Over the course of my career in youth development, I’ve witnessed the field cycle through many terms to describe the outcomes we hope to nurture in young people: whole child development, resilience skills, developmental assets, psychosocial competencies, soft skills, life skills, 21st-century skills—the list goes on.

Then, about a decade ago, it seemed like the field finally coalesced around one term: Social and Emotional Learning, or SEL. For a moment, it felt like we had a shared language—one that researchers, practitioners, funders, and policymakers could rally behind. SEL offered a common framework to describe the essential capacities that help young people thrive in school, in the workplace, and in life: emotional regulation, empathy, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and more.

But as SEL gained traction, something else happened. What began as a broad, evidence-based vision for youth thriving slowly became narrowly defined—as a curriculum, a specific program, or a discrete set of activities. In some circles, it came to be viewed not as a framework for developmental readiness, but as a political ideology. It was labeled everything from “emotional indoctrination” to “moral overreach.” Some critiques stemmed from misunderstandings; others from deeper anxieties about identity, values, and who gets to shape the emotional lives of young people.

Despite this, we know what the research shows—and what youth development professionals have always understood: these capacities are essential. In fact, they are more essential than ever. Employers across industries are asking educators to help young people develop these very skills —collaboration, adaptability, emotional intelligence, innovation, and resilience. These are the building blocks of not just workforce readiness, but of community leadership, civic engagement, and lifelong well-being.

At Hello Insight, we’ve never been tied to a single term or curriculum. Our goal has always been to make it seamless for youth-serving organizations to understand and support the growth of young people. We believe that the most powerful way to do that is to center youth voice—to listen deeply to what young people say they are experiencing and how those experiences are shaping their growth.

We don’t evaluate programs based on the curriculum they use. We care about how youth programs engage young people—whether they’re using a sports-based approach, arts integration, outdoor education, workforce development, or academic enrichment. What matters is that they are grounded in a research-based Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach—one that prioritizes strong relationships, peer connection, challenge and support, and opportunities for youth to shape their own learning.

And so, to better serve our 6,000+ organizational partners nationwide—and to honor the many ways they describe their work—we’ve made a decision: we’re moving beyond the term “SEL.” Not because the capacities it represents are any less important, but because the term itself no longer serves all of our partners equally.

From now on, we will refer to these outcomes simply as Capacities for Thriving.

We are also renaming our tools to reflect this broader, more inclusive perspective:

• The tool HI SEL will now be called Hello Insight: Foundations.
• What we formerly called Core SEL will now be known as Foundational Capacities.

This shift is more than semantic. It’s a reaffirmation of our belief that thriving doesn’t belong to one framework or political perspective. It belongs to young people. And it begins with listening.

While traditional evaluations often rely on adult observations, we know that youth themselves offer the clearest, most honest perspective on how programs are supporting—or missing—what they need to grow. That’s why we center youth voice in everything we do, from the way we build our tools to how we interpret and make meaning of data.

Our surveys gather direct feedback from young people, capturing their lived experiences and comparing them to research-based Positive Youth Development (PYD) practices that drive thriving. This approach grounds our data in reality—not assumption—and elevates what truly matters: the quality of relationships, belonging, and meaningful engagement.

And the data is clear: what adults say they’re doing has little predictive power when it comes to youth growth. But what young people say they experience? That’s where the real story lives.

In fact, our research shows that youth-reported experiences are among the strongest predictors of growth in key life skills—more powerful than dosage, activity type, or demographic factors. One finding stands above the rest: strong, supportive relationships with adults and peers are the single most important driver of positive outcomes. Youth who report these kinds of relationships show twice the growth compared to those who don’t.

We all know the power of a trusted adult—a teacher, a coach, a counselor—who sees us, listens deeply, and creates a space where we belong. That’s the kind of transformation we aim to foster.

And it all starts by listening

Young Staff, Leading the Way

Right now, we’re putting this belief into action in a new and exciting way. We’re developing a tool to assess how young staff—ages 18 and 25—grow essential capacities for thriving through their roles as leaders in youth programs.

This tool has three key goals:

1. To assess the extent to which young staff develop thriving capacities through their employment.
2. To evaluate the research-based experiences they have in Positive Youth Development programs.
3. To determine which of those experiences best support their growth.

And here’s what makes this initiative different: five young staff members from across the country have joined our team as researchers. They’ve been leading the charge—designing the measure, shaping the questions, and making meaning of the findings alongside their peers.

Because who better to understand what it’s like to grow as a young professional than those doing it?

Their insights are shaping a tool that doesn’t just study young staff—it reflects their voices, priorities, and real-world experiences in the workplace.

Redefining What It Means to Use Data

Listening to youth isn’t just about gathering their feedback—it’s about involving them in how we interpret and act on their data. This process is sometimes called participatory meaning making, and it’s at the heart of how we ensure our work stays grounded in young people’s realities.

In 2022, we partnered with six young people who had previously been involved in one of our participatory meaning-making projects to co-create a guide:

We Know Us: A Guide to Participatory Meaning Making with Young People.

This resource was designed to help adult researchers and practitioners become stronger allies in research for, by, and about youth. It outlines:

• Why youth-led meaning making is essential.
• The kinds of outcomes it yields.
• The roles and responsibilities of everyone involved.
• Critical tips for success—like setting the foundation, building trust, and supporting technical skill development.

Check out We Know Us: A Guide to Participatory Meaning Making with Young People to explore how youth can be true partners in research and evaluation that directly affects their lives.

This Is What We Mean When We Say “Youth Voice”

Whether we’re building a survey, making sense of data, or helping organizations learn from their impact, youth voice is at the center.

Because youth voice isn’t just a principle—it’s a practice.

It shows up in how we design.
In how we analyze.
In how we decide what matters.

At Hello Insight, we don’t just believe in listening to youth.

We believe in working alongside them.Because their voice isn’t just valuable. It’s vital.

The YMCA of Latin America and the Caribbean and Hello Insight spearheaded a regional initiative between 2023 and 2024 to foster socio-emotional skills among young people and build evaluation capacity within social organizations. Seven organizations from Colombia and Peru participated in the initiative: YMCA Perú, YMCA Bogotá and Cundinamarca, YMCA Cali, Corporación Juan Bosco (Colombia), Fundación Michín (Colombia), Fundación Biblioseo (Colombia), and ONG Comunidad (Perú).

