Qualitative Evaluation Report Learning & Impact Project
BGC Kawarthas Evaluation Team: Maddie Tucker, William McGinn, Shelby Evans, Madyson Macsween, Kim Brazier, Chris Borrowman, Amy Terrill
1. Organization and Program Overview BGC Kawarthas is one of the area’s largest and most diverse child and youth-serving organizations. Established in 1970, the Club provides summer camps, before and after school programs, early learning, licensed childcare, a wide range of youth and family support services, sports, recreation, arts and adventure programs in Kawartha Lakes. Our team serves thousands of children, youth, and their families at up to 12 locations through services that foster selfesteem, build skills, and develop character. The Club removes financial barriers to participation by keeping program costs affordable and subsidizing all programs for families who can’t afford to pay. At our Club, children and youth learn to become valuable members of their communities.
2. Evaluation Methodology
This evaluation is part of the BGC Canada Learning & Impact Project. The purpose of this project is to help our Club and Clubs across Canada understand and improve our impact in the lives of the children and youth in our communities. The findings in this report are from a mixed methods evaluation, including a survey and in-depth qualitative interviews. The interview protocols and survey questions were designed to discover how children and youth who attend the Club are developing in four key areas: positive relationships, healthy living, lifelong learning, and leadership. To understand this, we explored two broad evaluation questions: 1. What kind and quality of impact are we having on children and youth? 2. What about our programming is contributing to the impact? We are using the findings to guide our learning and development locally and nationally today and in the future.
Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis We held 35 one-on-one, in-depth interviews with the children and youth who are in Club programs. Using in-depth, semi-structured interview protocols, we listened to our Club participants about the difference the Club has made in their lives. We used a purposeful stratified sampling technique to select our interviewees, drawing from the following strata: •
Age - we interviewed participants from the following age groups: 8-10, 11-13, 14-17
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Location - our sample included children who attend the main hub site and those who attend offsite locations