Qualitative
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care: Disadvantaged African-American Youths’ Perspectives About What Makes an After School Program Meaningful
Jeffrey J. Bulanda • Katherine Tyson McCrea
Published online: 2 November 2012
� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract African-American youth growing up in dangerous, deprived homes and communities are at great risk of developing impaired relationship capabilities,
which disadvantages them further in the workplace and in their personal lives.
While after-school programs have well-documented positive effects, researchers
have called for better understanding of improving youths’ engagement in services
and their constructive relationship skills. Here, we report on a project using par-
ticipatory action methods to engage poverty-level African-American youth in
developing a leadership development program they would find most meaningful.
Stand Up Help Out (SUHO) gave youth three layers of caregiving experience:
receiving care from instructors, giving and receiving care from peers, and providing
care through constructive community action initiatives and mentoring elementary
school children. Findings were that: (1) participation and retention of youth in
SUHO were considerably higher than national averages; (2) youth reported that
SUHO made it possible for them to have better relationships as friends, romantic
partners, and in academic settings, and they looked forward to being better parents,
(3) youth developed positive peer relationships despite a context of mistrust and
gang violence, (4) youth actively sought out relationships with caring adults and
identified what was most meaningful in those relationships, and (5) youth deeply
valued the opportunity to develop their ability to care for others.
A previous version of this study was presented at the Illinois Society for Clinical Social Work, Jane
Roiter Memorial Lecture Series, in December, 2011.
J. J. Bulanda
Aurora University School of Social Work, 347 S. Gladstone Ave., Aurora, IL 60506, USA
e-mail: jbulanda@aurora.edu
K. T. McCrea (&) Loyola University Chicago School of Social Work, 820 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611,
USA
e-mail: ktyson@luc.edu
123
Child Adolesc Soc Work J (2013) 30:95–118
DOI 10.1007/s10560-012-0281-1
Keywords Disadvantaged youth � After school programs � Self-determination theory � Caregiving heuristics
Introduction
This study reports on preliminary findings from an ongoing participatory action
project providing after-school leadership development services for disadvantaged
African-American youth, a program termed Stand Up Help Out (SUHO,
www.standuphelpout.org). The program aims to develop youths’ capacity for
constructive relatedness with adults, peers, and younger children. Increased capacity
for constructive relatedness can strengthen their personal and professional compe-
tence, despite the considerable challenges they face of poverty, community vio-
lence, educational disadvantage, social exclusion, and racial discrimination. The
SUHO services evaluated here were developed from Summer, 2006 through Fall,
2007 by systematically honing services in response to youth feedback. Services
offered youth three levels of care: individual personal and career counseling, peer
support, and opportunities to constructively remedy community problems, such as
mentoring elementary school children.
Responding to priorities generated by previous after school program researchers
(Deschenes et al. 2010; Durlak and Weissberg 2007; Granger and Kane 2004; Halpern
2006; Proscio 2003; Proscio and Whiting 2004), who call for programs to improve
youth engagement and better understand how to develop youths’ constructive
relationship abilities, the research reported here addresses three central questions:
(1) What do disadvantaged African-American youth find most valuable about
after school program services?
(2) How can we understand, given previous research and youths’ feedback, the
nature of the constructive relationship skills that an after school program can
develop in disadvantaged youth?
(3) What does the process of developing those constructive relationship skills look
like from the youths’ perspectives?
Background: Priorities for After School Programs for Disadvantaged Youth
Trauma and Risks
By comparison with youth in privileged environments, severely disadvantaged
youth experience higher rates of community violence (Osofsky et al. 1993; Richters
and Martinez 1993; Schwab-Stone et al. 1995), hostility and aggression within their
schools (Laub and Lauritsen 1998), domestic violence (Raphael and Tolman 1997),
child abuse and neglect (Coulton et al. 1995; Drake and Pandy 1996), and disrupted
parental attachments (Bolland et al. 2001; Fox et al. 2005; Leventhal and Brooks-
Gunn 2000, 2003). The symptoms resulting from such traumatizing experiences can
include suicidal and homidical ideation, substance abuse (Clark et al. 1997),
96 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
123
dangerous sexual practices (Voisin et al. 2007), pervasive anxiety, hopelessness and
helplessness about changing their futures, difficulty thinking clearly, increased risk-
taking behaviors, physical aggression in response to interpersonal conflict,
impairments in attachment, affect regulation, memory and concentration, learning,
and self-concept. Even just a few of those serious symptoms interfere with youths’
competence in the workplace and personal life (Cook et al. 2005; Garbarino et al.
1992; Schwab-Stone et al. 1995). Clearly, youth living in high-risk environments
must have opportunities to experience healthy relationships to prevent lasting post-
traumatic reactions, provide healthy exemplars, and offer healing relational
experiences—but such services tend to be in short supply in their communities.
Taylor (1995) found that many of the inner city teens he studied were not able to
identify individuals they regarded as role models in their lives. He reported that the
youth stated they wanted to ‘be myself’ and had little interest in forming
relationships with potential role models, resulting from a lack of trust and
confidence in their social environment and current social network. The youth,
rather, turned to their peers as their primary source of interpersonal support and
influence, making them even more prone to gangs and other negative peer
influences. Even in a context as seemingly different as Lithuania, youth in conflict
with the law stated their sources of support were almost exclusively from street
peers rather than from family, relatives, or teachers (Rimkus 2011).
The Potential of After School Programs
Researchers have noted that rather than searching for one ‘magic bullet,’ effective
interventions need to build up an accumulation of protective factors to develop
youths’ resilience (Masten and Coatsworth 1998). Yet, disadvantaged African-
American youth, in particular, experience more social exclusion from supportive
social services, despite their considerably greater risks for suffering consequences of
multiple psychosocial traumas. For instance, attrition from mental health services
for disadvantaged African-American youth ranges from 30 to 60 % (Kazdin 2003).
After-school programs have great potential for helping to remedy the social
exclusion of disadvantaged youth, as they are potentially are less stigmatizing than
formal mental health services and could be better venues for outreach. However, a
comprehensive effort to strengthen after-school program resources in three cities
termed MOST (Halpern et al. 2001) concluded that many more effective after-
school programs are needed, as only 10–15 % of disadvantaged youth participated
in such programs. A decade later, the relative shortage of after school programs for
disadvantaged youth has continued, as reported in a recent survey of programs in six
cities (Deschenes et al. 2010).
