2010-2011 Program Evaluation

Why do we evaluate?
The Ann Arbor Teen Center (d.b.a. Neutral Zone) was founded by teens to provide a venue for needed social, cultural, educational, recreational, and creative opportunities for Ann Arbor area high school teens. The mission statement of the center was written by youth and revised by the Teen Advisory Council and the Board of Directors in 2006. It continues to be the voice and heart which drives the center’s creative programs:

The Neutral Zone is a diverse, youth-driven teen center dedicated to promoting personal growth through artistic expression, community leadership and the exchange of ideas.

Supported by 5 full time, 16 part time staff, and 65+ volunteers that include two full time AmeriCorps Volunteers, Neutral Zone features an after school drop-in space, weekend concerts and special events, and 26 programs in the five areas- Music Performance and Technology, Literary Arts, Visual Arts, Education, and Community Leadership. This evaluation is a documentation of the program year from September 2010 through June 2011.

This evaluation focuses on the following goals:

• To engage teens in participatory evaluation to support their ability to asses needs and create future recommendations.
• To provide a historical documentation of the programs

• To provide useful information for grant reporting and general dissemination.

The Evaluators
The Neutral Zone, an organization committed to the principles of positive youth development, roots its programming on best practices within the components of a youth development framework. According to a widely accepted definition by the National Collaboration for Youth Members1 youth development is:

a process which prepares young people to meet the challenges of adolescence and adulthood through a coordinated, progressive series of activities and experiences which help them to become socially, morally, emotionally, physically, and cognitively competent. Positive youth development addresses the broader developmental needs of youth, in contrast to deficit-based models, which focus solely on youth problems.

Programming based on these principles are accompanied by evaluation that uses these same metrics and are driven by the Teen Advisory Council (T.A.C.). T.A.C. is a committee of the Board of Directors charged with providing program leadership through program approval, fundraising events, grants, and evaluation, as well as, service in the larger Ann Arbor community.

Click here to download the entire 2010-2011 Program Evaluation in PDF format