Looking Beyond The Behavior: Lessons From A Youth-informed Evaluation By Brandi Gilbert And Carlos J. Anguiano

Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.

We are Brandi Gilbert and Carlos J. Anguiano, evaluators at Community Science who focus on youth-centered and community-engaged learning. Across our work, especially in evaluations connected to juvenile justice prevention, early intervention, and youth experiencing disconnection from school and work, we approach evaluation through a strength-based, youth-informed lens. A consistent insight across these contexts is that what adults often label as defiance, disengagement, or disruption is often just the outward expression of something deeper going on. The behavior we see is often the symptom of stress, unmet needs, instability, trauma, or a desire to be understood. When young people and program staff are centered as meaning-makers, evaluation moves beyond surface-level interpretation and toward understanding the systems, relationships, and supports shaping youth experiences.

This perspective matters most when programs are designed to address issues often framed as negative or deficit-based. Rather than viewing disengagement or conflict as individual shortcomings, we have seen how programs grounded in strong community ties and caring adult relationships help meet needs that extend beyond any single service model. Youth frequently described aspirations tied to stability, reconnection to education or work, and strengthening relationships, while staff highlighted how mentorship and trust were central to progress. These insights reinforce that effective programs are often filling relational and systemic gaps, and evaluation should reflect that broader context.

Hot Tips

1. Start with youth meaning-making, not assumptions. Create space for youth to interpret their own experiences before you interpret the data. We often frame questions around what youth observe about a program rather than asking them to share personal stories, and we make it clear they can choose how much they want to share. This approach builds trust while still surfacing deeper insights about what is working and why.
2. Look for social capital, not just services. Caring relationships with trusted adults often explain participation and progress more than program components alone. In many youth-focused programs, these adults have deep community ties or lived experience that helps youth feel grounded and supported in ways traditional service models may miss.
3. Translate behavior into systems questions. Instead of labeling absenteeism or disengagement as individual issues, ask what barriers—transportation, safety, family responsibilities, or unmet needs—might be influencing participation. This shift turns “behavioral challenges” into actionable learning for programs and partners.
4. Ground evaluation in community context. Programs operate within complex ecosystems. Engage staff and partners who understand the local landscape to interpret findings in ways that honor the realities youth are navigating and highlight how programs are responding to those realities.

Lessons Learned

One of our biggest takeaways is that strength-based evaluation is not just a shift in language—it changes what you see. When youth share their goals and perspectives, we begin to see how programs cultivate hope, stability, and connection even within in the midst of real challenges. Centering those perspectives moves the narrative beyond what needs to be improved and toward what is working, highlighting resilience, relationships, trusted relationships, and community knowledge as essential drivers of youth success.

For evaluators working in spaces often framed around risk or prevention, small shifts in interpretation can reshape how findings are used. It starts with examining where youth voice is positioned in your analysis, how behavior is framed in reporting, and whether community context is treated as background or as central evidence. These adjustments do not necessarily require new methods as much as a deliberate reframing of how we listen, interpret, and elevate what youth and communities are already telling us, and commitment to ensuring that interpretation informs more equitable decisions.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.