Youth Guidance sees a bright and successful future for every elementary and high school student in Chicago, regardless of their background or circumstances. Because we believe that success in school is not only possible but should be achieved and celebrated, we are present in schools to facilitate an environment that engages students in the learning process, and through careful guidance, enables them to realize their full potential and graduate with a meaningful post-secondary plan. Youth Guidance empowers students to become successful socially, emotionally, and academically and to prepare for life during and after high school by promoting the following goals:

• Students will experience social-emotional well-being;
• Students will be engaged in school and succeed academically;
• Students will practice safe and healthy behaviors;
• Students will be prepared for post-secondary success;
• Parents will be engaged in their children's lives and school communities;
• A strong, supportive school community will develop.

Our long term vision, as outlined in our recently completed four-year strategic business plan, includes improving life outcomes for thousands more youth through the significant expansion of Becoming A Man (BAM), embarking on a rigorous outcomes evaluation of Working on Womanhood (WOW) and the continued strengthening of our Counseling, Youth Workforce Development and Community & After School programming.

Youth Guidance meets children where they are, providing tailored interventions that help them grow and succeed. To accomplish our long term vision, Youth Guidance is taking a deliberate approach to expanding programming while preserving program fidelity and learning through rigorous research.

Partners at the University of Chicago suggest that up to 7,000 young men in Chicago might benefit from Youth Guidance's Becoming a Man (BAM) program, and thousands more in other cities. The program's strategy integrates principles of cognitive behavior therapy and mentoring best practices to guide boys into making healthy decisions. Similarly, Working on Womanhood (WOW) engages young women who struggle with trauma and emotional regulation through an assets based approach. WOW is poised to expand to serve 1,750 girls in the 2017-18 school year; BAM will grow to reach 6,000 boys in that time period.

To grow and improve our programming, Youth Guidance developed a four year strategic business plan and is working with public and private partners to achieve sustainable growth. To establish a reliable evidence base for our programming, Youth Guidance continues to partner with the University of Chicago to conduct rigorous research of both BAM and WOW. WOW is preparing to undergo a randomized controlled trial evaluation, similar to those implemented under BAM.

Youth Guidance is a well established and trusted service provider, working in partnership with Chicago Public Schools since 1969. As school-based service providers, Youth Guidance staff works closely with school administration as well as with community partners and peer organizations to coordinate services and avoid duplication of efforts.

Given the agency's recent expansion, Youth Guidance has grown its staff of highly qualified practitioners. The Becoming a Man (BAM) and Working on Womanhood (WOW) programs are delivered by experienced and credentialed social workers/counselors/youth development practitioners. Given research that suggests the importance of counselor relationships in both programs, Youth Guidance prioritizes hiring highly qualified individuals who can provide culturally competent interventions and build strong relationships with students.

Youth Guidance is also supported by a strong leadership team, an invested Board of Directors, dedicated Advisory Boards for our WOW and BAM programs, and community commitment as part of Chicago's Mayor's Mentoring Initiative. Youth Guidance maintains a central staff of marketing, fundraising, finance, and evaluation professionals to ensure that the agency's growth and impact are reaching their best potential.

Youth Guidance's Evaluation and Quality Improvement Department coordinates the evaluation of agency programs and facilitates organizational learning. Youth Guidance evaluates BAM and WOW participants in four areas: 1) Program Engagement; 2) Social-Emotional Development; 3) Academic Engagement and Achievement; and 4) Utilization of Safe and Healthy Behaviors. Both programs work from separate but similar metrics that include extensive outcomes and targets for students. Some of these progress measures include:

- 60% of BAM participants who scored low to fair asset scores will show improvement between the pre- and post-tests on the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP).
- The aggregate number of BAM participant arrests will be lower than their school-based peers on a school-by school basis.
- WOW participants' scores on the following four subscales of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) will improve after participation in WOW: emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and peer problems.
- WOW participants' level of depression will decrease after participating in the program, as measured by their scores on the Adolescent Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) Depression Index.
- BAM and WOW Students identified as “at-risk" for low attendance will have a higher attendance rate after participating in the programs.

In addition to annual internal evaluations, Youth Guidance is committed to growing the external evidence base for both BAM and WOW. In June 2016, researchers from the University of Chicago Crime Lab announced results from their second study of BAM, which showed that participants were 50% less likely to be arrested for violent crime and 19% more likely to graduate high school on time than their nonparticipating peers. BAM has also undergone a qualitative research study by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, which has helped to identify the program components and mechanisms that lead to successful student outcomes. WOW is growing its research readiness and preparing for a similar trajectory. WOW completed a year-long curriculum refinement process and is now finishing a process evaluation on the newly refined curriculum, realized through a community-academic partnership with Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital. Next year, WOW will begin its first randomized controlled trial (RCT) by the University of Chicago Urban Labs under partnership and funding from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Youth Guidance utilizes a multifaceted approach to inform its programs. Both quantitative and qualitative studies are used to inform curricula refinement, program fidelity measures, and growth strategies. School level data helps the agency to assess how the programs are functioning in the unique contexts of each site. Youth engagement data is also used to ensure the programs are responsive to participants' needs.

Youth Guidance serves over 8,500 students in 90 schools each year, touching the lives of up to 14,000 parents, children, school staff, and community members. Youth Guidance's BAM program has grown 423% since 2012 to serve 2,793 students at 50 Chicago Public Schools in FY16. Early growth was driven by a Social Innovation Fund grant from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, which yielded an expansion strategy that promoted sustainable growth and fidelity to BAM's validated program model.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Crime Lab found that BAM participants were 50% less likely to be arrested for violent crime than their peers in the control group and 35% less likely to be arrested overall. For every dollar invested in BAM, society receives $30 in benefits from the impacts on crime alone. BAM participants were 25% more engaged in school, based upon an index of school attendance, GPA, and persistence data. Based on their research, the Crime Lab concluded that BAM participants are 19% more likely to graduate high school on time.

The WOW program has grown since 2011 to serve over 1,200 girls this school year. Program staff have spent the past two years completing a rigorous curriculum refinement and process evaluation, ensuring the program's fidelity and research readiness as it prepares to expand and evaluate WOW's impact.