After school programs can play a valuable role in supporting disadvantaged
youths’ abilities to cope with the stressors they face. As Halpern (2006) notes, after
school programs have existed for over 100 years, have had numerous emphases (the
arts, physical education, academic, civic, etc.), and have been applied with children
and youth of all ages.
One reason after school programs can be helpful is because they provide
participating youth with opportunities for mentoring by instructors. Research
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 97
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indicates mentoring relationships can bring about significant changes in the lives of
the mentees, impacts that are mediated by a number of factors, including the youth’s
interpersonal history, social competencies, developmental stage, relationship
duration, program practices, family context, and neighborhood ecology (Rhodes
2002, 2005). The cornerstone of an effective mentoring relationship is a strong
interpersonal connection characterized by mutuality, trust, and empathy. This
connection is built over time 1
as,
It seems more likely that successful mentoring of youth is more often
characterized by a series of small wins that emerge sporadically over time. Yet
these mundane moments, which might be laced with boredom, humor, and
even frustration, can help forge a connection from which the mentee may draw
strength in moments of vulnerability or share triumph in moments of
accomplishment. (Rhodes 2005, p. 32)
What makes mentoring relationships work? Taking an historical perspective to
address this question, as early as 1935 the child psychoanalyst and educator
Aichhorn, in his book Wayward Youth, described how the seemingly simple act of having a caring conversation while walking home with a troubled teenager on a
regular basis could help the youth develop needed internal psychological structure,
surmount developmental difficulties, and resume a more normal development track.
Adolescence, as subsequently formulated within a psychoanalytic framework by
Blos (1979), presents a unique opportunity for the person to become an individual
by separating psychologically from dependency on parental relationships—a
‘‘second individuation’’ after the first one accomplished hopefully, as Mahler
et al. (1975) point out, during the toddler years, which should result in a ‘‘lifelong
identity’’ (p. 109). Optimally, during the second individuation process the
adolescent consolidates ego stability, the capacity to love those outside the family,
and reliable self-esteem conferred by the ideals of a flexible yet consistently strong
superego (Blos 1979). In order to accomplish those psychological developments,
adolescents manifest a number of phase-specific intense needs. Perhaps most
importantly for understanding the potential impact of after-school and mentoring
programs is that adolescents experience an intense ‘‘object hunger’’ for peer and
adult relationships outside the family (Ibid p. 160). The extra-familial relationships
established during adolescence can foster renewed internalization of the positive
aspects of the early child-caregiver experience, and support adolescents’ consol-
idation of an identity differentiated from dependency on family relationships.
More recently, the extensive longitudinal study by Sroufe and colleagues at the
University of Minnesota (Sroufe et al. 2005) documents how aspects of early
experience, such as ‘‘working models’’ (their term, following Bowlby) of self and
caregiver internalized in infancy, determine connectedness in relationships and
predict adolescents’ capacities for stable intimacy and academic accomplishment.
While they found that many aspects of the ‘‘working models’’ appear to develop in a
1 In this regard, the Stand Up! Help Out! program actively seeks to develop long-lasting mentoring
relationships, as youth are eligible to return to subsequent programs. Youth who are not currently
apprentices are encouraged to come back for additional supports, such as assistance with resume-writing,
letters of recommendation, etc.
98 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
123
straightforwardly linear fashion from early childhood experiences, their findings
also led them to posit an ‘‘organizational development’’ view of the mind. They
emphasize that personality capacities also are emergent, evolving from contempo-
rary relationships and from individuals’ experiences of their own agency.
Building on the developmental approaches of Blos and Sroufe et al., one can
speculate that after school programs with strong emphases on stimulating positive
peer experiences and supportive mentoring can have preventative and even
therapeutic effects for disadvantaged adolescents. Those youth who experienced
very positive early caregiver-child relationships, with a healthy attachment and
separation-individuation process, can find support for their age-appropriate efforts
to organize identities for themselves that are differentiated from their families of
origin. Those youth who may have suffered more traumatizing early relationships
may use the after-school program supports to experience competence and
connectedness, and to explore developmental tasks with help not otherwise
available for them. The rich relationship support made possible in after-school
programs and mentoring relationships thus can have considerable value in
preventing maladaptive responses to the challenges of adolescence, especially for
those youth who may have suffered developmental stressors such as parental neglect
or abuse.
Coming up to the present, there is considerable need for more specific research
about how mentoring can best be organized to support adolescents’ healthy
development. After completing a comprehensive review of literature on mentoring
relationships, DuBois and Karcher (2005, p. 8) stated that, ‘‘At present, interrela-
tionships between theory, research, and practice are lacking in many important
respects and thus in need of greater cultivation.’’ Rhodes (2005) also argued that
further research needs to address the question, ‘‘How does mentoring work?’’ Hirsch
and Wong (2005) commented that mentoring relationships in after school programs
are different than formal mentoring programs, and recommended that researchers
use a variety of methods to study after school programs, include diverse
environmental settings, and study the impact of program organizational structure
on after-school mentoring (p. 373–374).
Evaluating after school programs is complicated given the different community
contexts and students the programs serve, which greatly multiply the variables
impacting youth. Moreover, compared to other fields such as early intervention,
there has been a relative lack of applied research about after school programs
(Halpern 2006). Studies that have evaluated after-school programs ranged from an
intensive study of the beginnings of After School Matters in Chicago [the program
funding SUHO (Proscio 2003)], to a large-scale meta-analysis of 73 experimental
research design program reports (Durlak and Weissberg 2007), to a report of after
school programs in four cities (Proscio and Whiting 2004), and a recently completed
mixed methods investigation of 200 programs in six cities (Deschenes et al. 2010).
All found after school programs are cost-effective and have numerous positive
effects. In one study, participating youth improved grades and graduation rates and
reduced failure and drop-out rates by comparison with themselves prior to
participation and by comparison with non-participating youth (Goerge et al. 2007).
After school programs reduced by one-sixth the likelihood that high school
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 99
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freshman boys would be involved in a crime (Newman et al. 2000, p. 10). In sum,
findings that after-school programs can improve youths’ academic and personal
outcomes are now no longer in question.