Each organization evaluated programs using Hello Insight’s Learning Journey with support from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Together, these organizations collected data from over 1,800 young people through the HI Latin America survey, a tool adapted to the Latin American context.

Collective Impacts at a Glance

• 7 out of 10 young people grew their Positive Identity and Sense of Belonging and 6 out of 10 grew their Sense of Purpose. Program leaders valued these impacts because they foster young people’s vision for the future and support networks for collective growth.
• How did a diverse group of programs achieve such a consistent set of impacts? Across programs, 8 out of 10 young people said they felt heard, supported, and safe. In other words, staff across programs first built authentic and caring relationships with young people. This allowed them to support and challenge young people’s SEL growth.
• Program leaders and staff used Hello Insight reports to identify opportunities for improvement. Some leaders focused on ideas to make their activities more engaging for young people, while others focused on improving communication among staff members.
• Across the initiative, we learned about the leadership and communication practices needed to drive collective impacts. Leaders at different levels identified ways to support their teams and communicate with others to collect data, reflect on insights, and take action.

Do you want to read the full report when it’s publicly available?

Join the waitlist here!

"Time in nature can be a powerful antidote to the negative impacts of trauma and stress in children’s lives."
— Casey Family Programs

The growing mental health crisis among young people has far-reaching consequences, from increasing suicide rates to delayed education and career opportunities. However, key social and emotional capacities have emerged as critical protective factors, equipping young people with the tools to navigate these challenges, build resilience, and achieve personal success. While all youth programs can foster these types of capacities, this groundbreaking study highlights how outdoor programs uniquely amplify youth development and promote thriving.A recent study by Hello Insight and supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the YMCA analyzed data from over 10,000 young people across various outdoor and non-outdoor programs using Hello Insight. Outdoor programs included in the study spanned wilderness adventures, urban gardening, and day camps. This study shows that outdoor programs are more than just recreational—they are vital to youth development. By intentionally incorporating nature and outdoor exploration and reflection, young people cultivate thriving capacities that empower success academically, socially, and personally.

Key Findings at a Glance

Outdoor Programs Promote Capacities that Lead to Long-Term Thriving

• More young people in outdoor programs demonstrate growth than peers in non-outdoor programs.
• The presence of outdoor exploration and reflection further amplifies growth, with nearly 30% more young people developing thriving capacities when engaged in these types of experiences.

Latine Young People Experience Exceptional Benefits

• More Latine participants in outdoor programs grew than peers in non-outdoor settings, specifically in the areas of Contribution, Self-Management, and Social Skills.

Boys Thrive in Outdoor Settings

• More boys in outdoor programs exhibit gains in Self-Management, Social Skills, and Academic Self-Efficacy than boys in non-outdoor programs.

Girls and Peer Bonding

• More girls in outdoor programs show growth in social skills compared to girls in non-outdoor programs. This may be due to strong peer bonding experiences

Implications for Action:

For Program Leaders: Consider integrating outdoor components into existing programs to enhance thriving capacities.

For Funders: Invest in outdoor initiatives, particularly those serving Latine youth and boys, to promote equity and inclusion.

For Policymakers: Support policies that increase access to outdoor education and experiences for all youth.

This study redefines the role of the outdoors in Positive Youth Development, offering a blueprint for fostering resilience, connection, and purpose in the next generation

“How can I make a lasting impact on young people in my program?”
Camp professionals across the country ask this question, and our answer is always lean on PYD Experiences. The evidence says that promoting authentic, caring, and challenging experiences for young people is the most important thing you can do to foster their SEL growth (Pekel et al., 2018). So much so that the number of activities they participate in is less predictive of growth than the quality of the relationships they experience with adults and peers in the program (Catalan Molina et al., 2022; Hill & Erickson, 2019).

PYD Experiences are about building positive relationships with adults and peers in a program (Pekel et al., 2018). Positive relationships are critical because they create a safe and supportive environment where young people feel valued and understood (Sabo-Flores & Catalan Molina, 2024). This creates trust, which makes young people more likely to try new, more challenging things and learn during the program.

How important are PYD Experiences?

Our data shows that when young people experience PYD research-based practices at a high rate, they are between 15-20% more likely to grow their SEL capacities than when they don’t. In the example below, we show the impact of Promote Peer Bonds practices on Social Skills. A young person attending a program with a few elements of Promote Peer Bonding is only 52% likely to grow their social skills. Yet if they participated in a program with high levels of Promote Peer Bonding, their chances to grow in Social Skills would increase to 76% (a 24% difference!). These findings illustrate how focusing on PYD Experiences can have a large impact on the young people in your program.

So What?

One of the most important things a camp professional can do is to build authentic and caring relationships with young people. Check out the following resources on Engage Authentically and Promote Peer Bonds to get started using research-based practices that drive SEL growth!

One of the most important things camp leaders can do is to focus professional development efforts on building staff capacity to promote PYD experiences. Curricula and activities change over time, and daily emergencies can easily derail our plans. So, investing too much professional development time in specific curricula may not be the best strategy. Promoting the capacity of camp professionals to build positive relationships with young people is likely to pay off, regardless of the content of the program activities.

Are you interested in reading a full report about the impact of PYD Experiences on SEL growth when it’s publicly available?

Join the waitlist here!

If you want more information on Hello Insight

Key Takeaways and Resources:

The Capacities section in the Pre report helps you identify your young people’s opportunities for growth and assets. Watch a short video with an overview of the Capacities section.

• Reflecting on the capacity with the largest % of Emerging young people and the capacity with the largest % of Advanced young people is the first step you and your team can take. Use the two questions in the padlet to spark discussions. Remember, these questions will only get you started. The reflection that follows will depend on your team and context.
  
  
• Start slow and build from there. Reflecting on two capacities only will help your team to focus and dive deeper into how your program promotes (or leverages) each one of these capacities. Only then iterate to reflect on other capacities. The more you iterate, the more you build your team’s capacity to improve your program.
  
  
• Consider the scope of your program. Keep in mind that your program may not intentionally promote all the capacities you see on the table. And that’s ok. If your program only targets a few capacities, focus your reflection on those capacities. Keeping the scope of your program front and center will help your team identify strategic opportunities for improvement.
  
  
• Now what? During the session, I talked about the gap between program activities and impacts. To successfully impact young people’s SEL capacities, you need to weave research-based practices into your program activities and strategies. Access the resources to reflect on the Experiences your program can create to promote young people’s SEL growth.

