![]() ![]() ![]() BAM has undergone several well-designed RCTs, and the overall positive results show increases in high school graduation rates and decreases in arrests. The BAM program complemented impact studies with qualitative methods to more deeply understand the program’s core components and mechanisms. This case study shows that understanding and improving a program is an ongoing process-one that does not end with one or even multiple RCTs. From 2009 to 2015, BAM was evaluated through several randomized controlled trials (RCT), with each RCT extending the program’s reach to serve more and more youth across more schools, and a qualitative study to assess its impacts. To date, BAM has been implemented in schools in both Chicago and Boston. Program participants attend weekly group sessions for at least a year, receiving individual counseling, and they are exposed to a 30-lesson curriculum with diverse activities. The program supports the young men’s abilities to navigate a healthy transition to manhood by providing cognitive behavioral therapy, a peer group led by a facilitator they can relate with, and development of social emotional skills and important values. This case study draws on the experiences of one organization, Youth Guidance, and one of its programs, Becoming A Man (BAM™), to illustrate how the organization’s leadership and staff use diverse evaluation findings to generate important questions in a continuous process of strengthening its evidence base.īAM is a program for young men in high school, particularly young men of color living in disadvantaged communities. To address the challenges and opportunities in the youth development field (and in many other fields), a growing number of nonprofit leaders, funders, and researchers have embraced the use of research to demonstrate, understand, and improve the impacts of social programs. Moreover, experimental evaluations of such programs often show limited impact and replicability. Effective and engaging social programs for disadvantaged young people are challenging to develop, operate, and sustain. With the MBK Action Plan as a blueprint, Youth Guidance and Thrive Chicago will continue to work towards realizing the multifaceted goals of the MBK Impact Award-simultaneously seeking individual-level impacts at scale through Becoming a Man expansion and driving systems-level change through coordination and alignment of institutions in the postsecondary space.Young people need developmental opportunities to help them thrive, both now and into adulthood. During the COVID pandemic, BAM provided increased one-on-one virtual connections along with virtual circles, and responded to the disproportionate impacts of COVID as many young people and their families faced financial and health challenges.Īt the same time, Youth Guidance, in partnership with Thrive Chicago, has been working to create an infrastructure that will guide young people to success after high school. These schools have each been provided a full-time Becoming a Man Counselor who is delivering the program’s empirically proven curriculum to a total of 204 young men between seventh and twelfth grades. ![]() The nationally recognized Becoming a Man program in Chicago has expanded to serve four schools on Chicago’s South Side. Youth Guidance, in partnership with Thrive Chicago, is advancing two trajectories benefiting boys and young men of color in Chicago. Together, their reach is formidable-Youth Guidance impacts more than 8,000 youth each year through programs that meet students where they are physically, socially, and emotionally, helping them break cycles of violence, overcome life and academic obstacles, make positive choices, and remain on track for future success, and Thrive Chicago has brought together 600 individuals representing nearly 200 child and youth serving organizations to accomplish the shared objective of supporting Chicago youth from “cradle-to-career.” This is a joint partnership between Youth Guidance, which creates and implements school-based programs that enable at-risk children to overcome obstacles, focus on their education, and ultimately succeed in school and in life, and Thrive Chicago, a collective impact initiative which engages a diverse group of leaders from the nonprofit, business, government, education and philanthropy sectors working toward one common agenda: to prepare all Chicago youth for a vibrant future. ![]()
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