What our community is saying
"Each youth who has attended this program has worked hard to make changes in their lives, and no youth is ever the same after attending this amazing program. I would recommend this program to any youth who may be interested in stepping out of their comfort zone and having a lot of fun in the process!" - Taralyn Clark, Behavior Health Specialist, Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center Campus
"This group was the first time I felt like I didn't have to put up a guard like I could just be myself." - Youth Participant
"I have learned so much in our group. I have learned that you have to be yourself no matter what. You have made me think a lot. You helped me realize skills I didn't even know about." - Youth Participant
"What a wonderful program! The artists were amazing. It was powerful. It was a critical piece to the training of our new staff and set the tone of social-emotional learning, which is a huge part of the culture and programming at Force Elementary." - Mark McMullen Bushman, Program Manager, Boys and Girls Club, Force Elementary
EVALUATION
Mirror Image Arts values program evaluation. Through internal and external evaluation, we track our progress towards our program goals through:
Participation in the Youth Program Quality Assessments Model (YPQA) developed by the Weikert Center.
Participant post-program surveys.
Staff observation reports.
Written feedback from program staff, participants, teachers, and school administration.
Attendance tracking.
The evaluation results below capture youth perception of critical program practices that lead to high-quality youth programming. This tool helps us evaluate our progress in creating the developmental relationships between youth and staff necessary for youth to see our staff as trusted adults in their lives. Research shows that trusted adults and developmental relationships are linked to statistically significant higher levels of social-emotional skill development.
94.3% of students said The facilitator cares about me
93.5% of students said the facilitator helped me learn something new about myself.
91% of students said they better understand how other people in this program feel
89.5% of students said they would like to be in this program again
88.7% of students said the facilitator held them accountable for participating in the program
84.9% of youth said they learned different ways to use their body and voice in this program.