Youth Empowerment Solutions: Evaluation of an After-School Program to Engage Middle School Students in Community Change

Abstract

We report on an effectiveness evaluation of the Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES) program. YES applies empowerment theory to an after-school program for middle school students. YES is an active learning curriculum designed to help youth gain confidence in themselves, think critically about their community, and work with adults to create positive community change. We employed a modified randomized control group design to test the hypothesis that the curriculum would enhance youth empowerment, increase positive developmental outcomes, and decrease problem behaviors. Our sample included 367 youth from 13 urban and suburban middle schools. Controlling for demographic characteristics and pretest outcome measures, we found that youth who received more components of the curriculum reported more psychological empowerment and prosocial outcomes and less antisocial outcomes than youth who received fewer of the intervention components. The results support both empowerment theory and program effectiveness.

Inaction Is Not an Option: Using Antiracism Approaches to Address Health Inequities and Racism and Respond to Current Challenges Affecting Youth

“…In our approaches to youth, we must be mindful of dimensions of power and the imbalance in the control of services that may lead to unintended exclusion and oppression [ [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] ]. Evidence-based health promotion programs may inadvertently cause harm by omission of antiracist practices [ 27 , 28 ].…”

Analysis of Factors That Influence The Disclosure Of Enterprise Risk Management in SMEs

“…However, empowerment can be assumed as a step to open up the possibility of change, first looking at the current order as one of the central problems, which if there is no transformation of order so that existing problems will never be fully resolved (Zhang, 2019;Zimmerman et al, 2017). Empowerment can be said with an effort to create a just and civilized atmosphere of humanity to be more structurally effective in all aspects of life, one example is about the problems faced by women so that empowerment is needed.…”

Feasibility and acceptability of a future‐oriented empowerment program to prevent substance use and school dropout among school‐disengaged youth

“…The program is grounded in the underlying belief that enhancing future orientation through empowerment may be a key intervention strategy to reducing adolescent substance use and school disengagement. YES‐PF is an adaptation of Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES) , an afterschool violence‐prevention program focused on building positive assets, participation in community service events, and connecting youth with adult role models (Zimmerman et al, ; Zimmerman, Stewart, Morrel‐Samuels, Franzen, & Reischl, 2011). YES‐PF builds on the core empowerment components of YES, but places more emphasis on future orientation and school change.…”

“…Student baseline and post‐intervention surveys were comprised of standardized measures selected for established reliability and validity with similar populations of youth (described in detail in Table ). Following our conceptual model, psychological empowerment includes three components: interpersonal (i.e., how individuals think about themselves within their social contexts and their beliefs about their competence), interactional (i.e., understanding and accessing resources needed to achieve one's goals), and behavioral (i.e., the actions individuals need to know how to use to achieve control over their outcomes) (Zimmerman et al, ). Future orientation includes aspects of motivation (i.e., one's values, expectancies about the future, and the belief that events in one's life are controllable) and behavior (i.e., the actions an individual uses to achieve control over their outcomes including goal‐setting, planning, and school engagement) (Seginer, ).…”

“…Empowerment theory focuses on processes to engage individuals in activities that help them develop confidence, skills, and behavioral strategies to achieve self‐identified goals (Zimmerman, , ). Empowerment interventions have been effective as the basis for violence and drug and alcohol use prevention interventions (Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, ; Wallerstein & Bernstein, ; Wallerstein & Martinez, ; Zimmerman et al, ). We posit that an empowering intervention that helps youth gain confidence, think critically, and take actions to effectively deal with stress, and to set and strive for self‐determined goals can foster the development of future orientation, in turn, reducing school disengagement and substance use (see Figure ).…”