Evaluation

Girls' LEAP takes measurement, evaluation, and effectiveness of programming seriously. LEAP programs are carefully documented by program facilitators and the LEAP Program Manager. Each community partner receives a final report, which documents the experiences of the girls who participated in the program. Types of issues LEAP evaluates are as follows:

• Did the program retain the majority of participants over the full program?
• Did the participants learn the skills intended by the program?
• What affect did the program have on each participant in 18 specific areas?
• Was the program able to recruit and train Teen Mentors?
• Was the program able to effectively utilize and retain college “Teaching Women”?

The two most significant safety concerns LEAP participants indicate are fighting (91.9%) and bullying (79.0%). In addition, approximately 39% of participants state that women and girls are at particular risk of being hurt. Taking these facts into consideration with national statistics of the impact of bullying and violence on youth, LEAP is poised to serve as a pivotal life experience for many of our participants. Post-program survey results over the past four years (2000 through 2003) indicate that LEAP is successful in achieving its goals.

• Participants gave LEAP a score of 95% on learning physical skills and ways to stay safe
• 60% reported learning how to resolve conflict without physical contact and 69.7% claimed they learned how to stay out of fights
• 86.5% reported a marked increase in self-confidence
• 74% reported that they learned to respect others
• 80.4% reported learning how to make decisions in difficult situations
• 86.8% noted significant increase in their ability to trust their own feelings

Our data indicates that Girls' LEAP is successful in achieving its goals. Additional evaluation efforts are being developed, which include longer-term follow up to measure retention of skills, self-efficacy and self-confidence assessment, impact of the program on the community partner site and continued demonstration of personal safety awareness.