Sharing the Stories

Abstract

Digital technologies can provide youth work researchers with the power to conduct large-scale research on processes and outcomes of youth work services. This includes collaborative evaluations across programs, as a way of capturing the story of what happens in youth services, as a form of digital storytelling. Where this collaborative evaluation work is founded in youth-adult partnerships, it is a form of youth work. In this chapter, the authors outline the need for collaborative evaluation in their own context of Canadian youth work, and their experience of collecting digital program data in youth services. They offer a working model for digital youth service evaluation, which places the collective engagement of youth and other partners at its centre. Drawing on the model, they discuss the lessons we have learned in this process. To be successful, digital youth services evaluation requires building relationships and connections across digital space and adherence to youth work principles.