This report is based on research conducted to gather insights from arts, humanities, and science based youth development programs on the keys to their practice, impact, and future. The report serves as briefing materials for the National Summit on Creative Youth Development: Unite. Celebrate. Activate held in March 2014. The Summit was presented by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in partnership with the National Guild for Community Arts Education and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

This is a goal-setting document for arts education program and school improvement purposes. The Blueprint describes the highest standards of successful arts education programs in dance, music, theatre and visual arts along seven criteria that are aligned with the Michigan School Improvement Framework. The Blueprint is intended for use by district-level decision-makers, generalists, parents, and the community working together to improve the arts education program as part of an on-going school improvement process. The gold standard statements are aspirational and provide broad descriptions of

How can high-quality arts programs attract and retain low-income urban teens? Drawing on hundreds of interviews with young people, their families, leaders of exemplary programs and others nationwide, this infographic offers some answers, including 10 principles for developing effective programming.

Something to Say: Success Principles for Afterschool Arts Pro-grams from Urban Youth and Other Experts endeavors to an-swer these questions. The primary way we approached this project was by seeing youth as consumers of OST activities, and taking many of our questions directly to them. In our research we spoke to young people in their neighborhoods and homes, interviewed researchers and youth development practitioners, visited highly effective programs, and combed the research to address some of the key knowledge gaps in the field of OST arts activities for urban, low-income tweens

This new plan is grounded in research that reveals the importance of arts education, and provides data that clearly establishes the starting point—the current state of the arts in CPS The first-ever CPS Arts Education Plan will provide specific recommendations to improve, expand, and strategically coordinate arts education across the District.

This report serves as a point of entry into creative placemaking as defined and supported by the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s PLACE Initiative. To assess how and to what degree the PLACE projects were helping to transform communities, TPAC was asked by the Kresge Foundation to undertake a comprehensive evaluation. This involved discussion with stakeholders about support mechanisms, professional development, investment, and impact of the PLACE Initiative in Tucson, Arizona, and the Southwest regionally and the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data to develop indicators and method

This exploratory paper, May the Songs I Have Written Speak for Me: An Exploration of the Potential of Music in Juvenile Justice, sets out to answer the question, “What is the potential of music in the lives of court-involved youth?” Written by WolfBrown in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the paper is a major investigation of the potential of music to make contributions to the lives of young people in juvenile justice settings, building on the current work of many of the institutions committed to these young people.

On March 14, 2011, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hosted a convening in Washington, DC to showcase some of the nation’s most compelling studies and evidence-based programs that have identified cognitive, social, and behavioral outcomes from arts interventions.

Engaging Adolescents defines engagement and explains its benefits for both teens and arts organizations. It describes adolescents’ key developmental needs, reviews points to consider when building relationships with them, and outlines nine fundamental strategies for developing successful programs. Profiles of eight outstanding programs illustrate the strategies in action and contain practical advice culled from practitioners’ experience.

Professor James S. Catterall of UCLA her presents his analyses of long-term outcomes for the students featured in Champions of Change a decade ago, 12,000 students now followed through age 26.