However, Halpern (2006), arguably the leading researcher in the field, emphasized
that a broad-brush approach in which dozens of programs are studied using ‘‘off the
shelf’’ measures, grades, and test scores cannot maintain fidelity to participants’
cultures, specific developmental needs, community contexts, and individual program
variations. In fact, Halpern (2006) called conclusions based on such approaches ‘‘The
big lie.’’ Instead, he and other researchers (Durlak and Weissberg 2007; Proscio and
Whiting 2004) have called for more in-depth studies of programs with specified
populations, to understand, with fidelity to the participants’ specific contexts and
developmental processes, how after-school programs can best achieve positive
outcomes for youth. Understanding how to promote youths’ participation is vital, since
as Granger and Kane (2004) note, programs cannot be effective if students do not
attend (they had found that average after-school program attendance by elementary
and middle school students was only 1–2 days per week). Priorities generated by other
researchers are to understand what children and youth participants experience as
meaningful, in order to foster their engagement (Deschenes et al. 2010) and to
understand more about how after school programs can help students develop specific
relationship skills (Durlak and Weissberg 2007).
Here we respond to those priorities, as this is an in-depth study of a single
program, focusing on the perspectives of children and youth about services, so as to
better understand how to promote student engagement and the development of their
relationship skills. Because participatory action research methods have a track
record of effectively reducing social exclusion of disadvantaged youth from social
services (Macran et al. 1999), we combined a participatory action and qualitative
approach. Youths’ perspectives offer important insights for service planners and
researchers, especially since the majority of after school program researchers have
studied youths’ behavior or test scores (a 3rd person perspective), rather than seeking
youths’ opinions about services (a 1st person perspective). Self-determination theory
(Ryan and Deci 2008; Ryan et al. 1994), relationship-focused psychodynamic theory
(Solomon and Siegel 2003; Wallin 2007) and trauma treatment theory (Courtois and
Ford 2009) provided the theoretical contexts for program planning and evaluation.
We termed the constructive relationship capacities to be influenced by the program
caregiving heuristics: Psychological structures that ground individuals’ decisions in caring for themselves and others (Tyson McCrea and Bulanda 2008, 2010). These
theoretical foundations are further discussed below.
The Program and the Participants
Stand Up Help Out
The adolescent leadership development program, SUHO, is an apprenticeship in
social work for African-American youth residing in socioeconomically disadvan-
taged neighborhoods. Training the youth in principles of the profession of social
100 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
123
work, SUHO focuses on helping youth respond actively and constructively to the
many challenges of living in a poverty-level community. To develop youths’
professional skills, SUHO treats program participation like employment: The
apprentices interview for positions, are paid a stipend (averaging $400 during
2006–2008), and are expected to learn and maintain professional standards of
conduct (per After School Matters, the program’s primary funder since 2006).
Typically, summer programs last for 6 weeks and meet 5 days a week for 4 h a day.
School-year programs last 10 weeks and meet 3–4 days a week for a total of 9 h per
week.
SUHO was first funded in 2006, during a time of forced community
fragmentation, as public housing was being torn down and replaced with mixed-
income housing to which most youth could not be admitted (Venkatesh and Celimli
2004). SUHO is youth-led: youth actively plan program goals and activities,
evaluate the program (for instance, by interviewing each other to gather opinions
about program strengths and weaknesses, see Appendix), and contribute to future
program design. After an initial period in which we carried out a community needs
assessment and conducted three pilot SUHO programs for one year, refining them in
response to youths’ feedback, we systematically studied the impact of two (Summer
and Fall 2007) SUHO programs on the variable of youths’ capacities for
constructive relating (defined more specifically below).
The youth were remarkably productive. Major accomplishments of Summer, 2007
youth were learning non-violent conflict resolution strategies, authoring Beyond the Stars (a social skills curriculum for elementary school children), teaching and mentoring forty elementary-age children, creating a documentary about using
nonviolent strategies to respond to community violence, and completing two college
tours and an updated resume. Participants in the Fall program also went on college
tours, completed resumes, learned about non-violent conflict resolution, mentored 60
elementary school children, and planned community health and safety fairs.
Team building was a central component in achieving these accomplishments. All
projects required teamwork and all participants had opportunities for leadership on
the various committees. A weekly ‘‘sharing circle’’ took place. During this time,
they were able to share personal beliefs, stories, and concerns ranging from
‘‘favorite food’’ to ‘‘biggest insecurity.’’ This was also a time for the youth to give
feedback about the strengths and needs of the programming as well as to participate
in strategic planning (i.e., what the group wanted to accomplish in future programs).
The SUHO program prioritized providing supportive counseling to youth,
especially those who reported traumas verbally or conveyed their need non-verbally
(by withdrawal or context-inappropriate aggression). Instructors were M.S.W.
School social workers and/or graduate students in social work, who in turn received
clinical supervision from a supervisor with more than 25 years clinical social work
experience with children and youth. Youth also received counseling as-needed by
graduate-level social work interns. 2
Instructors developed goals for individual
2 SUHO instructors and interns thus had much more education and specific training in counseling,
compared to most after-school program instructors, whose highest educational credential tend to be high
school diplomas (Halpern 2006).
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 101
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personal and professional development with the youth, and also provided counseling
as needed.
Involving the youth thoroughly in program design, evaluation, and proposal
conceptualization may have contributed to the program’s appeal and youths’
attendance, as SUHO program attendance rates were 88 % (Summer 2007) and
90 % (Fall 2007), quite high compared to other after school programs. For instance,
Deschenes et al. (2010), in their survey of 200 after school programs in six cities,
defined high participation as 70–79 %. (In SUHO, attendance meant that students
were only allowed three absences and were expected to be punctual, carry out
responsibilities, and handle peer relationships without fighting). Whereas in
Chicago in 2005, about twice as many youth applied for After School Matters
Programs as there were spaces available (Proscio and Whiting 2004), SUHO
regularly had four times as many youth applying as could be accepted. Youth also
voted with their feet by attending more than one program, as 15 (47 %) chose to
participate in both Summer and Fall 2007 programs, deemed a high level of
retention compared to other programs for older youth by Deschenes et al. (2010).
Participant Characteristics
There were 32 African-American participants in the research reported here, aged
14–16, all residing in poverty-level communities. 3
While all SUHO youth had
sufficient motivation to seek out and regularly attend an after-school program, all
were exposed to potentially traumatic events in their homes and/or communities.