In case you missed it, click here to review and contribute to the Reflection Padlet, and click here to get the Slide Deck.

If you missed our last session, you can watch the Practice and Progress section where we go over how to use the Experiences section in the Pre report to boost your program.

Playing and learning in the outdoors is essential for young people’s health and well-being. Connecting young people to the outdoors and nature can help them improve their sense of autonomy and self-concept, as well as their life satisfaction, sense of purpose, and enthusiasm.

For these reasons and more, thousands of young people participate in outdoor programs year round. Outdoor programs come in all shapes and sizes. What defines them is that they intentionally promote young people’s connection to the outdoors and nature. Across Hello Insight members, we have seen outdoor programs in the form of:

• Urban gardening
• Wilderness adventures
• Day and Summer camps in the outdoors
• Inquiry-based exploration of local Zoos and botanic gardens
• Workshops at school focused on local flora and fauna

So what is so special about outdoor programs? And, do they promote the development of social and emotional learning more than traditional out-of-school programs? These are the questions asked by our partners at The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Children & Nature Network, and the YMCA when they supported the development of a new tool, Hello Insight: Outdoors, which has been used by more than 80 out-of-school programs nationwide.

Our Study

Our study leveraged the data from over 55 youth-serving organizations (80+ programs) who collected data using Hello Insight: Outdoors from 2018 to 2022. This collective effort resulted in data from over 10,000 young people who participated in outdoor programs.

To answer our research questions, we needed to compare young people in outdoor programs to those in other out-of-school programs. So, we selected 1) 4,743 young people in outdoor programs and 2) 4,743 young people in non-outdoor programs who also use Hello Insight evaluation and learning tools. These groups were similar across gender, ethnicity, and age, as well as Overall SEL and Social Capital scores at baseline. Because of these similarities, we were able to compare the impacts on young people’s SEL across outdoor and non-outdoor programs.

Across these groups, young people were between the ages of 12 and 18 (49% were boys, 43% were girls). About a third identified as White, while 19% identified as Latinx, 18% as African American, and 16% as two or more races.

Findings

Young people in outdoor programs develop SEL capacities

Nearly all young people in outdoor programs show meaningful growth in Social Skills and Academic Self-Efficacy and Self-Management. They also develop a sense of Support for the Environment and Well-Being in the Outdoors. To learn more about these outcomes, go here.

Young people develop SEL capacities at a higher rate in outdoor programs than in non-outdoor programs

We know that young people in outdoor programs grow their SEL capacity. But how does their SEL growth compare to young people in other out-of-school programs? Our findings suggest that young people in outdoor programs show a significantly larger growth in Social Skills, Academic Self-Efficacy, and Self-Management than their peers in non-outdoor programs.

Digging deeper into the data revealed that boys in outdoor programs show significantly larger increases in Social Skills, Academic Self-Efficacy, and Self-Management, as well as their Overall SEL capacity, than boys in other programs. In contrast, girls in outdoor programs only show significantly larger increases in Social Skills and Academic Self-Efficacy than girls in other programs.

In addition, young Latinx people in outdoor programs show significantly larger increases in Social Skills, Self-Management, and Contribution than young Latinx people in other programs.

Young people in outdoor programs experience more Engage Authentically and Promote Peer Bonds practices than in non-outdoor programs

What could explain these differences? The best explanation for SEL growth is the degree to which young people experience Positive Youth Development (PYD) research-based practices in their programs. So, we looked at whether young people in outdoor programs experience more of these practices than young people in other programs.

Overall, young people in outdoor programs experience more authentic relationships with staff (Engage Authentically) and report more opportunities to develop peer bonds (Promote Peer Bonds) than their peers in other programs. These two foundational experiences create a fertile ground for other PYD experiences and, together, promote young people’s SEL growth.

Looking at who experienced these PYD practices, we learned that boys in outdoor programs reported stronger relationships with staff (Engage Authentically), who challenged them to continuously grow and develop (Challenge Growth), expanded their interests (Expand Interests), and provided more occasions to bond with peers (Promote Peer Bonds) than boys in other programs.

While girls in outdoor programs also experience many PYD practices, they only reported experiencing more opportunities to create Peer Bonds than girls in other programs.

When exploring the difference across ethnicity, Latinx young people had very positive experiences, even more so than peers on non-outdoor programs. In fact, they experienced stronger relationships with staff (Engage Authentically), engaged in opportunities that expanded their interests (Expand Interests), and had more occasions to bond with peers (Promote Peer Bonds).

Concluding Thoughts

The outdoors is a fantastic setting to promote young people’s SEL. Our findings suggest that a well-designed and well-implemented outdoor program can achieve even larger increases in SEL than other out-of-school programs. This is especially true for Social Skills, a capacity that was consistently boosted by outdoor programs across our findings.

Boys and young Latinx people stood out as the groups that benefited the most from outdoor programs in our study, yet there is much more we could learn about these and other groups of young people. In the future, the field should look at programs that do exceptionally well at promoting SEL growth for marginalized young people, especially those who lack access to high quality outdoor programming.  

What do you think about our findings? If you design or deliver programs for young people, do these findings make you think of strategies to connect young people to the outdoors to boost your impacts? Leave us a comment!

Are you interested in getting the full report of the study on the fall?

Join the waiting list!

If you want more information on our Hello Insight: Outdoors

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For me, it is the little things that challenge mental health and will send you straight to therapy, the microaggressions that masquerade as jokes, and structural racism that manifests itself in unconscious bias and entitlement. It’s always having to try to figure out and do the calculus of whether you are confronting structural racism and microaggressions or if it is just a joke. It is always the little things.
– Roderick Jenkins, Program Director, New York Community Trust

During our latest forum, Funders Speak Out: The Impact of Race and DEI on Mental Health, five extraordinary program officers shared their experiences as they navigate issues of race, DEI, and mental health in their own organizations and with grantees.

The conversation, co-hosted by Hello Insight and Youth INC, was the fourth in our series Elevating Youth Development: A Series of Discussions about Race and DEI Across the Nonprofit Sector. These conversations evolved out of meetings with field leaders who are passionate and committed to creating community spaces to address these issues. We set the stage for the series by amplifying young people’s voices at Youth Speak Out: The Impact of Race and DEI on Mental Health on January 14, 2022. From their perspective, the intersection of race, DEI, and mental health is a central issue affecting their lives and those of their peers. We continued the conversation on March 26, 2022, with frontline staff and on May 25, 2022, with executive leaders. On October 4, 2022, we ignited a discussion with funders. We are grateful to capture recommendations, key takeaways, and a call to action that came out of this conversation.

