Tribal Youth Evaluation Facilitation project

Funding Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Tribal Youth Project (TYP)

Project Period: May 1, 2000 - February 28, 2005

Project Coordinator: Lynn Breer, PhD

The Tribal Youth Evaluation Facilitation Project (TYEFP) worked in partnership with the Native American Institute at Michigan State University to provide evaluation training and technical assistance to five Native American/Alaska Native tribes receiving funding through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Tribal Youth Project (TYP). The TYEFP used a participatory, empowerment model to build capacity among community teams in the areas of evaluation and community organizing. This model involved contracting with the five participating tribes to hire an on-site coordinator for the evaluation, hosting annual national evaluation training workshops, and conducting annual technical assistance site visits.

The project staff provided assistance to each community, helping them to refine their project goals and objectives, determining the evaluation questions they wanted to answer, helping them to identify data sources, assisting in data collection and analysis, and reviewing their final evaluation reports. The TYEFP also involved the Juvenile Justice Systems Analysis, a report designed to provide the participating tribes and OJJDP of the needs of tribal systems as well as best practices incorporated into tribal juvenile justice systems. Overall, the project staff actively sought the involvement of tribal members in directing the project and creating an experience that was valuable to those involved.

TYEFP Comparison Study:
To determine the effect of the TYEFP on the participating tribes, MPHI conducted a comparison study with five TYP grantees not involved in TYEFP activities. These five tribes, selected in consultation with OJJDP, were similar to the TYEFP participating tribes in several key aspects. While there are limitations, the similarities of the five comparison tribes and the five TYEFP participating tribes allows for some conclusions regarding the benefits of the TYEFP.

To gather the data necessary for the study, MPHI conducted on-site interviews with TYP personnel and other key community stakeholders from all ten tribes. MPHI developed a semi-structured interview guide,1 which was shared prior to each visit to allow interviewees time to prepare. Data from each tribe were analyzed by MPHI and used to generate site-specific reports,2 the basis for overall findings of the study presented in this report. Each tribe participating in the study was given the opportunity to review both their site-specific report and the overall report to guarantee the accuracy of the data and findings.

Project Type: Evaluation, Technical Assistance, Training, Program Management