Many of the SUHO students were in schools that had been evaluated as among the
worst in a city that in turn has some of the worst schools in the country (facing
challenges such as that 85 % of Chicago’s public school students are from low-
income families, cited in Proscio 2002). The SUHO apprentices reported problems
including a lack of textbooks, gang warfare in school hallways, and hostile and
sexually seductive school staff. All 32 SUHO participants had witnessed a fatal act
of community violence and/or had a family member killed. The majority reported
having received violent corporal punishment, 16 (50 %) reported separation from
birth parents and residing in foster care or with a kin guardian, and 10 % reported
having been sexually abused (this percentage is probably low given that most youth
did not regard seduction by a much older adult as abuse). Many often were hungry
and lacked adequate housing and food. Many suffered from impaired interpersonal
skills indicating traumatic reactions, ranging from being severely withdrawn to
being disruptively humorous, verbally insulting, aggressive with peers, and
professing pervasive mistrust.
An important context for understanding the SUHO program and its impact is the
fact that youth were often being traumatized while services were occurring (despite
instructors’ assiduous efforts at child protection). Those traumas included educa-
tional deprivation, lack of adequate food, clothing, and shelter, being targets of
3 In concert with codes of ethics and human subjects regulations, confidentiality is protected by using
pseudonyms and disguising potentially identifying information.
102 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
123
muggings, gunfire, and other violence, sexual seductions by adults, and pressures to
join gangs, drop out of school, and abuse drugs and alcohol.
Methodology
Conceptual Background: Self-determination Theory and Constructive
Relatedness
The SUHO program used self-determination theory as one conceptual foundation.
Self-determination theory (SDT) draws from humanistic, psychoanalytic, develop-
ment, behavioral, cognitive, and post-modern theories in a well-researched theory of
human development and psychological change (Ryan and Deci 2002, 2000). SDT
posits that humans experience well-being when interactions with their environments
satisfy their needs for self-determination, understood as comprised of competence,
autonomy, and relatedness (Ryan and Deci 2000, 2002, p. 6). Competence is a
person’s assessment of her/his capability to successfully complete a task, a ‘‘felt
sense of confidence and effectance in action’’ (Ryan and Deci 2002, p. 7).
Autonomy concerns perceived internal locus of control related to choices,
acknowledgment of feelings, and opportunities for self-direction (Deci and Ryan
2000).
Relatedness—the central part of the dependent variable in our study—refers to ‘‘feeling connected to others, to caring for and being cared for by those others, to
having a sense of belongingness both with other individuals and with one’s
community’’ (Ryan and Deci 2002, p. 7). The concept of relatedness thus is
consistent with and builds upon the contributions of Mahler et al. (1975), Blos
(1979), and Sroufe et al. (2005) described above. ‘‘Constructive’’ is added to the
term relatedness for our dependent variable because youth can feel very invested in
activities such as gang membership or bullying, yet those are destructive forms of
relating.
SDT, like psychodynamic theories (Wallin 2007), holds that relationships are
internalized throughout the lifespan, using both conscious and unconscious
processes, forming mental representations of self and other that direct an
individual’s perception of events and future planning (Ryan et al. 1994). As was
mentioned previously in incorporating concepts from psychodynamic, object
relations, and attachment theories (Mahler et al. 1975; Blos 1979; Sroufe et al.
2005), adolescents in the throes of the individuation and separation process do best
when they can sustain an experience of healthy emotional reliance on adults as well
as on peers (Ryan et al. 2005). Following SDT, we designed SUHO to maximize
youths’ experiences of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This study focuses
specifically on relatedness.
Our focus on constructive relatedness draws in part from Rauner’s (2000)
seminal work on caring in six youth programs. She focused on developing caring
behaviors, arguing that caring is a necessary context for growth and that it occurs on
many levels: spontaneous individual contacts, actions of professionals, the structure
of organizations, and society (p. 3). Fundamentally, caring is ‘‘the ‘stuff’ behind
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 103
123
transforming experiences and relationships… care is practice: it happens in real time, and it is tangible’’ (Rauner 2000, p. 19).
Constructive relatedness as defined here can be regarded as one element of what we have previously defined as caregiving heuristics: patterned, action-oriented,
value-based, structures within subjective experience comprised of four elements: (1)
specific guidelines for action that are value-based, (2) ‘‘tacit’’ knowledge, (3)
compassion and related emotions including pleasure in the developmental
accomplishments of a cared-for person, and (4) problem-solving strategies related
to caregiving (Tyson McCrea and Bulanda 2008, 2010). Here, the term heuristics
refers to psychological structures that guide choice, and caregiving heuristics
specifically guide caring for others and oneself. From a general psychodynamic
point of view, a caregiving heuristic may be understood as an ego function grounded
in identifications (‘‘working models’’ following Bowlby and Sroufe et al. [2005] as
mentioned previously) and problem-solving processes, aimed to fulfill superego
ideals about optimal caregiving which also are based in identifications with (past
and present) important others. It seems likely that people develop their caregiving
heuristics throughout life, but especially when they have opportunities to receive
and provide caregiving.
Improving Ecological Validity of Measurement Procedures
To study SUHO, a considerable initial problem had to be addressed. While after
school program evaluation research has understandably (and valuably) typically
employed standardized measures to evaluate outcome, we (like Halpern 2006)
found there were significant problems with the reliability and validity of such
measures when applied to study the relatedness of African-American, poverty-level
urban youth. Despite trying multiple scales and multiple ways of administering
them, including having youth read them to each other, youth regarded the
standardized scales as irrelevant and either rejected them altogether or else politely
filled them out rapidly and clearly without thinking or valuing the content. Further,
there were no scales available that measured exactly, in the vernacular of poverty-
level urban African-American youth, the youths’ self-experience of their related-
ness. Accordingly, to study the impact of SUHO on the youth’s relatedness, it was
important to develop a theory-based dependent variable that was flexible enough to
be culturally relevant and researchable in the context of a participatory action,
youth-led commitment, hence our focus on constructive relatedness.
Participatory Action Commitment
This research is part of an ongoing participatory action research project, which took
its focus from the fact that residents in the poverty-level community in which SUHO
services were offered prioritized helping their youth but refused to be involved in
research because, as they put it, ‘‘people study us and walk away and our
community is no better.’’ When we asked whether we could do only research that
involved them as partners and focused on their self-determination, the answer was a
resounding ‘‘yes.’’ In keeping with that commitment, we involved disadvantaged
104 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
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youth in designing and evaluating their social services, including identifying the
problems the social services would remedy.