Forum Participants

• Roderick Jenkins, Program Director, New York Community Trust
• Pamela Lawrence, Director of National Community Strategies, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Jackie Murphy, Director of Programs, The Collins Foundation
• Albert Maldonado, Senior Program Manager, The California Endowment
• Jenny Negron, Senior Program Officer, The Pinkerton Foundation
• Marc Fernandes, Director, Impact Evaluation, Youth INCKim Flores, Co-Founder and CEO, Hello Insight

Recommendations

1. Listen to the needs of grantees

Each funder shared examples of how listening really shifted their grantmaking processes and areas of focus. Pamela shared that listening to youth voices helped them realize how much they needed to “show up and be part of the change.” Jenny shared a similar sentiment: “If we just listen to what they have to say all the time, we would be better partners to them.” And Roderick highlighted the value of listening to and talking with others regardless of their position or politics:

I talk to everybody. I could care less what your views are. I’m from the school where you speak to everybody and hope to find a new central place. You can’t cancel anybody. I believe everybody has something to offer.

Jenny pointed to our Speak Out videos as useful resources for grantmakers, saying that they give them an opportunity to hear from youth, frontline workers, and executive leaders in an uninhibited format.

2. Engage the community in grantmaking processes

Much of the panel shared unique approaches to this type of community engagement. Jackie's board opened three new seats to create more community representation. Albert’s organization, The California Endowment, developed a President’s Youth Council to guide their work. Similarly, The Casey Foundation is institutionalizing youth and community engagement through its community leadership engagement team. Pamela emphasized how these practices need to be assimilated into foundation work:

It's no longer a nicety. It's now integrated into decision-making and policy setting that will influence the funding for the next 10 years. And so our goal is to integrate it into our fiber, just like we have with race, equity, and inclusion so that it becomes business as usual.

3. Support a community healing infrastructure

Creating sustained infrastructure that supports DEI and mental health is critical to both individual and community healing. Albert and Jackie both work in partnership with other foundations in their communities to develop and support this infrastructure. They also use their power as funders to leverage additional private and public dollars to support their grantees:

We have to be self-aware and minimize barriers for our partners to access our support. We also need to think about how to leverage other resources for them—philanthropic as well as public funding. That sustainable infrastructure is really critical to meeting the scale of trauma and just healthy youth development. – Albert Maldonado

Other panelists developed new types of funding streams or grantmaking strategies to address DEI, issues of race, and mental health:

When it comes to mental health, Pinkerton never really funded it in the past. But when the pandemic hit, a lot of our grantees asked for funding to support staff, not only for their own mental health but also for the people they work with. And that was something that made us think differently about our work and the way we support our grantees. – Jenny Negron

This infrastructure requires new areas of support. These funders are supporting initiatives that include

• Wellness spaces
• Traditional talk therapy
• Circles of healing
• Communities of support led by people of color
• Community initiatives led by youth and community members

4. Develop new measures of success

Rather than tracking traditional successes, panelists discussed measuring outcomes like “the love that the community puts into the work” and documenting challenges and learnings. Collectively, they were interested in pushing themselves to think outside the box:

How do we document the love that community organizations have for their community and the extra work that they're putting in? I'm guilty of overlooking this myself.  I just think about how we challenge ourselves, look at ourselves in the mirror, and really push for alternative practices. – Albert Maldonado

I recently updated our application and one of the questions we had was “How do you know your project is successful?” As a team, we started talking about how intimidating that question is. Like if you're not successful, you can't come to ask for funding. Or, if you're not a success, you didn't achieve your goals? So we wanted to go back to our languaging and really show trust for our grantees. We wanted to know how to do this work better. So we ask, “What are the challenges?” and, “What do you want to learn from this work?” – Jackie Murphy

5. Educating donors and board members

Integrating DEI and racial equity into the fabric of their own foundations can be challenging. All agreed that more donor and board education was critical to building an understanding of the communities:

I think we all need to get our boards and donors out of offices and into the community we serve. That's the big thing that we try to do here. And it works. Every year we take our board members to a different borough. We've taken our board to Rikers Island. We're gonna walk through Hunts Point. So people on our board and our donors have a chance to understand how people live in a community that is beset by huge health disparities and how we are working through our grants to make this an equitable society. – Roderick Jenkins

6. Advocate for other funders to engage in these practices

Jackie underlined the importance of advocating for their grantees with other founders, donors, and government agencies:

As a foundation partner, we've got to be able to stand in our truth, be willing to step out, and hold other foundations accountable. We need to really look for those other colleagues on the field. And then, for those who aren't ready, we need to guide them. And we need to not be scared to be explicit in what we mean.

Funders Call To Action

At the end of our discussion, the panelists were eager to craft their own recommendations to other funders. Their call to action echoes and builds on what they discussed in the forum:

• Support nonprofit executive leaders and staff as they navigate  DEI, race, and mental health issues in their organizations.
• Promote measures of ongoing learning rather than just success or goal attainment.Create more alignment around DEI practices and policies across the field of philanthropy.
• Understand that one-size does not fit-all and that we need to customize our approaches based on the needs of individual grantees and communities. Do the work, listen, learn, engage, validate, and ask questions. Don’t get comfortable in your assumptions.
• Realize that no one owns the problem. It is going to take all of us working in concert to solve these issues. And we must work with government, politicians, and funders.
• Stopping racism is part of our job and not doing so is a dereliction of duty. We need to build a practice around abolitionism.

We hope this series provides a space for the greater youth development community to listen, learn, and grow together. Our next series event, Beyond Speak Out: Taking Action Together, will take place in early 2023. During this discussion,  we will advance the conversation from speaking out to taking action. Please be on the lookout for an invitation!

Take a look at all the Speak Out Sessions

What does it look like to truly engage young people in making meaning of data that affects their lives – a process sometimes known as participatory meaning making? In 2022, six young people who had been involved in a participatory meaning-making project created a resource to help adult researchers and practitioners become allies who fully understand the value of youth voice in research that is for, by, and about them.

