Wyman Center
The Challenge
The Wyman Center is a Missouri-based not-for-profit that takes the best teen development theory and makes it real and effective in ways that prepare teens for college, work and life. During the course of its 110 year history, Wyman has grown from a small camp in the woods into a nationally recognized, not-for-profit youth development organization. Wyman programs and franchises now operate in 41 states and serve over 20,000 youth across the U.S. each year. This growth has dramatically increased the availability of the organization’s time-tested approach to youth development, but has also increased quality assurance (QA) requirements.
The Approach
Wyman recognized early on that building and sustaining a national network of youth programs requires serious attention to program quality and staff development. In 2005, Wyman partnered with the HighScope Educational Research Foundation’s Youth Development Group (now the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality) to add an observational assessment tool -- the Youth Program Quality Assessment (Youth PQA) -- to its existing quality assurance processes. Wyman selected the Youth PQA because it is:
- Valid and reliable
- Appropriate for both program self- and external assessment
- Focused on youth workers’ relational and instructional skills
- Useful as a strengths-based professional development tool
- Supported by an aligned set of training workshops
Wyman’s goal in adopting the Youth PQA was simple yet ambitious: it hoped to improve its ability to measure and manage quality at the point of service while actively (and authentically) engaging all stakeholders – from youth to volunteers to board members – as partners in organization-wide quality assurance and professional development efforts. The Weikart Center is honored to have played a role in the evolution of Wyman’s QA model. We plan to continue building Wyman’s capacity to effectively utilize the Youth PQA and related training workshops.
The Results
The Youth PQA has become a core feature of Wyman’s quality assurance process and the standard measure of “point of service” quality across all Wyman program sites. Wyman uses the Youth PQA and related professional development supports for a variety of purposes, including new staff orientation, program-level improvement planning, and ongoing performance management. In addition, Wyman uses Youth PQA data to support the organization’s overall strategic planning efforts and to set professional development priorities.
Wyman hoped that use of the Youth PQA would enhance the quality focus and positive youth development skills of its professional staff, seasonal workforce and volunteers and it has. According to Claire Wyneken, Senior Vice President at Wyman, “Use of the Youth PQA has clearly changed the nature of conversations about quality and accountability among professional staff and certainly increased the fluency of our board, seasonal staff and volunteers in the principles of positive youth development. Participants in the PQA process and associated professional development “buy in” to the approach much more easily than they ever did to more traditional approaches to performance measurement and accountability.”
Wyman also has growing evidence that its use of the PQA is changing the way that youth experience program content. Today participants in Wyman programs report that they have more voice and choice and are more interested in and engaged with content. All evidence suggests that the Youth PQA is and will continue to be an essential component of Wyman’s comprehensive approach to quality assurance. In fact, Wyman has become a strong regional and national advocate for the Weikart Center’s work through the Ready by 21 Quality Counts! Initiative.
To discover how the Youth PQA can strengthen your youth development organization’s quality assurance and professional development initiatives, please contact our Field Services division at 734.961.6900, extension 202.
