Understanding the Student and Community Impact of Arts-Based Youth Programs
www.manchesterguild.org/indexFlash.htm
Summary
UPCLOSE is working the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild on a three year project designed to assess the impact of its youth programs. The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild offers a nationally recognized afterschool arts program for youth that capitalizes on supporting the needs of urban youth within a context of strong arts-based studio experiences.
This project is not designed as a simple evaluation project, but rather we are interested in developing a collaborative relationship with Guild staff. This relationship— an ongoing iterative process of developing and refining research and evaluation objectives— promises to help the Guild to develop its in-house capacity to conduct and communicate ongoing evaluations of the impact of its youth programs. From this process UPCLOSE will be working to further refine its understanding on artistic learning in informal environments. In these evaluations we are looking at ways to capture both the disciplinary nature of learning in art, and looking at program development for youth.
Based on our preliminary conversations, this research and evaluation partnership will focus on documenting the five outcomes of each of the MCG Youth programs individually and collectively:
1. Art production skills
2. Teamwork and collaboration skills
3. Developing an identity as a competent learner
4. Career/education pipeline issues
5. Exposure and familiarity with art and artistic process
People