The guide, called We Know Us: Guide to Participatory Meaning Making with Young People, gives an overview of key points the young people have synthesized through open dialogue, thought-provoking activities, and collaborative writing. The guide outlines why making meaning of data with young people is essential, the types of outcomes it yields, the roles and responsibilities involved, and critical tips for success - setting the foundation, building trust, and supporting technical skills.

The guide grew out of a process in which Hello Insight brought together a group of 18 young people to provide feedback on the Youth Experience Survey (YES), a survey created in 2012 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and several partners. The survey is designed to help public agencies and communities gather information from children and young people about the strengths and challenges that influence their development as part of the Foundation’s Evidence2Success framework. Survey results describe the links between young people’s needs and assets with well-being, and highlight areas where public agencies and communities could focus program investments to produce better outcomes.

After more than a decade of using the survey, Casey felt it was time to review and update YES to reflect the needs and perspectives of young people in today's society. Because of our long history in youth participatory action research (YPAR) and youth participatory evaluation (YPE), the Foundation asked Hello Insight to recruit young people who could help provide feedback.

The young people added important context to the survey and questioned the notion of communities using its data in isolation to determine their course without further engaging youth in the solutions. They wanted to ensure that all processes meant to contextualize findings and make critical decisions also included youth voice, significantly, as these matters impact their lives and those of their community and family members.

Check out We Know Us: Guide to Participatory Meaning with Young People to learn more about including young people’s experiences, ideas and voice in research and evaluation processes that affect their lives.

Watch this short video that articulates why the young authors feel it is important to engage young people in these critical conversations.

The last two years have taken a toll on our nation's social and emotional well-being. We continue to hear about the psychological consequences of two national tragedies and the wake of challenges that followed. One is the pandemic. The other is, collectively, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery; this tragedy rallied cities and towns across the country, forcing the United States to confront the racism of its past and present. We know that young people, in particular, have been hard hit by the impacts of these events and will continue to suffer long-term consequences. They lost school time and had limited social interactions with peers when they needed them most. Those living in low-income communities of color have been especially affected. They lost more friends and family members due to COVID-19’s impact, yet had comparably less access to services and resources. On top of this, one-third of the nation grappled with feelings of anger, loss, and despair following George Floyd’s murder. This rises to nearly half in Black communities (De Witte, 2021), who had higher increases in depression and anxiety following his murder (Eichstaedt et al., 2021).

To better understand the impact of these events on the social and emotional well-being of young people, we examined data from youth-serving organizations that used the Hello Insight platform to capture pre/post survey data before and during the pandemic. Sports-based youth development (SBYD) programs are the largest group of organizations that fit these criteria, likely because many were able to remain open outdoors or pivot quickly to an online environment. The organizations in this study operate in communities hardest hit by the pandemic’s impacts and ongoing and systemic racism.

Methods

This study includes 16 SBYD organizations that delivered 52 programs throughout the pandemic. We created two groups for comparison from their data. One group is made up of data from young people who completed the Hello Insight: Sports survey between April 1, 2019 and April 7, 2020—pre-pandemic. The other group contains data from young people who completed the HI Sports survey between April 7, 2020 and April 7, 2021; while we don’t want to diminish all of the impacts of this time, we will refer to the timespan as pandemic for the sake of simplicity.

We based the start date for the pandemic group on the start date of the last lockdown in the United States (April 7, 2020, in South Carolina). We realize that not all states went into a strict lockdown at this time. However, we felt that this date is a good approximation of when young people and their families began to face serious challenges. The start date also is close to an incendiary moment of intense sadness, anxiety, and anger ignited by the murder of George Floyd ( May 25, 2020). Organizations pivoted strategies to address racial justice and the growing needs of their communities around this time.

Findings

Sustaining Young People’s SEL Development

During the pandemic, the 16 organizations were able to significantly increase young people’s SEL. This growth is very similar to pre-pandemic patterns, illustrating that these organizations continued to deliver high-quality programming regardless of the innumerable challenges staff and coaches faced. They worked tirelessly to meet young people where they were, providing tailored experiences (both online and in person) to address the moment.

Delivering Key Elements Of SBYD

These SBYD organizations  ensured three of the seven key research-based experiences shown to promote SEL occurred during the pandemic at the same level of quality as they were pre-pandemic.  

Coaches engaged authentically,  taking even more time to get to know them and their families. They listened to their experiences and reactions to current events. And they supported them to navigate challenges as they arose.

Whether online or in person, they built teams. Setting the tone, coaches  treated each player equally, ensured all athletes knew their own and each others’ roles and responsibilities, and created collective missions and identities. They also challenged young people to take positive risks and perform beyond their own expectations.

Struggling To Deliver Other Elements Of SBYD

Four research-based experiences—Promote Peer Bonds, Expand Interests, Manage Goals, and Share Power—proved more difficult to realize during these challenging times. Coaches provided fewer of these experiences than they had pre-pandemic.

Focusing On What Matters Most

Challenging growth actually became a negative influence on SEL development during the pandemic. Challenging a young person to growth and develop has always been a positive predictor of SEL growth in the Hello Insight model. This experience is especially important for young men. Yet, during the pandemic, the more that coaches challenged young people, the less SEL they developed.

Unlike Challenge Growth, which young people experienced with negative SEL impact, Promote Peer Bonds was especially critical for SEL growth, even though it was difficult to nurture during the pandemic. Still, a few SBYD organizations in this study that were strongest at supporting SEL development doubled down on this experience. In fact, Promote Peer Bonds is the most predictive experience for promoting SEL during this time This is a significant shift from pre-pandemic data models, where Engage Authentically is the most predictive experience.

Concluding Thoughts

This is an exceptional group of organizations that were able to weather the storm in the face of tremendous difficulties and meet the needs of low-income young people of color disproportionately affected by both issues. It is not surprising that

Promoting Peer Bonds was especially crucial during this timeframe, as. approximately one-quarter of students in the United States felt disconnected from their school communities, school adults, and classmates, according to America’s Promise Alliance’s study of the pandemic’s effects (Margolius et al., 2020). Peer bonding opportunities supported these much-needed social connections and really accelerated student growth.

In addition, it is interesting that Challenging Growth became a negative predictor of SEL growth. Young Black and LatinX students in the SBYD organizations' neighborhoods were already dealing with the prevalence of chronic stress. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that any additional challenge may trigger even greater stress and anxiety. These extraordinary SBYD coaches understood this all too well and tailored their practices to meet the needs of the moment.

