Community-based youth arts programs have been shown to provide important, engaging, and empowering experiences for young people. But often, when asked to demonstrate their impact, programs must rely on the anecdotal experiences of participants in their particular program.
I co-led an international collaboration of researchers (from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) who set out to document how young people engage across these programs and what the lasting effects might be for them. The team spoke with alumni of community-based arts programs. We also held workshops with community-based youth arts program leaders to sort through people’s responses and have developed “a taxonomy” of outcomes. This is now available as a report for The Wallace Foundation is available here.
Two main themes emerged from the our interviews:
- Relational outcomes, which shape how arts program participants interact with peers and mentors and come to understand themselves, their community, and their environment. For example, nearly everyone interviewed said their participation in arts programs helped them build enduring friendships and grow as people.
- Opportunity outcomes, which are the ways arts programs help young people envision adulthood and pursue careers. These include the development of workplace skills and exposure to cultural and educational resources that highlight potential careers and other opportunities for young people.
This taxonomy is aimed at funders and practitioners and we are currently working on a book length output detailing the interviews in greater depth. More soon!