Participatory action research (PAR) is based on the value that local knowledge
has distinct epistemological and political (social justice) benefits. Researchers are
not spectators, but rather actively reflect upon and construct their research process
(Baert 2005). PAR maximizes the reflective contributions of participants, yielding
valuable findings unobtainable using other methods because it reduces some of the
demand characteristics that can occur when disadvantaged persons feel alienated
from researchers who ‘study’ them as strangers (Fine and Torre 2006; Stringer
2007). We aimed to focus on youths’ subjective experiences so as to increase
ecological validity and fidelity to their culture, which is especially important given
the youths’ context of racial discrimination and social exclusion (so the research
does not replicate those malignant processes). A disadvantage of focusing on youth-
perceived causal connections between the program services and their relatedness is
that one then cannot control for variables outside the youths’ awareness that could
have impacted their relatedness. As one (and clearly partial at best) corrective for
this problem, in data analysis we focused on youths’ self-reports of their experiences
of changes they attributed to participating in the program.
Applying the principles of PAR and empowerment evaluation (Fetterman and
Wandersman 2004) made the SUHO program and research about it youth-led.
Youth participated actively in identifying the community problems the program
addressed, took active leadership in the program’s small and large groups and in the
community forums they planned and led, and at the end of the programs,
interviewed each other to so as to optimize their frankness about program quality
(see Appendix for interview protocol).
Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection occurred in several ways to maximize the benefits of triangulation.
The first step was for youth to write down three reasons that they joined the
program, providing information both about their motivation and expectations and
providing the base for the program’s mission statement. This step also introduced
youth to their roles as researchers, since youth began to develop questions for the
end-of-program evaluation. Three youth interviewers (who interviewed peers for the
end-of-program evaluation) and two youth researchers (who gathered systematic
field notes) were selected and trained. Each week a roundtable discussion was held
to talk about how the program was running and receive feedback about the program
from youth (which was transcribed by the instructors and two youth researchers). In
addition, the instructors met individually with two different students each week to
gain a more in-depth discussion of how the program was running; these sessions
were recorded in the instructors’ journals. The two instructors rotated in gathering
field notes on an ongoing basis. Because the qualitative data were collected over a
sustained time period, researchers could study interactional processes and assess
relationships between variables as they took shape in the program (Miles and
Huberman 1994). In the last week of the program, the three youth interviewers
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interviewed the youth, so that all had the opportunity to provide feedback about the
impact of the program for them (see Appendix for interview protocol).
While consumer evaluations of programs are prone to the problem that consumer
bias will be overly positive, there are many ways to try to regulate this bias. First,
one can elicit and focus on negative comments (utilized previously in McCrea and
Spravka 2008) during data collection and analysis, which was implemented here.
Another corrective for overly positive responses to the program is that both
culturally and because of their developmental stage, participating youth are inclined
to be critical rather than over-idealizing. Finally, enlisting youth to interview each
other allowed youth to feel more comfortable frankly sharing negative thoughts than
they would have felt with an adult (several statements by the youth affirmed that
assumption).
Using criteria for a naturalistic, qualitative program evaluation described by
Williams (1986, as cited in Shaw [1999, pp. 14–15]), data were analyzed
qualitatively, providing an in-depth understanding of the adolescents, their context,
and their experiences of SUHO and allowing us to pursue deeper aspects of
questions as they arose in the data analysis (Marshall and Rossman 2006). In
analyzing data, we utilized both a tight approach (the pre-establishment of coding
categories using, for instance, self-determination theory) and a loose approach
(allowing categories to emerge from the data, Miles and Huberman 1994). A
hierarchy of categories was developed as relationships emerged between the codes,
highlighting the most prominent themes. To enhance reliability, two additional
researchers coded 30 % of the data (inter-rater reliability was 88 and 91 %).
Results
Overview
A comprehensive review of findings from the program evaluation can be found in
Bulanda (2008). Here, we focus on findings about the dependent variable of youths’
constructive relatedness. As indicated in Table 1, four thematic sub-categories of
constructive relatedness emerged: experiences of caring for others, experiences of being cared for, expression of empathy, and relationship with the community.
Mutual Relationships With Peers
The SUHO program involved peers interacting on group projects, making
presentations, and engaging in social activities for the majority of time, potentially
providing another positive influence (Herrera et al. 2002). Youth commented on the
mutuality that developed, especially in the ‘sharing circles.’ They divulged stressful
experiences, supported each other and trust in peers grew. Mashana wrote in her
journal, ‘‘The program helped everyone when we have discussions when everyone
tell their problems or tell how they are feeling…Everyone is starting to care about each others’ feelings and more caring. It’s starting to get smooth.’’ Two other youth
said, ‘‘When we be doing this little circle or whatever it be helping. It’s good to
106 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
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talk,’’ and ‘‘When we do the circle…I like how people came together and expressed some of their feelings and about life.’’ The youth progressively shared more about
their personal experiences, and the burgeoning trust seemed to spill over into the
youths’ other relationships.
The youths’ ability to work together was improved by loyalty they increasingly
felt. In response to the question, ‘‘Were there ever problems when you were working
as a group?’’ many students were able to cite problems. However, the youth
consistently relied upon their positive peer relationships,
I mean to be honest, there’s always going to be a problem. Ain’t nobody
perfect. But, our group, our whole team, there shouldn’t be nobody that
shouldn’t be allowed back [in the program]. We do an outstanding job. Like
we might play or slack or argue or something, but we get our job done.
Table 1 Youths’ experience of relatedness
Theoretical Definition ‘‘feeling connected to others, to care for and being cared for by those others, to having a sense of belongingness both with other individuals and with one’s community…Relatedness reflects the homonomous aspect of the integrative tendency of life, the tendency to connect with and be
integral to and accepted by others. The need to feel oneself as being in relation to others is thus not
concerned with attainment of a certain outcome (e.g., sex) or a formal status (e.g., becoming a spouse,
or a group member), but instead concerns the psychological sense of being with others in secure
communion or unity’’ (Ryan and Deci 2002, p. 7).
Definition constructed from the youth’s data
1. Experiences of caring for others
Positive peer relationships—descriptions of loyalty and trust within the team
‘‘The program helped everyone when we have discussions when everyone tell their problems or tell how
they are feeling.’’
Caring for younger children
‘‘Everyone started off with a low relationship with the kids but now everyone is learning to get to know
their children.’’