All organizations are highlighted in our post  2021 HI Impact BIPOC SBYD Awardees. Laureus Virtual Training Camp will highlight two others, Girls On The Run Atlanta and Grow Our Game Brooklyn, October 2022.

References

Margolius, M., Doyle Lynch, A., Pufall Jones, E., & Hynes, M. (2020, June). The State of Young People during COVID-19 Findings from a nationally representative survey of high school youth. America’s Promise Alliance. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED606305.pdf

Center on the Developing Child (n.d.). Toxic Stress. Center on the Developing Child | Harvard University. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/toxic-stress/

De Witte, M. (2021, Sept. 20). Anger and sadness soared following George Floyd’s death, particularly among Black Americans, Stanford psychologists find. Stanford News. https://news.stanford.edu/2021/09/20/psychological-toll-george-floyds-murder/

Eichstaedt, J. C., Sherman, G. T., Giorgi, S., Roberts, S. O., Reynolds, M. E., Ungar, L. H., & Guntuku, S. C. (2021). The emotional and mental health impact of the murder of George Floyd on the US population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(39), e2109139118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109139118

Howard, L. C., Krueger, E. A., Barker, J. O., Boley Cruz, T., Cwalina, S. N., Unger, J. B., Barrington-Trimis, J. L., & Leventhal, A. M. (2022). Young Adults’ Distress About Police Brutality Following the Death of George Floyd. Youth & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X221087282

Sahakian, B. J., Langley, C., & Kaser, M. (2020, March 11). How chronic stress changes the brain – and what you can do to reverse the damage. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/how-chronic-stress-changes-the-brain-and-what-you-can-do-to-reverse-the-damage-133194

TED-Ed. (2015, Nov. 9). How stress affects your brain - Madhumita Murgia [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuyPuH9ojCE

In the recent event Executive Leaders Speak Out: The Impact of Race and DEI on Mental Health, six extraordinary leaders shared how they guide their organizations through these difficult and ever-evolving times.

The session, hosted by Hello Insight and Youth INC, took place directly after the Buffalo, NY, and Texas mass shootings. These events carried a lot of pain and stress for the speakers as they navigated the fears, stress, and anxiety held by their staff, community members, and youth. We kept all of this in our hearts and minds as we discussed the impact of race and DEI on mental health in the sector

I'm sending love and light out to everyone. I have a heavy heart. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to do the work that I have to do.  -  La Frae Sci, Willie Mae Rock Camp

This forum was the third session of the series Elevating Youth Development: A Series of Discussions about Race and DEI Across the Nonprofit Sector. The idea for these conversations evolved out of meetings with field leaders who are passionate and committed to creating community spaces to address these issues. The series kicked off January 14, 2022 with the session, Youth Speak Out: The Impact of Race and DEI on Mental Health, By amplifying the voices of young people, it appropriately set the stage for the series. From young people’s perspective, the intersection of race, DEI, and mental health is a central issue affecting their lives and those of their peers. On March 16, 2022, we continued the conversation with frontline staff at Youth Workers Speak Out: The Impact of Race and DEI on Mental Health. And on May 25, 2022, we ignited a conversation with executive leaders on the same topic. The following is a summary of the event’s key points, takeaways, areas that need to be addressed, and recommendations for funders supporting this work.

You can also watch the full recording:

Key Takeaways

#1 - Find New And Meaningful Ways to Listen To Young People

We really can't minimize what we are hearing, I think, in the context of today and coming out of these mass shootings. We may not be fully listening and believing what someone is saying to us—to really fully listen, step in, help that person rescue themselves, believe what they say, and not wait for the explosion to react. We are in it every day. This is hard, very exhausting work, but we are at a place where we really have to embrace this rage - Michael Duval, Boys and Young Men of Color, YMCA of the USA

#2 - Create Informal Ways To Check In With Young People

Mental health practices look different for our youth. There is an informal nature to the work that can make people devalue it. Listening to youth doesn't always happen in formal settings or in structured times. I have learned that there are some meaty and important moments that happen on the subway on the way to camp. It happens in really small moments. It isn't always sitting in a circle in a group. - Susan Natacha Gonzalez, Fresh Youth Initiatives

#3 - Intentionally Focus on Wellbeing

We started to add intentional breathing to open each class session. We also close with a reflection and with breath again. We put it over a drum machine and call it beat breathing. Eighty-five beats per minute is a nice tempo and a great way to get everyone grounded and centered. We have also given them some tools for raising their frequency and curating their vibe. During COVID, we had to create spaces by using sound. - La Frae Sci, Willie Mae Rock Camp

#4-  Value Differences

We have to recognize that trauma and mental health comes in more than one sphere or one slice. It comes in multiple places, in multiple ways, and is communicated in different ways. Someone may say one word that doesn't mean anything to you in your culture, but you have to pick up on it using cultural cues. You have to ask the second and third questions. Not just how you are doing but let's go deeper into how you are doing. - Michael Duval, Boys and Young Men of Color, YMCA of the USA

#5 -  Be Prepared to Make Mistakes

I try to demonstrate that we are all learners and that we are all contributing to each other’s learning. Learning never stops. It is not about perfection. It is about intentionally looking at our progress. We are going to try things, and we are going to fail. It is an intentional invitation and understanding that failure is a part of the learning process. - Priya Mohabir, NYSCI

#6 - Show Up as Your Full Self

It is important for us and our staff to make sure that we are intentional about checking in when someone arrives. We do this religiously with each other as staff. And wealso do this with our young people because everyone is not having the same experience here in America. When I show up, I'm showing up as Kelly Steward as ED of L.E.A.D. But I am also showing up as the granddaughter of Amy Lue Faust. That's my grandmother who raised me. She was born into sharecropping. I'm showing up with her stolen dreams, and I'm showing up with her stolen freedoms. And I'm showing up also as a victim of the Atlantic slave and domestic slave trade that took place in this country. That trauma has followed us in this country. I show up with a lot of stuff. Sometimes I need folks to check on me. - Kelli Stewart, L.E.A.D Center for Youth

You are the expert in your own experience. That has taken on a new meaning for me as a CEO. When I come to a decision or I have an idea, it is framed by my experience, and my experience is not the same as everybody else's. I'm white. I'm male. I'm able-bodied. I'm cis-gendered. I've got lots of privileges that inform my decisions. These should be challenged and expanded by folks in our organization with different experiences. - Joshua Todd, Camp Fire Columbia

#7 -  Create Together

I lean into, "I don't know what I don't know. I depend on you as my community around me to fill in the gaps, share your perspectives to help me understand and grow, and help us make the best decisions for our program and young people." We invite young people into decision-making places. Youth are not just participants in our program but contributors and co-designers, not only in the program activities but in the ways we are working together and creating spaces.  And we not only invite students into spaces but take a moment to stop and be invited into their spaces. - Priya Mohabir, NYSCI

Executive Leaders Need Support

These executive leaders identified five key areas in which they and the field need further support.

