Bahsan is a Beach Fiver with a data analyst aspiration. Beach Fives is a program at RBAC where young adults are given an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership and help add capacity to RBAC through their skills and interests. The young adults are hired as workers instead of being enrolled into a program and earn a $20/hour wage, 20 hours per week. Bahsan’s data analyst interest made it a natural to join Mr. Davis on the Best Start for Kids Youth Measurement Committee (BSK YMTC) organized by Communities of Opportunities research team.
To attain the best results the committee included recipients of the BSK Youth Development grant. Committee members are asked to help design a measurement tool that effectively measures program performance while being culturally, ethnically and gender centered.
When we started the BSK YMT Committee, we reviewed a draft survey, and we began thinking analytically about every detail. Language needed to be fixed, some of the survey questions were not clear and others needed language help, like rephrasing.
The YMTC has been meeting since 2020.
We have been working hard to make the tool the best it could be. One challenge we had was that we went straight at working on the survey and did not spend time getting to know each other. We corrected that by doing icebreakers which helped tremendously. A test survey was sent out which proved very helpful in the ongoing refinement of the tool. The committee will be sunsetting in a few weeks and you can be proud of the results as well as how the experience furthered Bashan’s resolve in being a data analyst professional.