2. Experiences of being cared for
Feeling accepted by the team
‘‘Yeah, like in the circle. At first, I didn’t want to tell no one my business, I didn’t want to talk, but I got to
the point where I could tell them something and it won’t be a secret no more.’’
Help received from instructors
‘‘Yes, it influenced me that I can be whatever I want. And, the world is out there. Reach for the stars.
Reach for the sky. Because at first, I felt like I wouldn’t even be accepted into a college. And, if it
weren’t for [the instructors], I wouldn’t know what I’d do.’’
3. Expression of empathy (alternatively termed compassion)
Youth are able to recognize the feeling of another peer, instructor, or mentee.
‘‘I think helping them with their homework and playing games and getting to know the children and
different situations they was going through and helping them make the situation better.’’
4. Relationship with the community
Youth discuss themselves and their actions in relation to their community.
‘‘I can say it helped me cuz we trying to spread the word about the effects of this stuff and how not to use
it cuz it’s up and we killing ourselves by doing that stuff. In a way of making a documentary, I think we
did kind of help, cuz I want the world to be drug-free and all that good stuff. You know what I mean? I
pray for world peace all the time. It may not happen when I want it to, but it will happen one day.’’
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 107
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Yeah, everybody worked together. We cooperated sometimes…Yeah, there were some problems, but there weren’t problems that couldn’t be resolved.
We work great together. Hopefully, everybody comes back next year. I met a
lot of new people and a lot of cool friends. I hope everyone can come
back…At times, there were little problems. No big problems. We were always able to work it out.
I would say in all honesty that no, everybody did not get along and everybody
did not participate like they should have. Somehow in the end, they always
came together even though it probably did not work out in the beginning. It’s
like they worked together til they got it right.
Youth expressed their capacities to recognize relationship problems and focus on
relationship strengths in almost all their interview responses. No participant was
solely negative when describing her/his team. The data portray a group spirit of
mutuality that emerged, empowering the youth to be resilient and connected despite
momentary disappointments and frustrations. Kyla summed up the experience of
working as a team, saying:
Everybody could come together and when we’re working together and it turns
out good, that my favorite part of the program. Like when we are working on a
big project and everybody puts forth effort and it turns out good, that’s the best
part of this program.
Perhaps most striking was how the youth dealt with diversity among them, which
in their communities could be a considerable trigger for strife. While most of the
youth were from the same zip code, they were involved with different ‘‘street alli-
ances.’’ Since the program was open to all students, great diversity was also seen
academic motivation and outside interests. For instance, one student was a cellist
and went on to an Ivy League college, while other youth who dropped out of high
school or currently attending an alternative high school. The youth managed to
prioritize their connectedness over the potential discord created by differences.
Caregetting Relationships With Instructors
SUHO allowed relationships with instructors to progress at the youths’ pace. The
group work environment allowed teens to calibrate the degree of sharing with their
instructors. The subtle, activity-focused interactions (see Halpern 2005) allowed a
foundation to be built for trusting bonds with instructors. Conversely, if youth
wanted therapeutic support, the instructors were trained to provide it, and the
addition of intern counselors allowed for even more individualized attention. It
turned out that youth actively sought care from the instructors to help them with
psychosocial needs. Many were open and impassioned about how positive personal
program outcomes grew from relationships with the instructors, as illustrated by the
following:
Yeah, they helped me! They helped me learn more stuff about myself. They
help me deal with my attitude.
108 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
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They help me with whatever I need help with. They ask me or anybody what
they need help with and they will work with that person.
When I’m going through something, I can talk to them about it. That’s how
they helped.
For some of the youth, the relationship with the instructors was an opportunity to
test out their ability to trust and use relationships to share and work through traumas
they experienced. For instance, Lita was in the program for over a year and half
before she disclosed early childhood sexual abuse to the instructors. Another youth,
Kyra, returned to the program after dropping out for a year and used an
autobiography assignment to disclose to the instructors her early physical and
emotional abuse by a substance-abusing mother; in a later session, Kyra stated that
the instructors earned her trust when they allowed her to come back to the program.
Thus, for many traumatized youth, new internalized relationships developed over
time.
The teens described several instructor qualities that helped them become attached
(see Table 2). Primarily, they saw the instructors as willing to help and even go
‘‘above and beyond’’ their job responsibilities (‘‘always there for me and stuff.
Outside the program and stuff’’). Some of youths’ responses seemed to reflect a
feeling that the instructors were more giving than they would have expected. This
perception that the instructors were willing to help is connected to the next quality
that the instructors were genuine, understanding and caring:
Table 2 Qualities of instructors
Quality Number of
Responses
Example
Going above and beyond/
willingness to help
12 ‘‘And then just listening to [the instructors] telling us about
stuff, even if they don’t have to tell us stuff, they still do.’’
‘‘It’s just been a hard time in the program [for me] and she’s
done more than I thought she would and she would never
break loose.’’
‘‘Keeps us in line’’ 9 ‘‘She do a real good job with keeping the kids in line’’
‘‘She got everybody under control.’’
Enthusiastic/fun 5 ‘‘[The instructor] is energized…’’ ‘‘’’He’s always into any of the activities we have.’’
Understanding/caring 5 ‘‘I think [the instructor] understands me more than anybody
in this program. It’s like she could see something that I
wouldn’t probably be able to see.’’
Good teachers 4 ‘‘I think [the instructor] is a nice person, she patient, she give
you examples, she explains things nice.’’
‘‘Don’t let no one get on
top of him’’
4 ‘‘[The instructor is] a cool guy. He don’t let no one get on top
of him.’’
‘‘That’s what I like about [the instructor]. Cuz, even when he
don’t get all the respect he should get out of the kids in the
program, he still be [himself]. You know calm and
collective’’
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 109
123
She know how to get to the point of what she’s trying to say even if somebody
got a different opinion. She wouldn’t be like ‘well, what I say is right.’ She
would try to listen to you and see where you are coming from.
I think she’s an understanding person. She’ll understand you if you understand
her. I think if you just go to her and talk to her, then she’ll constantly make
everything alright.
Also, the youth described the instructors’ unconditional positive regard in the
category coded, ‘‘don’t let no one get on top of him.’’ Recognizing that some of the
youth were at times irritable or disrespectful to the instructors, four youth noted how
the instructors did not let that negatively alter how they treated the teens. In this
regard, DeShawn said: ‘‘That’s what I like about [the instructor]. Cuz, even when he
don’t get all the respect he should get out of the kids in the program, he still be
[himself]. You know calm and collective.’’