1. An understanding of cultural identity and how to co-create and recreate identity
2. Knowledge of how to partner with other institutions that don't center conversations around DEI, Race, and mental health, and equipping our staff to work in those settings
3. Health insurance that truly provides our staff with high-quality mental health and access to providers who hold the identities that they do
4. Time and space to reflect, check in, and transition
5. An understanding that cultures are not monolithic

Recommendations for Funders

The speakers also had the following recommendations for funders supporting this work.

• Practice trust-based philanthropy
  - Allow organizations to develop the appropriate programming and interventions for their communities.
  - Be humble and learn from community members.
  - Train board members on the issues being funded.
• Consider new ways of defining success
  - Focus on impact rather than just data. Numbers are not the only way to define success.
  -Ensure grantees and young people are helping to define success.
  -Capture youth voices and feedback.
• Throw away preconceived notions of administrative costs
  - Our staff's mental health is key to our success, and it has a price.
• Think about healing more holistically
  - Healing has been segmented into different parts of our society and professions. By expanding and focusing on interconnectivity, we can serve each other and support each other in a way that can empower us all.

We hope this series provides a space for the greater youth development community to listen, learn, and grow together. Our next event in the series, Funders Leadership Speak Out, is scheduled for October 4th, from 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM. This session will focus on funders and what they need from their boards, donors, grantees, and peers to feel prepared and supported in their mental health. Look out for an invitation in our newsletter!

What are some common qualities of colleagues you love to work with? They’re capable planners, who can identify big goals and break them down to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B. They’re skilled collaborators and communicators, with the ability to think critically and creatively. These qualities are often called 21st Century Skills and are considered necessary to succeed in today's information age. In fact, employers report that they are equally important to technical skills in the workplace (Balcar, 2014; Carnevale, 2013; Eger & Grossmann, 2004; International Labour Organization, 2008) and complain that job candidates are all too often lacking the necessary competencies in these areas (Manpower Group, 2013).

For the past three years, HI Career Readiness has been measuring key 21st Century Skills, including: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, Creativity, Growth Orientation, and Goal Orientation. Not only do these overlap with social and emotional learning (SEL) capacities but they are developed and scaffolded through their application. For example, a young person with strong social skills (a key SEL capacity) will find it easier to collaborate and communicate than peers with limited capacity in this area. As SEL skills are applied in real-life settings, it increases knowledge gains and retention, fosters stronger academic performance, and produces social skills that are valued by most employers, as people are better able to regulate stress levels, empathize with others and resolve conflicts (International Labour Organization, 2021).

HI: Career Readiness Discoveries

To date, HI Career Readiness has been used by over 7,000 young people across 56 organizations, allowing us to do further validation of the tool. What have we discovered? We have eight new insights to share with you.

About the Outcomes

✽   Some new items that were tested helped to strengthen three constructs - communication, collaboration, and growth orientation. They are valid and reliable measures across ages, grades, gender identity, and ethnicity.

✽  Taken together, four outcomes - collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity - measure one key element of career readiness. We are now calling this “Applied SEL”. Young people with these capacities put their SEL to use in real-life settings, such as projects, internships, apprenticeships, and on the job. This application of SEL increases knowledge gains and retention, fosters stronger academic performance, and produces social skills that are valued by most employers.

✽  Taken together, two outcomes - growth orientation and goal orientation - measure another key lament of career readiness that we are now calling - “adaptive mindset.” In other words, when young people have an adaptive mindset they are more likely to develop creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills.

✽  Social capital also acts as a mediator of growth in all of the outcomes. In other words, the more social capital you have the easier it is to develop the outcomes being measured by this tool.

✽  With more data and new items, your reports will have more precise benchmarks. At pre, you might see differences in your emerging and advanced categories. At post, you might see different growth patterns.

About the Experiences

✽  All of the experiences were shown to be valid and reliable measures of the concepts being explored. However, to align with other HI tools, some of the names were changed.

✽  Six experiences predicted growth in both applied SEL and adaptive mindset - engaging authentically, expanding interests, fostering reflection, sharing power, supporting networking, and helping young people to envision a positive future.

✽  Three experiences did not predict outcome growth - practice career skills, challenge growth and promote peer bonds. Therefore, these questions were dropped to shorten the tool and make it more accessible for young people.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of this amazing work. We are so excited to continue to learn alongside you as we develop this dataset even further. The new tool has several test questions that we have developed based on your feedback. We are committed to hosting further community conversations about these findings and hope that you will reach out with questions and ideas to strengthen this work.

You can also watch the full session about: Career Readiness Updates

Ready to bring Hello Insight: Career Readiness to your organization?

Through cost-effective annual subscriptions, HI Career Readiness is available to youth-serving organizations across the country.

Schedule a demo today!

In a recent event hosted by Hello Insight and Youth INC, entitled Youth Workers Speak Out: The Impact of Race and DEI on Mental Health, five amazing frontline staff shared their experiences of working in this field throughout the pandemic and alongside the ongoing racial tensions in the country. They also told stories of the delicate balance between taking care of their own social and emotional well-being while supporting that of their young participants.

I think as a human being you have to know when it is time to take a pit stop. You can’t be injured in a sport, like if you are an athlete and you're injured you can’t go back onto the field because you are going to get injured even worse. …I needed to be a light for myself. I needed to be friends with the person who I look at in the mirror every day. Because if I can't do that for myself how can I do that for a young person?
- Jeremiah Thompson, Opening Act, New York, NY

This forum was the second of five entitled Elevating Youth Development: A Series of Discussions about Race and DEI Across the Nonprofit Sector. The idea for these conversations evolved out of meetings with field leaders who are passionate and committed to creating community spaces to address these issues. Key members included staff from LEAP, Dream Yard, Opening Act, and Trailblazers. The group met for several months and determined that the conversation needed to include multiple stakeholders who span the full ecosystem of influencer, impacting young people and their experiences of DEI and race in out-of-school time programs — from young people, to frontline staff, to program leadership, funders, and policy makers.

