing an organization’s efforts can be a first step to improving them. At youth programs, good data can mean better decisions on staff training, student activities, and other key matters. This report from the Wallace Foundation looks at how afterschool, summer, and other out-of-school-time (OST) programs gauge their work and impact. It also examines the obstacles they face in doing so. In addition to surveying these common challenges, the report offers recommendations for how to remove those obstacles. It is based in large part on interviews and surveys of staff from OST programs that experts in the OST field recommended for study.