The youth also seemed to value the instructors’ ability to lead the program. Four
apprentices talked about how the instructors were good teachers. In this category,
the teens described the instructors as being knowledgeable, effective in public
speaking, and able to get the point across to the teens. The teens also described how
the instructors were fun and enthusiastic, saying ‘‘[the instructor] is energized,’’
‘‘[he] always into any of the activities we have,’’ and ‘‘he nice, he fun and he act
silly just like [the other instructor] do.’’
Finally, the second most common response was that the ‘‘instructors keep us in
line.’’ Here, the teens talked about the instructors maintaining structure in program,
keeping the teens on task, and helping youth regulate their behavior:
‘‘She don’t really need to work on nothing. She got everybody under control’’;
‘‘She doing a good job cuz she stay on us. She want us to get to get our job
done, and she should keep up the good work.’’
Consistent with efforts to maximize youth frankness in evaluating the program,
youth were able to provide critical as well as laudatory feedback for instructors.
They saw the two major instructors as having very different weaknesses. Instructor
1 could be too punitive (‘‘She do real good with keeping the kids in line, but she
should be a little more patient’’), while instructor 2 could be ‘‘too nice’’ (‘‘I think
people take advantage of his niceness. He too nice’’). Interestingly, the instructors
themselves tended to agree with the youths’ evaluations of them.
Caregiving Relationships With Younger Children
In mentoring elementary school children, youth could be a caregiver, experiencing
autonomy as they selected activities for their mentees and competence as they
brought about change in their mentees. With coaching from the instructors in
children’s developmental needs and how to avoid abusing their authority, the teens
were able to understand their mentees, elicit positive connections, and meet their
own needs for connection and being idealized. The apprentices exhibited
considerable pride in their caregiving of the younger children, and these
relationships were meaningful on several levels. First, the younger children were
110 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
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excited to see the teens and idealized them, so the teens felt wanted and valued.
Keisha said: ‘‘Yeah, I love working with them little rascals! They like me and stuff.
Every time they see me, they say ‘Keisha, Keisha, Keisha, Keisha!’ and all that.’’
Mashana reported, ‘‘The little kids are amazing and they are fun to help…They really love when our group works with them.’’
Second, their relationships with the younger children put them in a position of
authority and several teens commented on their surprise about the respect they
elicited in that role: ‘‘I enjoyed it. I think it went well, cuz the kids cooperated with
us. We was able to get their attention and they was well-behaved’’ and ‘‘I enjoyed it.
It went very well. They were respectful to me. They did not curse me out.’’ Respect
seemed especially important to these youth who frequently felt disrespected in other
parts of their lives.
Finally, youth stated that they felt very satisfied when they could positively
connect with their mentees and influence their mentees’ development for the better:
‘‘I think it went well with the kids, cuz we planned games with them and they was
able to understand it. I really like that part of the program. I think it went well;’’ ‘‘I
enjoyed working with the kids because even though they was little and younger than
us, they could still comprehend and they paid attention, and I think it went well;’’ ‘‘I
enjoyed it cuz they understood what we was talking about and they just liked
hearing what I was saying.’’
Developing Empathy
One of the indicators of youth’s improved constructive relatedness was their
capacity for empathy. The instructors regularly assessed the teens’ ability to be
empathic through individual discussions and group empathy trainings. One youth
said, ‘‘I believe our confidential circles make people show their real sides. You can
see how they feel and where they are coming from.’’ The youth began to gain a
better understanding of each other and felt empathy (some used the term
compassion), sometimes to the point of pain, for the suffering of the profoundly
disadvantaged children they mentored:
What part I didn’t enjoy? I really wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy a part of the
program, but when we were working with the little kids, some of the stuff they
were telling me. It was kinda making me feel bad when I heard what they was
going through.
One teen talked explicitly about learning about empathy: ‘‘I learnt a lot…[the instructor] taught us about empathy and to put ourselves in other people’s shoes.
You know I learnt that, cuz before I really didn’t care.’’
The youth talked about the transformative nature of relationships, describing how their capacity for more intimate, attuned relationships increased during their
time in the program. Consider Lenny who said, ‘‘Because, at first before the social
worker stuff, I didn’t really care too much about what other people thought.’’ One
young man who was raised with corporal punishment and was initially skeptical
about the non-punitive philosophy of the program, said:
The Promise of an Accumulation of Care 111
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I learned different ways how to discipline kids. You can discipline a child by
not beating on them and by not telling a child you’re gonna do something to
them…For example, my little sisters they be bad. I’d just get mad at them and tell them what I’d do to them. But, now that I’ve worked with this program, I
found a different way to discipline them.
Such a profound shift in this teen’s belief about taking care of younger children
clearly has exciting implications for preventing future child abuse. Another young
man, Lewis, said, ‘‘I learned there’s other ways to discipline kids besides
threatening them.’’ One young woman summed up the impact of the program on her
relatedness, saying, ‘‘It’s a place where you stay out of trouble and you learn how to
mentor others and you learn to be mentored yourself.’’
Discussion
Youth were active, enthusiastic participants in service planning, evaluation, and
research. They eagerly contributed as interviewers and service planners, and
commented frankly about what they liked and did not like about the services and the
instructors, helping design services with relatively high participation rates (88–90 %
per program, with 47 % continuing both semesters). The findings suggest that
making after school programs youth-led and youth-evaluated has promise for
improving participation and constructive program impact for disadvantaged youth.
Since previous program evaluators (1) established the value of after school
programs for improving academic and personal outcomes for disadvantaged youth
(including the Chicago-based After School Matters Program that funded our SUHO
services, see Proscio 2002, 2003) (2) consistently emphasized the need for research
that focuses on the perspectives of children and youth, especially those who are
disadvantaged (Halpern 2006), and (3) called for research that focuses on the
variables that are associated with improving participation and youths’ relationship
skills (Durlak and Weissberg 2007; Goerge et al. 2007; Proscio and Whiting 2004),
we focused on what, from youths’ perspectives, constitute the most valuable aspects
of their after school program. The youth participating in the SUHO services said
that caring and being cared for was most meaningful to them, and so we focused
specifically on a variable we termed constructive relatedness. The data open a window directly into the youths’ subjective experiences of their
relationships with instructors, peers, and their mentees, and shed light on how the 32
participating youth believed their constructive relatedness was affected by the
program. The youth consistently pointed out that giving and receiving care (they
used the terms empathy and compassion to describe the caregiving and caregetting
processes) was what they valued the most about the SUHO program. Data analysis
indicated youths’ constructive relatedness fell into four categories: caring for others,
receiving care, developing empathy (or compassion), and constructively responding
to community problems. The youths’ emphasis on giving and receiving care is all
the more profound given that the traumas the youth experienced would expectedly
result in alienation (Cook et al. 2005). It seems, given the youths’ opinions, that the
112 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
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investment of caring person-power and time by graduate social work instructors,
social work interns, and their supervisor was a critical program element.