The most logical place to begin was by amplifying the voices of young people who set the stage for the series on January 14, 2022, focusing on the impact of race and DEI on mental health. From their perspective, this is the central issue affecting not only their lives but also those of their peers - check out this blog to learn more.

On March 16, 2022, we continued the conversation with frontline staff, engaging folks from Guitars Over Guns, Opening Act NYC, Read Alliance, Ifetayo, and Rose Community Development. We talked about how to support young people’s mental health while navigating their own challenges with similar issues. This blog provides a brief overview of their answers to key questions asked by Marc Fernandez, Youth INC, and our own Dr.  Kim Sabo Flores. Check out the video to hear the complete session.

What Can We Do To Support Young People’s Mental Health?

Like young people, these youth workers felt it was critical to create more intentional time and space to talk about race, DEI, and its impact on mental health during programming. They also made it clear that adults should ask for permission before engaging young people in conversations about feelings and emotions, allowing them to decide when and where they are ready to talk.

What works for me is, I ask for permission… I would like the same respect so I am going to give it to them.
- Caleb Alcime, Guitars Over Guns, Miami Florida

Lisa Killingsworth, Read Alliance, advises that giving young people the time and space to identify and process their emotions is critical.

Silence is loud!  So, I always try to give a space for silence when working with young people because when you are trying to fill time with a lot of words …it doesn’t give youth a lot of time to process their feelings and to figure out what they want to say.
- Lisa Killingsworth, Read Alliance, New York, NY

All of the youth workers agreed that they needed to be on their own “healing journey” to support young people.  Without these experiences, they would not be able to be open and vulnerable. But more than that, without support, engaging in these topics of discussion would be overwhelming and scary.

If you don’t do the work you won’t be in a position to help or serve anyone. So it is a really scary position to be in but I put my big girl panties on and that is essentially what we have to do
- Makeda Abraham, Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, Brooklyn, NY

How can we expect young people to be open and vulnerable with us, if we as adults are not willing to be open and vulnerable with them?
- Ana Meza, ROSE Community Development, Portland Oregon

A wonderful tip made by Caleb Alcime from Guitars Over Guns is to use music to tap into young people’s thoughts and feelings. He takes time to ask young people what they are listening to and why. As Caleb says:

Everybody knows  a song can express how you feel when you don’t have the words to say it.
- Caleb Alcime, Guitars Over Guns, Miami Florida

What Can Organizations Do To Support Staff’s Mental Health?

When asked what organizations can do to support them in their efforts to support race, DEI, and mental health, these youth workers asked to be treated respectfully and with the same intentionality that they described when working with young people. One audience member said that she was impressed by the fact that…

Some of the best practices that they have experienced from their supervisors include: doing regular wellness checks and putting their “Humanity first,” They appreciated it when supervisors just called to ask “how’s it going?”; or “what can I do to support you?”

When I have had personal situations come up, I’ve been able to go to my executive director. There is no way to repay that. I feel so grateful and fortunate for that…
- Ana Meza, ROSE Community Development, Portland Oregon

The deep trusting relationships that these youth workers had with leadership in their organizations was critical, allowing them to just sit down and talk about both personal and professional matters. The fact that almost all were alumni of the program really strengthened these bonds.

I think it is a perk to be an alumni. …They have seen  me grow up. To this day I am able to sit down with the CEO and COO who were my mentors as a 14 year old…They’ve got my back.  So, I’m very thankful for my organization.
- Caleb Alcime, Guitars Over Guns, Miami Florida

One of the greatest challenges to tackling issues of race, DEI, and mental health were funder mandates and misaligned vision, mission, and goals. These youth workers shared how stressful it is when staff are asked to do things that they do not believe are in the best interest of young people or are in conflict with their mission. This stress impacts their own mental well-being and morale.

I think that one major way that folks can help the mental health of their workers is not applying for and accepting grant funding that doesn't align with your program. It can be extremely stressful on the people who are putting on the program and the children.
- Makeda Abraham, Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, Brooklyn, NY

We hope this series provides a space for the greater youth development community to listen, learn and grow together. Our next event in the series, Executive Leadership Speak Out, is scheduled for May 25th, 12:30 - 2:00 PM EDT. This session will focus on youth leaders and what they need from their own boards and funders to feel prepared and supported in their mental health.

Register for the event here!

Hello Insight was highlighted in a case study written by Peter Gerlings, Board of Trustees and Chair of the Research Committee of the We Are All Music Foundation (WAAM). The study showcases how  Guitars Over Guns Operation’s (GOGO’s) music mentoring program has helped bring about some striking improvements in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) during COVID.

Guitars Over Guns’ mission statement is to “offer students from our most vulnerable communities a powerful combination of music education and mentorship with professional musicians to help them overcome hardship, find their voice, and reach their potential as tomorrow’s leaders”. Based in Miami, the organization was founded in 2008 and has so far served over 5,000 students in Miami and Chicago. The organization is extremely focused on data as well as scientifically and statistically reliable inputs that allow them to measure the positive impact they have had on their students. GOGO has been a member of Hello Insight since 2020 and has managed to gather both outcomes and experienced data from young people, even during the midst of the pandemic.

As the Co-Founder and CEO of GOGO, Chad Bernstein states:

Hello Insight, simply put, is a gamechanger. SEL is not something that you learn cognitively, it is something you develop experientially, and Hello Insight is the first tool that I trust to measure that. There is no replacement for our mentors (teaching artists) feeling empowered to grow and deepen their practice because they finally have a tool to understand and evaluate their impact.

Hello Insight has provided a cost-effective solution for GOGO, helping them share their impact, benchmark their success and improve their programs.

SEL impact measurements we have used prior are too long, use lofty academic terminology, and are not offered in languages other than English - all factors that compromise the validity of data. Hello Insight surveys are designed with students first. The reports help us communicate the story of our impact to funders and the opportunities for growth to our practitioners and the HI staff does an incredible job helping on both of those fronts. Finally, the metrics are baselined on hundreds of thousands of students engaged in programs throughout the country - the only alternative to that is to engage in research that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years. - Chad Bernstein

The WAAM Case Study leverages data from Hello Insight and highlights the impact of GOGO during these extraordinary times.

Read the Case Study

Ready to bring Hello Insight to your organization?

Schedule a demo today!