In the course of the program, youth sought help from the instructors and each
other with ongoing traumatizing events (e.g., community shootings), difficult
choices about high school graduation, and romantic and friendship commitments.
Moreover, cognitive dissonance typically occurred as youth raised in conflict-ridden
environments considered non-coercive ways of handling interpersonal conflict and
caring for children. Youth expressed this both directly in response to group
discussions (some saying initially for instance that disobedient mentees should be
‘‘whipped’’), and also in their perceptions of instructors (commenting for instance
that when instructors responded with empathy rather than punishment, they were
‘‘too easy’’). However, as the program progressed and youth began to experience the
impact of non-coercive caregiving in their interactions and carried it out in relating
with their mentees, their relatedness changed and they began to describe their
mentees’ and peers’ needs to be cared for with compassion and without coercion.
Youth described shifts in several elements of their subjective experience that
comprise constructive relatedness as defined using self-determination theory. They
described deeper connectedness with each other, feeling more motivated to care for
their peers and others. They acquired new skills for caring for children, and values
about handling peer relationships and caring for children without violence,
punishment, and coercion. Rather than fighting or withdrawing when experiencing
disagreements with others, they felt they could try to talk through problems with
others. They described pleasure in giving and receiving compassion. Rather than
withdraw and feel hopeless about community problems, many felt they could band
together in solidarity to try to remedy them. In sum, the youth themselves believed
that their capacity to care and be cared for was changed by the SUHO program.
Based on what youth told us, we posit that through multiple caring interactions,
more constructive relatedness was developed in youth. Youth stated their self-
understanding and their relatedness both inside and outside the program were
changed for the better by the SUHO experiences of caring and being cared for. It
appears that new caregiving and caregetting relational interactions accumulated to
increase the youths’ capacity for constructive relatedness. The youth believed their
learning about caring would be lasting, and also have the potential to change how
they would respond to others, especially peers and children they would care for in
the future.
Traditional program evaluations and measures of caring, while valuable, tend start
from a 3 rd
person perspective, such as how a person behaves towards others. The
results of such measures then tend to rate individuals on behavioral dimensions, with
some persons being ranked as more empathic (for instance) than others. When we
focused on youth’s own perspectives of their experiences of relatedness (a 1st person
perspective) in SUHO, we found that above all, they valued being cared for and
caregiving. Consider that negative stereotypes of disadvantaged youth are that they
are resistant to caring, unlikely to be motivated to provide care, and deficient in
empathy. Perhaps those stereotypes are aggravated by research that omits the youth’s
perspectives. By contrast, in this study it was clear that all the youth sought to care
and be cared for, albeit in different ways and despite different obstacles. Far from
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being diffident about how they treated others, the youth appreciated and eagerly
sought out enhancements in their capacity for empathy and caring. A participatory
action approach to program evaluation that prioritizes the perspectives of disadvan-
taged African-American youth can offer a corrective to negative stereotypes.
Conclusion
Living in dangerous and frightening homes and communities may lead to a range of
symptomatology amongst adolescents, but for the youth participating in SUHO,
such traumas could not suppress their inherent desires for relatedness and self-
determination. Disadvantaged youth can be empowered by participating in
designing and evaluating the services in which they partake. Listening to the
SUHO youth, the accumulation of care program design, which provides consid- erable supportive care for participants as well as opportunities to care for others, has
promise for stimulating participation, helping youth respond constructively to
profound community problems, and giving youth more constructive internal
foundations for their future professional and personal relationships.
Acknowledgments A previous version of this study was presented at the Illinois Society for Clinical Social Work, Jane Roiter Memorial Lecture Series, in December, 2011, and we are grateful to the Society
members for their support and most thoughtful questions and comments. We also thank After School
Matters and the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority, funders of our After School Programs, the Loyola
University Chicago Faculty Development Program for leave time and Summer Stipend award funds for
this research, anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their most helpful comments, the Doolittle,
Donoghue, Robinson, and Reavis Schools that hosted our programs, and most of all, the youth of SUHO,
who provided continual inspiration.
Appendix
Student-led Program Evaluation
Teens work in pairs and interview each other, using the following questionnaire.
(1) How would you describe this program to someone?
(2) Why did you decide to join this program?
(3) Why did you decide to keep coming to it?
(4) Talk some about your favorite part of the program.
(5) Talk some about a part of the program you did not enjoy.
(6) We would like feedback on each part of the program.
(a) What about the mentoring with the kids did you enjoy or did you think
went well?
(b) What about the mentoring program would you change?
(7) Do you feel you learned from this program?
• If yes, what? • If no, why do you think you didn’t learn anything?
114 J. J. Bulanda, K. T. McCrea
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(8) Did you learn anything about yourself (or your capabilities) from this
program? Can you give examples?
(9) Give feedback to the instructors: Tell them how they are doing a good job
and what they need to work on.
Instructor 1 (will be named in actual interview)
Instructor 2 (will be named in actual interview)
(10) Do you feel the instructors helped you? If so, how?
(11) Talk some about the After School Matters team—that is, you and your peers.
Do you feel everyone worked together? Were there ever any problems with
the team?
(12) Did you feel like you were able to make decisions and contributed about the
activities you participated in? Can you give some examples?
(13) Did you have any opportunities to be a leader in the program? Talk some
about your experiences.
(14) What skills did you contribute to this program?
(15) On a scale of 1-10, where 1 means you were not interested at all and 10
means you were always involved in the program, how interested would you
say you were in this program?
(a) Why did you give yourself that rating?
(16) Why do you think that some apprentices had poor attendance at the program?
(17) Has the program influenced you and your goals outside of the program?
(18) Give one way for this program to be improved.
(19) What would you like to do in the next program? Ideas for documentary
topics? Other activities? What would you like to learn?
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